Riders In The Sky
Riders In The Sky
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- 12:45pm — June 19, 2013
nonprofit local independent online news
For 35 years, on radio, television, on Grammy-winning albums and more than 6,000 live performances, they have celebrated Western music, which embraces a jazzier swing feel, now largely absent from country music.... Read more»
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2 comments on this story
Love Riders in the Sky! I respectfully beg to differ, though, that Riders were ever considered “country and western.” (My friends know better than to ever say “country and western” to me when referring to either genre as a whole.) That genre existed for a very short time, circa 1950s, and is most often associated with the late, great Marty Robbins (a native son!).
C&W is extinct, Western is endangered (thanks for helping to keep it alive, Ranger Doug and RITS!) and country music, well, you never hear real country music on the radio these days so I think it’s in hiding somewhere.
The best explanation I ever heard about how to tell the difference between Western, cowboy and country music is this:
Western music is about the land.
Cowboy music is about the people who work the land and the critters they encounter.
Country music is what the cowboys dance to when they go into town on the weekends to meet women.
@A.J. Flick
Great set of definitions!
I agree that “Country & Western” was a marketing amalgamation of two different styles of music to create a radio format with broader audience appeal than either style alone. I believe the format was developed in the 1930s. The term is still used used occasionally, although, yes, the format itself as originally conceived hasn’t existed since the 1950s .
RITS are definitely about Western music in general and cowboy music specifically. I was making the point that the term “Country and Western” is archaic, following the marginalization of the previously more popular Western/Cowboy genre after WWII.