Did Hillbillies Hurt or Help American Music?

[Drew Howard]

YES!!

[Dave Mudgett]

Such could be said about any large group of people.

[Randy Phelps]

I want to state publically that I am now and have always been Pro Hillbilly.

No matter where they come from, no matter the elevation, no matter the language they speak and no matter how well they speak it, read it or write it... I will always feel a kinship to hillbillys and no matter what minor negative impacts they may have on the overall culture... their overall contributions have been good (up to and including those giant wiper blades for cars)... and besides. I are one.

Hillbillies who are also hippies are like that gum... double good.

[David L. Donald]

Same for Stephen Foster and the Ragtime players.

Of course hillbilies took the roots music of
Scotland, Ireland, the English music halls and Scandanavia,
and mixed it with local stories of the times,
similar to the traveling troubador/minstrel
of medieval times. Traveling and singing the news
from castle to castle.

Some guy would come by the sleepy hollow town
and sing a song or three,
and listen to some local picking and songs,
and move on, sorta like Johhny Appleseed,
spreading the musical seeds about.

As he passed a field he'd hear the share croppers singing,
and the gospel at the black church Sunday mornings,
and it would get in his head.
It all would come out in differing ratios
through his travels, and others like him.

Sure hillbilies developed the talking story
in american style and we became a country
partly because of that.

[Gary Cosden]

hill hippies?

[Edward Meisse]

Actually, anyone who says hippies helped American music have to say that hillbillies did, too. Lots of hippie music was inspired by people like Woody Guthrie, Jimmie Rogers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Lester Flat, etc. These guys may or may not have actually been what most of us would consider hillbillies (I don't know). But they certainly expressed the hillbillie sentiments of their day.

[Tom Olson]

I think Jethro helped the most.

[Scott Shipley]

There is a difference betwixt a hillbilly and a redneck.


A hippy/hillbilly would be a ''hippybilly?''

[Mike Winter]

I always thought Elly May was hot.

I think the fact that hippies, rockers, blues artists, etc., rediscovered hillbilly roots music is an obvious plus. But, musically speaking, they took it way past the basic three chord structure. Case in point: The Band. In their first two albums (Music From Big Pink and The Band) there is no doubt they had connected with a rootsy, hillbilly, Appalachian vibe, but they certainly took the music past Uncle Dave Macon, not only musically, but lyrically. So I would say yes, there was a positive effect, but only to a point.

[Edward Meisse]

There is a difference betwixt a hillbillie and a redneck.

I lived in the Ozarks for several years. I kinda sorta think I have an idea about the difference. I kinda like hillbillies. But I never actully knew any of the people I mentioned above. So I can't put a name on any of them.

[P Gleespen]

Uh, I think the politically correct term is Hillybippy.

Oh, no! Now I've gone and made it political!

[Ray Minich]

From "Hee Haw" we had..

"The Naggers", with Gordie Tapp and Roni Stoneman as LaVern & Ida Mae, a backwoods bickering couple, inspired in part by the radio comedy The Bickersons. Kenny Price made occasional appearances (starting in 1974) as their son Elrod.

I saw this in real life... complete with the housecoat, her hair in curlers, and him in bib overalls.

Dem's me ancestors...

WWVA was playin' in the background.

Actually, according to the PBS special, most all of the Carter family's music came from the hills. The father travelled the woods of Appalachia and elsewhere, in search of the indiginous music, and "arranged" the compositions he heard.

[Wally Taylor]

And now to bring the term "Hillbillies or Hillbillys" up to the 21st century, we now refer to ourselves as, Appalacian Americans.

Please make note of this.

HA!

Wally

[Steve Hinson]

"Did Hillbillies Help or Hurt American Music?"...they INVENTED most of it...

[David Doggett]

As a hippie from North Mississippi, I had the best of both worlds...or the worst, depending on how you look at it. It was a rare combination in the early years, but country-rock sort of legitimized it. Thank the stars for The Byrds, Flying Burritos, Linda and Emy Lou.

But, seriously, if you broaden the term to mean the music of the white South, that, combined with music of the black South, is where most of the originality of American music came from. Them's deep veins of gold to mine for a long time.

[Mike Perlowin]

You guys need to see the 2 movies "Songcatcher" and "Oh Brother Where Art Thou."

The music is slicker on Oh Brother, and less polished in Songcatcher, but both are full of the old timey music that gave birth to so much of our country's musical heritage.

[David L. Donald]

I think Jethro helped the most.

Hey don't forget Homer helped too.

Ellie Mae gets my vote too.

[Theresa Galbraith]

They invented it!

[Edward Meisse]

Well, they helped. I think it's usually assumed that American music was invented when European classical and folk traditions met with African scales and rhythms sometime after the civil war. Until then, "American," music would have been a continuation of the European tradition. I suppose it could have happened sooner. The banjo, as you may know, is an African Instrument.

[Kent Thompson]

Actually, anyone who says hippies helped American music have to say that hillbillies did, too. Lots of hippie music was inspired by people like Woody Guthrie, Jimmie Rogers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Lester Flat, etc. These guys may or may not have actually been what most of us would consider hillbillies (I don't know). But they certainly expressed the hillbillie sentiments of their day.

Well put Edward. Even Buck recorded a Bob Dylan,Donavan,and Paul simon song or two.

[Edward Meisse]

And the Beatles recorded both Buck Owens and Carl Perkins.

[Terry Edwards]

I always thought Hank Williams was the biggest hillbilly influence on country music. His influence was huge and probably helped spawn Rockabilly.

Bill Monroe was a huge influence on Rock music with Elvis recording his Blue Moon Of Kentucky. Bill Monroe's best band was when hippies Peter Rowan and Richard Green were in it!

Hillbilly cuisine also contributed to sustaining many a country and rock musician in diners along the American highways. I can't think of any Hippy food.

I was a Hillbilly Hippy. Long haired and well fed.


Terry

[David L. Donald]

Lefty Frizzel certainly moved things along.

[Gordy Hall]

"Listening to the opening track of Ed Sanders' recently reissued solo
album, Sanders Truckstop (Collectors' Choice Music), I couldn't help
thinking about time's passage. A satirically mawkish country
narrative in the manner of Hank Williams' "Luke the Drifter" cuts or
Red Sovine, "Jimmy Joe, the Hippybilly Boy" tells the story of an
Ozark Mountains hippie who loses his life after rescuing two car
passengers from a raging big blue river. (His long hair gets
entangled in the rear-view mirror.) These days, the very word
"hippie" has become so degraded that the idea of a comic pastiche
saluting the freak flag doesn't have the same charge that it did back
in 1970. More's the pity."

http://sixties-l.blogspot.com/2008/01/e ... -beer.html


Gordy Hall

[Stephen Gambrell]

After ALL the trouble Thomas Edison went to, to discover electricity, and invent the power bill, here comes them hillbillies wantin' to UNPLUG everything !!!