Honky Tonk: Banks of the Ohio

The Golden Age of Country Fiddling

From the mid-40s through to the mid-50s, it was possibly the golden age of country fiddling. This was the era of the honky tonk, both a type of music and a type of venue.

What is Honky Tonk?

• Honky tonks were rough-edged dance halls where truckers would meet honky tonk angels.
• This setting was home to a slightly rowdy kind of country music.

Key Artists

Hank Williams was certainly the biggest star of honky tonk music. He worked closely with three notable fiddlers:

• Tommy Jackson
• Jerry Rivers
• Dale Potter

These musicians were among the first proper session musicians in Nashville, which grew to become the center of country music. As professional session musicians, they learned how to play along with any song presented to them, often without ever having heard the song before the recording session. They had to follow a kind of formula:

• As soon as they heard the song, they knew exactly what to do.
• They could knock off three or four songs in a day, often finishing in time for lunch and a hamburger and fries across the road.

Learning Honky Tonk

In the next couple of lessons, I will show you the basics of playing honky tonk music to songs by Hank Williams and similar artists. Once you master one song, it becomes easier to tackle others.

Song Example: Banks of the Ohio

We'll use a song called Banks of the Ohio, which wasn't actually used by Hank Williams but is very much the kind of song he would perform.

Song Structure

One of the first things to understand is the structure of these songs. You need a distinct approach towards:

• Introduction
• Verse/Chorus
• Solo

It's important to do something different in each of these sections. If you play the same thing throughout the song, most people in the audience might not know what's wrong, but any proper country music fan will recognize that you're missing the mark.

Basic Melody

Let's look at Banks of the Ohio. I'll play the basic melody and we'll see how it goes.

• Observation: The melody is very simple and straightforward.

To enhance the performance, we need to add:

• An intro
• An outro
• A solo that closely resembles the melody, yet is more interesting

Once we can accomplish this, we can play nearly any kind of country song that fits the honky tonk style.

Your Assignment

1. Listen to some Hank Williams songs.
2. Identify the sections:
   • What is the fiddle doing in the intro?
   • Is there an outro? Is the fiddle playing it?
   • What happens during the singing?
   • What occurs during the solo?

We will explore these elements in detail over the next couple of lessons.