White Country Blues, 1926-1938

In the ‘20s and ‘30s, records by African-American performers—be they gospel, blues, jazz, or pop—were designated “race records," while records by rural white artists would fall under the rubric “hillbilly music.” These artificial categories handily concealed the wealth of cultural intermingling that was taking place between the white and African-American musical communities during this period. African-American songwriters often borrowed liberally from Tin Pan Alley and Anglo-Scottish folk ballads, while white performers often proved remarkably adept at incorporating elements of country blues into their own music, borrowing stray verses, instrumental techniques, or even entire songs and adopting them to suit their own musical styles. White Country Blues collects songs by white artists that exhibit a marked Afro-American influence. It includes straight covers, such as Roy Acuff’s groundbreaking adaptation of bluesman Sylvester Weaver’s “Guitar Blues,” and tunes that only evoke the blues in spirit, as with the songs of Bill and Cliff Carlisle, whose rowdy, often-salacious numbers conjure the freewheeling ethos of African-American medicine show performers.