Chapter 9: Country Western Music
The Great Depression, which began in 1929, brought the American economy to a standstill, and the music industry suffered alongside it. Just two years earlier, Americans had purchased over 100 million phonograph records. By 1932, that number had collapsed to just six million. With widespread unemployment and shrinking incomes, even records that sold for a dime became unaffordable luxuries. Countless small record companies, including those that had pioneered hillbilly and race music, went out of business. Larger record companies like Columbia and Victor were forced to consolidate, restructure, or drastically scale back their operations. Meanwhile, network radio surged in importance, offering free music and entertainment to a public no longer able to afford records.
The collapse hit African American communities with particular severity, nearly wiping out the race record market. Black-owned record labels, music publishers, and even the first Black film studios shut down in the early 1930s. Surviving record companies focused on a shrinking group of established artists and abandoned field recording expeditions. As a result, only a few Black musicians, especially those affiliated with mainstream, jazz-influenced dance orchestras, continued to receive recording opportunities. These artists, often featured in major label catalogs, were exceptions in an industry that otherwise sidelined many African American performers.
Although hillbilly music also faced declining sales, it proved more resilient. While the overall number of records sold fell, hillbilly recordings claimed a growing share of the market, reaching 25 percent by 1930. Ironically, the Depression helped formalize country music as a commercial genre. Its most successful performers signed lucrative advertising deals, landed recurring radio spots, and even appeared in Hollywood films. One major hit from this era was Billy Hill's 1933 recording of The Last Roundup, a romantic cowboy ballad that sold over 100,000 copies and crossed over into the pop charts. The song helped establish the popularity of Western music and paved the way for cowboy stars like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, who we will discuss later in this chapter.
While popular music in the early 20th century typically avoided references to social or economic issues, the Depression brought a dose of realism into some corners of the industry. Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood continued to offer escapist fantasies of wealth and glamour, but country and blues musicians began to reflect the harsh realities of working-class life. They sang about poverty, displacement, failed farms, and broken families. Dust Bowl ballads captured the devastation caused by both economic collapse and environmental catastrophe across the Plains. Songs about Southern textile and coal workers, whose attempts to unionize were often met with violence, carried political weight. These musical narratives gave voice to communities excluded from the promises of prosperity and offered both comfort and a sense of shared struggle. One of the most powerful voices in this tradition was Woody Guthrie, whom we will explore in a later chapter.
As hillbilly music—later known as country music—took shape in the 1920s and 1930s, its growth was deeply influenced by emerging technologies, most notably the radio. Just as recordings had helped bring rural sounds to national audiences, radio became a powerful tool for reaching listeners in both urban and remote communities.
The rise of radio in the 1920s fundamentally reshaped how Americans discovered and consumed music. Early stations, often unregulated and equipped with powerful transmitters, reached far beyond their local regions. Stations like WSB in Atlanta and WBAP in Fort Worth were among the first to broadcast “hillbilly” music, and their signals could be heard as far away as Canada, New York, Haiti, and even Hawaii. This broad reach brought country music to audiences well outside the South and introduced regional artists to a national listenership.
One of the most influential programs of the era was the National Barn Dance, broadcast from WLS in Chicago. On April 19, 1924, WLS aired its first live country performance from the mezzanine of the Sherman Hotel. The enthusiastic audience response prompted the station to launch the weekly WLS Barn Dance, soon renamed the National Barn Dance. It became a beloved cultural staple and a gateway for country music into American homes.
By 1932, the show had moved to the Eighth Street Theatre in Chicago to accommodate its growing popularity. A year later, NBC picked it up for national syndication, extending its influence coast to coast. The National Barn Dance helped launch the careers of country stars like Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, as well as radio comedians and entertainers such as Amos ’n’ Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly, and George Gobel.
Programs like this helped bridge the gap between local folk traditions and modern mass media. By broadcasting live fiddle tunes, gospel harmonies, and cowboy ballads directly into American homes, radio made country music part of everyday life, even for families without a phonograph or access to live performances.
In this way, radio was far more than a promotional platform. It became a cultural lifeline by connecting Southern migrants to their roots, while unifying rural and urban listeners, and helping country music evolve into a national tradition. This moment laid the groundwork for even more influential programs like the Grand Ole Opry, which would soon emerge as the genre’s most iconic broadcast.