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For
many listeners,
Honky Tonk is the
most familiar style
in country music.
It's spare and
direct, driven
acoustic guitars,
steel guitars,
fiddles, and a high,
lonesome vocal.
Ernest Tubb was the
first honky tonk
musician to
popularize the
genre, but Hank
Williams, George
Jones, and Lefty
Frizzell became the
definitive artists
in the '50s. As the
genre aged, it
essentially remained
the same, but there
was one notable
permutation of Honky
Tonk: the
Bakersfield Sound.
Bakersfield was the
first genre of
country music to
rely heavily on
electric
instrumentation, as
well as a defined
backbeat — in other
words, it was the
first to be
significantly
influenced by rock &
roll. Named after
the town of
Bakersfield,
California where a
great majority of
the artists
performed, the sound
was pioneered by
Wynn Stewart and
popularized by Buck
Owens and Merle
Haggard. Using
telecaster guitars,
the singers
developed a clean,
ringing sound that
stood in direct
opposition to the
produced,
string-laden
Nashville sound. The
Bakersfield sound
became one of the
most popular — and
arguably the most
influential —
country genres of
the '60s, setting
the stage for
country-rock and
outlaw, as well as
reviving the spirit
of Honky Tonk. After
Bakersfield, Honky
Tonk would forever
rely on electric
guitars as much as
acoustics, yet at
its core it remained
faithful to the
sound pioneered by
Ernest Tubb and Hank
Williams. |
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