Western Swing

Western Swing is Texas music. It arose in the 1930s, merging the influences of cowboy style, Hillbilly music, and Big Band jazz. The two pioneering Western Swing groups were Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and Milton Brown and the Musical Brownies. Each was a sizeable outfit full of horns as well as traditional string instruments. Western Swing became a West Coast craze during the '40s, thanks to suave bandleaders like Spade Cooley and Tex Williams. But by the '50s, Western Swing's initial heyday was over.