Western Swing

Western Swing is Texas music. It arose in the 1930s, merging the influences of cowboy style, Hillbilly music, and Big Band jazz. The playing was hot, but the music was about dancing first and foremost -- the Depression was fading away along with Prohibition, and people wanted to cut loose and celebrate. The two pioneering Western Swing groups were Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and Milton Brown and the Musical Brownies. Each was a sizeable outfit full of horns as well as traditional string instruments. Brown tragically died in a car crash at an early age, leaving Wills to bring Western Swing to national prominence with hits like "New San Antonio Rose" and "Roly Poly." Western Swing became a West Coast craze during the '40s, thanks to suave bandleaders like Spade Cooley and Tex Williams. But by the '50s, Western Swing's initial heyday was over. It wasn't until the Western Swing Revival of the mid-'70s -- a revival that continues in fits and starts up through the present -- that the style reappeared in force.