You may have heard the term Honky Tonk, once or twice in your life time, and if you're a but more knowledgeable in matters musical, you may have heard that term associated with the American Country/Western music scene.
However the meaning of the term is far more varied, and older than the modern use of the term, and it is definitely original to American Mid West and Southwest during the 19th. C. It did not however originate in the 1950s Country/Western scene, nor during the Swing Era, as some may think. It is much older than that.
The etymology and exact source of the term is still debated today, with the oldest reference in print tied to a newspaper article in the Dallas
Morning News, about the opening of a theatre called the "Honky Tonk" in 1890. Other references occur in a 1892 article in Galveston Daily News, in which the term to refers to an adult establishment in Fort Worth. Other references circa 1894 spell the term as "Honk-a-Tonk."
Otherwise, the term was used in connection to rough establishments, with music and which served alcoholic beverages to a working class clientele. Honky Tonks sometimes also offered dancing to piano players or small bands, and commonly were centers of prostitution, which basically seems to fit our modern definition of "Wild West Saloon."
In the available literature, the term Honky Tonk appears more frequently in relation to bawdy variety shows in the West (Oklahoma and Indian Territories and Texas) and to the theaters housing them. According to Wiki "The distinction between Honky Tonks, Saloons and Dancehalls was often blurred, especially in cowtowns, mining districts, military forts and oilfields of the West."
Which leads some people to believe that this is a term that was originally spread, long before the 1890s, by the people working in the cattle industry, such as cowboys and ranch hands along the trade routes.
Curiously some people trace the term to a common type of piano present in saloons and pubs, specifically upright pianos made by William Tonk & Bros. The first time the term Honky Tonk is used in reference to music is in a style of piano closely related to Ragtime music, but noting that Honky Tonk differed in that it emphasized rhythm over melody.
It is said that this "honky" style of music evolved from the poor condition of the pianos in low rent pubs and saloons. Hence the possibility arises that the term Honky Tonk, would be a reference to the sound a Tonk piano makes when it's poorly kept, out of tune, and some keys are malfunctioning or missing.
"That is one Honky Tonk piano, pardner."
Honky Tonk
Music, however, is far more nebulous to define during this period, and the only thing we know for sure is that it overlaps the emergence of Ragtime music, because early Honky Tonk Piano was more a way of playing the music on the piano than a genre by itself. Honkey Tonk would not become a musical genre proper until many decades later and well within the Country Western musical umbrella of the 1950s.
Ragtime, on the other hand, is a bona fide musical genre, defined by a highly syncopated style of piano music which emerged between 1895 and 1918 in connection to red light districts among African American communities in the Mid West and later the Deep South. Rag Time was originally refereed to as "jig piano" or "piano thumping."
Ragtime is attributed to a, black entertainer, Ernest Hogan, who in 1895 published two of the earliest sheet music rags, of which according to Wiki, "one
All Coons Look Alike to Me eventually sold a million copies." The importance of these early "Rags" was that the music was written in a way that for the first time captured the style of music performed by players who were not formally trained in Western music.
As fellow black musician Tom Fletcher said, Hogan was the "first to put on paper the kind of rhythm that was being played by non-reading musicians."
And the latter characteristic rhythm is one of the most important components in the style of music that eventually became know as Jazz. Which is to say that Jazz was first and foremost a commoner’s style of folk music, usually played by people without formal musical training, and which gave these American musical genres a distinct flavour apart from Western music.
But unlike jazz, classical Ragtime had and has primarily a written tradition, being distributed in sheet music, and hence the name "Rag" used to refer to the sheets of music.
It is said the Ragtime matured by the time Scott Joplin wrote "Maple Leaf Rag" (1897), and it is in fact this period, when Jazz first began to emerge in conjunction to Blues, which was a working class music intimately associated with African American communities in the South. That confluence of styles in music would happen in the brothels and red light district bars in places like New Orleans and at the hands of people like Jelly Roll Morton, who started his career at age 14... working at a brothel in New Orleans, Lousiana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Joplinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_Roll_MortonIn the meantime, Honky Tonk "veered left" toward the origins of modern Country/Western music, but not without helping along another branch of Jazz, namely Swing. Boogie Woogie piano, to be more specific. It is said that Honky Tonk piano music would be a strong factor in the emergence of Boogie Woogie piano style of the late 1930s. In fact, in 1938 Jelly Roll Morton wrote a type of "tutorial" musical piece illustrating the relationship between Honky Tonk, Ragtime and Boogie Woogie (see the last video below).
It is during the pre–World War II years, that the music industry began to refer to Honky Tonk music being played from Texas and Oklahoma to the West Coast as
Hillbilly music. And that is the start fo what is know as the 1950s' "Honky Tonk Revival." According to Wiki, "in the 1950s, Honky Tonk entered its golden age, with the massive popularity of Webb Pierce, Hank Locklin, Lefty Frizzell, Faron Young, George Jones and Hank Williams."
And so everyone is related to everyone else if you go far back enough in time. Same is true for people as it is for music.
Honky Tonk style of playing the Piano
Ragtime Piano
Jelly Roll Morton's "Honky Tonk Music" (1938). A "tutorial" blending Boogie Woogie, Honky Tonk and Ragtime.
Honky Tonk as explained by a more modern Country/Western musician - you should be able to hear the Boogie Woogie in there too as well as the Ragtime influences.
