Various - Country & Western Hit Parade 1952 - Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music

1-CD-Album deluxe with 72-page booklet, 26 tracks, playing time: 68:42 minutes.

The burgeoning interest in country music manifested itself in many ways. Pop A&R men scoured the hillbilly releases for songs they could cover. Twelve hundred radio stations, even in the northeast, were spinning at least two hours of country music a day, and most markets had at least one country music television show (Los Angeles led the pack with fifteen). The Grand Ole Opry concluded a deal with the Astor Hotel in New York that saw the Opry cast rotated through the hotel's prestigious ballroom. The labels and music publishers added promo men solely devoted to country music. If country music was still generally treated with condescension in the trade papers, it was earning respect for the solid sales.

By 1952, the country music industry was more-or-less centered upon Nashville. A couple of years earlier, WSM announcer David Cobb coined the phrase 'Music City USA.' "I wish I could remember the exact date, but I'm sure it was circa 1950," he recalled years later, "because we celebrated Red Foley's fortieth birthday that same year. We originated some programs for the NBC network. One of them was The Red Foley Show, and I was the announcer. One morning, I felt that my opening words would require something that placed a little more emphasis on Nashville, so it came out. 'From Music City U.S.A., Nashville, Tennessee,WSM presents The Red Foley Show.' It fell trippingly from the tongue and felt right, like a good billboard should. Right after the show I got word that [WSM manager] Jack Stapp wanted to see me in his office. When I walked in, he was beaming. 'Where did you ever get an idea like Music City U.S.A.?' He thought it was the greatest thing since George Hay had named the Grand Ole Opry." In 1951, a woman in WSM's advertising department suggested bringing all of the dee-jays around the country who spun records by Opry stars to Nashville for a celebration. Fewer than fifty came, but the event was enough of a success for it to become the annual Disc Jockey Convention, which metamorphosed into the still ongoing Country Music Week. It was a chance for the artists to thank the dee-jays and for the dee-jays to tape spots with artists that could be played on their local stations. And it cemented Nashville's position as the hub of the industry.

One country music tradition ended in 1952. On May 31, Uncle Art Satherley retired. He'd left England around 1915 and first worked in A&R in the mid-1920s. He'd joined ARC (subsequently Columbia) in 1929 and reckoned that he'd recorded 27,000 masters. Before the War, he had a personal collection of around ten thousand records that he had produced, but he'd turned them over to Columbia to be reground during the shellac shortage in 1942. "I'm the only living man who's been through this business with his hands," Satherley remarked in the 1970s. "Running the factories, making the records, finding the material, seeing the pressing's done, selling the records, and finding the artists. Always of no fixed abode, just traveling, finding country people to make these recordings." His place at Columbia was taken by his assistant, another Englishman, Don Law, who stayed at the helm until retirement in 1967. In March 1953, Spade Cooley hosted a star-studded tribute to Satherley in Hollywood that unaccountably featured mostly Capitol stars. Cooley was the only one of Satherley's acts to show up. Later that year, Satherley became a music publisher.

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music

Country & Western Hit Parade

“Collecting an anarchic mix of sex and sentimentality, earnest paeans to family and fanciful tales of drinking and cheating, DIM LIGHTS… affords a fascinating glimpse into black-and-white ‘50s polemics… Established stars, inspired wannabes proffer an intoxicating brew of dancefloor honky tonk, hillbilly boogie, bluegrass, western swing, incipient rockabilly, goofball novelty, and sentimental country-pop.” (UNCUT magazine)

 

The reviews are in and everyone from Australia to Los Angeles to London is raving about Bear Family’s definitive year-by-year country series. Starting in 1945, DIM LIGHTS, THICK SMOKE, AND HILLBILLY MUSIC (COUNTRY & WESTERN HIT PARADE) tells the real story of country music record-by-record. The hits are here, but so are groundbreaking records that went nowhere at the time. This is the true and uncensored history of country music. Everything you need to hear, year-by-year. Stars like Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Eddy Arnold, Ray Price, and Hank Snow are here, but so are beerhall legends like Eddie Noack and Sonny Burns, and roots music mavens like Charlie Feathers and the Stanley Brothers, as well as overlooked giants like Carl Belew and Floyd Tillman. You’ll also hear the incredible original versions of songs like Duelin’ Banjos, Release Me, Lonely Street, and many more!  Every CD is full to the brim with great music, and they’re all individually packaged in hardcover 72-page books by Colin Escott that tell the story of every song as well as the broader music history of the time. Fabulous photos, original record labels, and period advertisements round out the packages.

Bear Family began its journey into year-by-year anthologies with its groundbreaking and award-winning BLOWIN’ THE FUSE/SWEET SOUL MUSIC series that tells the story of R&B from 1945-1970. Look for the series to continue into the Funk era. And look for a year-by-year Rock ‘n’ Roll anthology coming soon.

# After the volumes covering 1945-1955 were released, the word was out. This series is definitive, fabulously packaged, and faultlessly remastered! Everything you'd expect from Bear Family…and more!

# Jack Clement, who produced Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Don Williams, and many others, said, "This is the best country series of all time. No doubt. No question." Robert Hilburn in the 'Los Angeles Times'said, "An invaluable album project…enables fans to step back in time and listen to the radio just like Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, and Bob Dylan did."

# Now the story continues from 1956 until 1960. Every CD is generously full. Every booklet is extensive and chocked full of rare photos and illustrations, as well as complete stories behind the songs!

# In addition to the hits, the series contains rarities that went on to influence country music…and all music…in the years ahead, like Wanda Jackson's original version of Silver Threads And Golden Needles, Carl Belew's original Lonely Street, and Chet Atkins' influential Walk, Don't Run.

# This series is designed to introduce new listeners to the very best that country music has to offer… while keeping longtime fans entertained. Every volume is a fabulous time capsule.

 

Here's the story

For many years, we'd received requests to do a truly definitive country series, but it wasn't until the success of our year-by-year R&B/Soul series, 'Blowin' The Fuse' (now 'Sweet Soul Music' and soon to be continued into the Funk era) that we decided we needed to do something comparable for country music. The first volumes of 'Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music' took us from 1945-1955, and now the story continues into the era of the Nashville Sound.

The series has been compiled with today's fans in mind. Sure, the big hits are there, but so are the classic performances that weren't necessarily hits at the time, but became influential in the years ahead. Every volume has incredibly detailed behind-the-scenes stories, fabulously rare photos, and an ongoing history of country music set against the backdrop of the broader American music business. The booklets alone are 72 pages! Definitive? You bet!

Superlatives are often overused, but we feel that this series is part of our mission to bring this incredible music to new fans ... as well as entertaining older fans. We pick up the story in 1956....just as country music was coming to terms with the upset of rock 'n' roll!

And, keeping in the spirit of the releases, some of the artists' listings are as they originally appeared - like Jim Edward and Maxine Brown and Bonnie, Wayne Raney - Raney Family (Wayne, Wanda and Zyndall) and Marty Robbins with Ray Conniff -  while the cd in each set is stored in a reproduction of a 45 rpm record label bag appropriate to that year.

Country music author and historian Colin Escott is responsible for these remarkable releases, an obvious labour of love that has taken considerable research effort, offering a valuable insight into the development of country music over the years. Many of country music's foremost entertainers are included alongside others who may have only earned a place in the footnotes of country music history, but all present a variety of voices and differing musical styles that have virtually disappeared, over half a century later, in contemporary country music's conveyor belt output. The songs were also different back then: sometimes relating to current events, they also regularly centred upon themes like boozin', honky-tonking and slippin' around, now generally considered non-pc in these over sensitive times.

Country & Western Hitparade - CD-Album-Series by Bear Family

Read more at: https://www.bear-family.com/bear-family/country-series/country-und-western-hitparade/
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