La música wéstern se origina como una forma en la música folclórica de Estados Unidos. Originariamente, se componía por y para gente asentada y que trabajaba en el Oeste de Estados Unidos y las praderas canadienses.
Surgida de la fusión de las antiguas baladas folklóricas británicas con la tradición musical hispánica del norte de México y el suroeste de los Estados Unidos, de raíz castellana, la música wéstern celebraba la vida del cowboy de las amplias praderas del oeste de Norteamérica.Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, Collector's Note: "Out in the wild, far-away places of the big and still unpeopled west—in the caňons along the Rocky Mountains, among the mining camps of Nevada and Montana, and on the remote cattle ranches of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona—yet survives the Anglo-Saxon ballad spirit that was active in secluded districts in England and Scotland even after the coming of Tennyson and Browning. ... In some such way have been made and preserved the cowboy songs and other frontier ballads contained in this volume." La música tradicional hispánica del sudoeste norteamericano, además de influir decisivamente en el género, también se vio influenciada por el desarrollo del mismo.
La música wéstern comparte raíces similares a la música hillbilly o folk de los Apalaches, desarrollada en los montes Apalaches, separada pero paralela al género wéstern. La industria musical de mediados del , unió ambos conceptos bajo el nombre de country & western y que más adelante amalgamaría también a la música country.
Algunas Canciones Western Abilene Along the Navajo Trail Along the Santa Fe Trail Back in the Saddle Again Ballad of the Alamo Big Iron Billy the Kid Blue Prairie Blue Shadows on the Trail Bonanza (tema central) Buenas Tardes Amigo Buffalo Gals (Wont You Come Out Tonight?) Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie Call of the Canyon Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie Cattle Call Cheyenne Cimarron (Roll On) Cocaine Blues Cool Water Deep in the Heart of Texas Dont Fence Me In Dont Take Your Guns to Town El Paso El Paso City Folsom Prison Blues Ghee on My Hands Ghost Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)]] Git Along, Little Dogies Halfway to Montana Happy Trails Hold On Hold on Little Dogies Home on the Range I Ride an Old Paint I Want to Be a Cowboys Sweetheart Im an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande Little Joe the Wrangler Man Walks Among Us Night Riders Lament Oh My Darling, Clementine Oh! Susanna Pistol Packin Mama Red River Valley Red Wing Rocky Mountain Express Rogue River Valley Running Gun San Antonio Rose Sioux City Sue Song of the Sierras Strawberry Roan Streets Of Laredo (The Cowboys Lament) Sweet Betsy from Pike Texas Plains The Cowboys Life The Last Roundup The Lone Star Trail The Masters Call The Old Chisholm Trail The Soughrty Peaks The Wayward Wind The Yellow Rose of Texas Tumbling Tumbleweeds Utah Carol Way out There When the Cactus Is in Bloom Young Wesley Zebra Dun
Cantantes Western Bill Barwick Bob Nolan Chris LeDoux Corb Lund Don Edwards Frankie Laine Gene Autry Girls of the Golden West Greg Ryder Ian Tyson Jimmy Wakely Joe Bethancourt John I. White Johnny Bond Johnny Western Juni Fisher Lorne Greene Lynn Anderson Marty Robbins Michael Martin Murphey Patsy Montana Ray Whitley Roy Rogers Slim Whitman Sons of the Pioneers Sourdough Slim Tex Ritter Tim Spencer Tommy Duncan Wilf Carter
Véase también Western swing, subgénero
List of North American folk music traditions
Referencias
Bibliografía Cannon, Hal. Old Time Cowboy Songs. Gibbs Smith. ISBN 0-87905-308-9 Green, Douglas B. Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy. Vanderbilt University Press, August 2002. ISBN 0-8265-1412-X Hull, Myra. "Cowboy Ballads". Kansas Historical Quarterly. 8:1 (February 1939) 35-60 (accessed November 29, 2007). Lomax, John A., M.A. Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. The MacMillan Company, 1918. Online edition (pdf) O'Neal, Bill; Goodwin, Fred. The Sons of the Pioneers. Eakin Press, 2001. ISBN 1-57168-644-4 Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys. Early Cowboy Band. British Archive of Country Music, 2006. CD D 139 Quay, Sara E. Westward Expansion. Greenwod Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-31235-4 Shirley, Glenn "Daddy of the Cowboy Bands. Oklahoma Today (Fall 1959), 9:4 6-7, 29. Thorp, N. Howard "Jack". Songs of the Cowboys. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908, 1921. White, John I. Git Along Little Dogies: Songs and Songmakers of the American West. (Music in American Life) series, University of Illinois Press, 1989 reprint. ISBN 0-252-06070-9
Enlaces externos The Academy of Western Artists The Western Music Association Roughstock's History of Country Music Rex Allen 'Arizona Cowboy' Museum & Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame - Willcox, Arizona Nudie's Rodeo Tailors for country & western artists Country & Western Music Directory
Categoría:Géneros del country Categoría:Géneros precursores del rock