Chapter 9: Country Western Music
“Will The Circle Be Unbroken”
Album/Year Released
Recorded 1935
Artist/Composer
The Carter Family: A.P. Carter, Sara Carter, Maybelle Carter
Lyrics by Ada R. Habershon; Edited by A.P. Carter
Music by Charles H. Gabriel.
Genre/Style
Country; Appalachian folk
Song Form
Verse-chorus
“Can the Circle Be Unbroken,” recorded by the Carter Family in 1935, holds a central place in Appalachian folk and early country music. The song follows a verse-and-chorus structure with each verse set to the same melody with different lyrics. The Carter Family version typically consists of four verses, each followed by a recurring chorus. Each verse advances the story, focusing on themes of death, family loss, and spiritual reunion, while the chorus serves as a communal response. The chorus repeats the core idea of connection beyond death, and its return after each verse gives the performance a cyclical quality that mirrors the song’s central image of an unbroken circle.
The sound of the recording is shaped by Maybelle Carter’s guitar technique, known as the Carter scratch or Carter Family picking. Using her thumb, often with a thumbpick, she plays the melody on the lower strings while her fingers brush rhythmic chords on the higher strings. This approach lets one guitarist provide both melody and accompaniment, creating a full texture without extra instruments. The style resembles banjo picking and later influenced rhythmic guitar in bluegrass.
Harmonically, the song relies on a small group of chords from the tonic, subdominant, and dominant functions. This limited harmonic vocabulary keeps attention on the text and vocal delivery rather than harmonic motion. The Carter Family’s performance is known for three-part vocal harmony, with a lead melody supported by two voices above and below it. These parts move closely together, often following the melody’s contour rather than breaking into independent lines. The result is a tightly blended, homophonic texture.
The Carter Family version reworks the 1907 hymn “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” with lyrics by Ada R. Habershon and music by Charles H. Gabriel. A. P. Carter revised the verses and altered the chorus while keeping the melody and verse structure. His version changes the opening word of the chorus from “Will” to “Can,” adds “Lord” in specific lines, and shifts one line from a question to a statement, creating a different expressive emphasis.
Although the Carter Family titled their recording “Can the Circle Be Unbroken,” many later performances use the earlier title. A well-known example appears on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1972 album, which features Mother Maybelle Carter with a younger ensemble. Because A. P. Carter’s revisions are a substantial creative transformation, the Carter Family version remains under copyright.
“Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)”
Album/Year Released
Recorded 1927
Artist/Composer
Jimmie Rodgers (1897–1933), singer/guitarist
Genre/Style
Country; hillbilly
Song Form
12-bar blues with verse-chorus structure
“Blue Yodel No. 1,” recorded by Jimmie Rodgers in 1927, is an example of early country music shaped by blues structure, phrasing, and subject matter. The song is performed as a solo for voice and guitar and follows a 12-bar blues framework organized around an AAB lyric pattern. Each verse spans twelve measures, with the first line sung twice and a concluding line completing the stanza. Most performances include multiple verses built on this repeated structure, creating a strophic design in which the music remains constant while the lyrics change.
A central feature of the recording is Rodgers’s use of yodeling at the end of each verse. These yodel breaks replace the instrumental turnaround typical of blues recordings, functioning as a vocal response to the preceding lyrics. Rodgers’s yodel moves quickly between chest voice and head voice, producing abrupt shifts in register that add contrast and rhythmic emphasis. The syllables follow a short–long–short pattern, commonly rendered “yo-de-lay-ee,” and mirror the phrasing of blues instrumental fills. This approach gave the yodel a structural role rather than treating it as ornamentation.
The harmonic language follows standard blues practice, using tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords, often colored by lowered thirds and sevenths. Rodgers accompanies himself with a guitar style that alternates a steady bass pattern with light strumming on the upper strings. His thumb outlines the bass motion while his fingers brush chord tones, creating forward motion without distracting from the vocal line. This approach is an early form of what became known as Travis picking, a fingerstyle technique popularized by Merle Travis. In Travis picking, the thumb alternates between bass notes to keep a steady rhythmic pulse while the fingers pluck melody or harmony notes on the treble strings, producing a syncopated, rolling texture. Rodgers’s use of this method adds harmonic richness and rhythmic drive, supporting the vocal line without extra instruments.
Lyrically, Rodgers combined original material with lines borrowed from earlier blues and vaudeville songs, a common practice at the time. The verses present a traveling narrator who boasts, threatens rivals, and hints at sexual bravado through double entendre. These themes recur across Rodgers’s later “Blue Yodel” recordings, which form a loosely connected series built on similar musical and narrative ideas. The series of “Blue Yodels” often portrays a man exaggerating his qualities as a lover, facing threats from other men, and asserting dominance with humor and sexual innuendo. “Blue Yodel No. 1” was Rodgers’s best-selling record and became a fixture in his live performances, establishing him as “America’s Blue Yodeler.”
“Your Cheatin’ Heart”
Album/Year Released
Recorded 1952
Artist/Composer
Hank Williams (1923–1953)
Genre/Style
Country; honky tonk
Song Form
Verse-chorus
Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” recorded in 1952, is a representative example of honky tonk country music, a style marked by emotionally direct lyrics, steady rhythms, and instrumentation such as steel guitar, fiddle, and piano. The song uses a verse-chorus form, with verses telling a story of betrayal and heartache, and the chorus repeating the main emotional message. Williams’ vocal delivery is plaintive and slightly nasal, showing the high and lonesome sound of early country music. The instrumentation supports the rhythm, adds melodic embellishment, and emphasizes the song’s lyrics.
Honky tonk music developed from southern working-class traditions and barroom performance. It typically features a backbeat, simple chord progressions (usually I-IV-V), and clear melodies suitable for dancing. Early honky tonk piano emphasized rhythm over harmony, often adapted to out-of-tune or worn instruments, and later influenced boogie-woogie and early rock and roll. In this recording, steel guitar and fiddle provide melodic lines and harmonic support, while guitar and piano maintain rhythmic drive. The arrangement of guitar, fiddle, string bass, and steel guitar became standard in honky tonk recordings.
Williams wrote the lyrics to “Your Cheatin’ Heart” while driving from Nashville to Shreveport after reflecting on his first wife, Audrey Sheppard. Produced by Fred Rose at Castle Studio in Nashville on September 23, 1952, the recording captures his phrasing and vocal tone, balancing clarity with the expressive high and lonesome sound.
The song’s verse-chorus structure allows for narrative development and emotional emphasis. Each verse presents a scenario of lost love, while the chorus reinforces the central theme. The simple I-IV-V chord progression in the verse, combined with the vocal style and instrumentation, focuses attention on the lyrics and overall delivery rather than the harmonic movement.
“Your Cheatin’ Heart” illustrates the features of honky tonk music, combining straightforward harmonic patterns, storytelling lyrics, and a vocal style that communicates emotional nuance. Its arrangement and performance style became typical of the genre and influenced many later country recordings.