Blue yodelingThe spelling with an l corresponds to American English, in contrast to British and Australian English (meaning 'melancholy yodeling') is a musical style that essentially consists of a combination of elements of blues and old-time music, enriched with characteristic yodelings. Initially sometimes referred to as "yodeling blues", it reached its greatest popularity during the 1920s and 1930s in the United States, Canada and Australia.
The name goes back to the song title "Blue Yodel", under which the American singer Jimmie Rodgers published a total of twelve numbered songs that were groundbreaking for the development of early country music. In addition to Rodgers, the later “Singing Cowboy” Gene Autry and the honky-tonk musicians Ernest Tubb, Little Joe Hunt of the Rhythm Ranch Hands Recording Studio and Hank Snow were outstanding representatives of the genre.
History The beginnings Yodeling in the United States Yodeling seems to be an Alpine tradition in Europe. However, it became popular in large cities such as Vienna from around 1830 as an entertainment interlude in the Viennese suburban theaters and Singspielhalles and was only subsequently brought to the countryside by guest artists.Max Peter Baumann: Musikfolklore und Musikfolklorismus. Eine musikethnologische Untersuchung zum Funktionswandel des Jodelns, Winterthur 1976, p. 234 Various immigrant groups also brought it to the United States as a seemingly traditional means of identification. The first encounter with Anglo-American musical styles is said to have taken place in the early 19th century, when British and Irish settlers met German-speaking immigrants in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.Bart Plantenga: Will there be yodeling in heaven? (in the section "The Hillbilly Yodeler") In Emma Bell Miles' (1879–1919) 1905 collection of essays The Spirit of the Mountains, in which she describes life in the Southern Appalachians, yodeling is mentioned in several places, such as in the description of the difference between men and women:: “His first songs are yodels. Then he learns dance tunes, and songs of hunting and fighting and drinking, …''The Spirit of the Mountains. p. 69, see also p. 2, 52, 169,
Triggered by successful guest performances by Austrian and Swiss artists who called themselves "Tyrolese Minstrels" or "Alpine Minstrels", for example, a steady rise in popularity can be traced from the 1830s onwards.Yodeling Mountaineers: The Alpine Roots of the American Guitar (Memento from March 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive)Gage Averill: Four Parts, No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony. Oxford University Press US, 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-511672-4, p. 23 f Yodeling performances were often advertised as a special curiosity. Tom Christian, known as the "Yodeling Minstrel", first appeared in public around 1847; the first recordings of a yodeler were made by L.W. Lipp in 1892. In 1905, the Swiss tenor Arnold Inauen made the first commercial recordings for Columbia Records, albeit still in the Alpine style.
At the same time, a yodeling style developed in the environment of roving Minstrel and Vaudeville shows, which was particularly supported by African Americans and was strongly influenced by elements of the Blues, especially the so-called Delta Blues and the Jazz predecessor Ragtime. Outstanding representatives were Monroe Tabor ("The Yodeling Bell Boy"), Beulah Henderson ("America's Only Colored Lady Yodeler") or Charles Anderson ("The Yodeler Blues Singer"). In fundamental research, historians Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff have proven the influence of African-American artists and traditions in this area.Lynn Abbott, Doug Seroff: America's Blue Yodel, Musical Traditions No. 11 (1993) This influence is said to lie, among other things, in typical inarticulate calls with simultaneous breaking of the voice, the field hollers, from which the so-called "black falsetto" has developed. The term falsetto refers to the falsetto voice. The Texan country traditionalist and passionate yodeller Don Walser later released his "Dixie Blues"Exact date unknown, re-released on The Archive Series, Vol. 1. Watermelon Records, 1995 paid homage to this legacy.
The "blue yodel syntax", the combination of blues and yodeling, first appeared in 1923 in the song of the same name composed by Clarence Williams, which was first recorded by Williams' wife Eva Taylor together with Sara Martin, and later in the same year by Bessie Smith. The lyrics read, among other things "I’m gonna yodel my blues away". However, yodeling is only hinted at in both recordings. Well-known interpreters of this newly developing style were the white vaudeville artist George P. Watson and his colleague Emmett Miller. The latter was one of the best-known blackface artists of his time, i. e., he performed in make-up as a person of color. In 1925, he recorded one of the first versions of "Lovesick Blues" and successfully toured the country with minstrel shows, advertised as a "famous yodeling blues singer". He was known for breaking his voice within the words and elongating individual sounds, which was also called trick singing at the time. Watson first recorded yodeling songs on wax cylinders in 1895. The song he popularized, "Sleep, Baby, Sleep", recorded in German and English in 1911, became a classic of American yodel music, not least because Jimmie Rodgers, revered as the "father" of country music, used it in August 1927 during his first recording session. This song can be considered the linchpin of American yodeling: composed in 1896 by S. A. Emery, it had been recorded more than a dozen times before 1927, including by various old-time bands.Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy, Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X, p. 19
Milton Brown, one of the pioneers of Western swing, formed his first band with two friends in 1927: The Three Yodeliers. The repertoire consisted mainly of barbershop and contemporary pop songs, but also some yodeling songs, including Emmett Miller's "I Ain't Got Nobody". The further Brown's personal style shifted towards jazz, the less he devoted himself to yodeling.Jean Ann Boyd: We're the Light Crust Doughboys from Burrus Mill: An Oral History. University of Texas Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-292-70925-6, p. 26Cary Ginell, Roy Lee Brown: Milton Brown and the founding of Western Swing. University of Illinois Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-252-02041-4, p. 26 f Fleming and Townsend helped pioneer the blue yodel duet through harmonizing with each other’s yodels.
With regard to the 1920s and early 1930s, the music journalist Nick Tosches distinguishes between various yodeling styles, including the "archaic 19th-century yodel", the minstrel yodel and the minstrel yodel. Century", the minstrel show yodel, which he calls "fake blue yodel" and characterizes as a "Swiss yodel with black content", and the pop-country yodel, as used by Jimmy Long in "Yodel Your Troubles Away" (1929).Nick Tosches: Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock'n'Roll. Da Capo Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-306-80713-8, p. 112
The "revival experience" of Wilf Carter can be considered exemplary for the development of yodeling. Around 1915, when he was about ten years old, he saw a Swiss yodeller at a cattle drive who appeared as an additional attraction at a performance of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and called himself "The Yodeling Fool".Green, p. 67 Here, the character of the yodelling performance as a novelty and curiosity was still clearly recognizable, which did not really fit in with the theme of the actual performance. At the same time, however, it hinted at the incipient transformation it would undergo in the traveling shows.
White country blues At the same time, there was a growing tendency among white artists from the field of old-time music to take up African-American influences such as blues or jazz. The young Bob Wills developed western swing under these influences, while others concentrated more on the blues element and thus shaped a style that is now known as white country blues. In most cases, the influence of vaudeville was also clearly recognizable here. Outstanding representatives include the Allen Brothers, Frank Hutchison, Dock Boggs and Tom Darby. Their music can be seen as a link between blues and hillbilly or old-time music, but also shows how closely related the two styles were at the time.
In this context, some authors have raised the fundamental question of the motives that prompted white musicians to take up elements of African-American music in the first place, especially in the racist climate that prevailed in the southern states at the beginning of the 20th century. The fact that it was something new initially played a role. More important, however, were the possibilities it opened up. On the one hand, stylistically it made it possible to break out of well-trodden paths, many of which were still in 19th century patterns, such as the narrative ballad.Tony Russell: Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost. Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-532509-6, p. 70 The incorporation of the blues into their music was also a "liberation" for many white musicians from the clichés and constraints of "country" music at the time, allowing them to move into areas of content that had previously been taboo, "away from whitewashed cottages and gray-haired mothers".Tony Russell: Blacks, Whites and Blues. In: Paul Oliver (ed.): Yonder come the Blues: The Evolution of a Genre. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-521-78777-2, p. 233 It can also be assumed that they simply enjoyed this type of music and held its original performers in high esteem.Dick Weissman: Blues: The Basics. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 978-0-415-97068-6, p. 76
Jimmie Rodgers: America's "Blue Yodeler" In the field of what was then known as hillbilly or old-time music, attention was first drawn to yodeling in 1924 when Riley Puckett, who later helped shape the young genre as a member of the Skillet Lickers, recorded the title "Rock All Our Babies to Sleep" with a yodel interlude. In September 1925, Puckett also recorded "Sleep, Baby, Sleep", but subsequently moved away from yodeling again.
The turning point: "T For Texas" However, the final breakthrough did not come until February 1928, when the former railwayman Jimmie Rodgers triggered a real yodeling boom with his first big hit "T For Texas (Blue Yodel)" and numerous artists began to copy his style down to the smallest detail.
Rodgers grew up in Mississippi, the cradle of the blues. Even as a teenager he wanted to become a professional singer, but his father persuaded him to take a "proper" job on the railroad, where he also worked. After Rodgers had to give up his job on the railroad due to his tuberculosis illness, he fulfilled his dream of a career as a musician, played in string bands, toured the southern states with vaudeville shows and also performed as a blackface artist. During this time, he came to the attention of producer Ralph Peer, who was looking for music in the traditional mountain or old-time style and organized test recordings in Bristol, Tennessee.
On August 4, 1927, Rodgers made his first recordings for Peer after falling out with his backing band, the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers, the night before. In addition to "Sleep, Baby, Sleep", he also recorded the ballad "The Soldier's Sweetheart", which contains no yodels. What is particularly interesting here is that his yodeling style on "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" was still more in the style of George P. Watson and differs fundamentally from the later Blue Yodel.Nick Tosches: Where Dead Voices Gather. Back Bay, 2002, ISBN 978-0-316-89537-8, p. 96 Both titles sold only with moderate success, but this was to change with "T For Texas".