While country music of the 1940s was known for its honky-tonk ditties perfect for two-stepping, the 1950s ushered in a more polished, story-driven approach to the genre. This transformation paved the way for a new kind of country, a style focused on relatable, poignant cowboy tales and classic romance pieces. The genre’s modernized songwriting focus and updated production brought it into the mainstream.
The Honky-Tonk Craze
Hank Williams publicity photo for WSM Radio in Nashville, 1951. (Public Domain)
Throughout the 1940s, country music publishers released one barroom number after the next. Fans of the genre loved danceable hits like Bob Wills’ springy “San Antonio Rose” and Hank Williams’s late-1940s top-20 hit, “Honky Tonkin.” But country music was still considered to be a niche genre without much crossover appeal. There was a lot of promise in the instrumentation, with soaring fiddle and thumping bass, but the lack of depth with the compositions’ subject matter kept the genre’s popularity location-based, with hubs residing in Southern states like Tennessee and central states like Texas….