From the mountains to the prairies and beyond the pale : American yodeling on early recordings

This sound review surveys yodeling in North American popular music, beginning with some of the earliest recordings on which it is featured. In order to better contextualize the recordings, I will also mention a few examples of sheet music with yodeling—items which are generally overlooked. My intention is to question why yodeling became attached to particular genres and how it functions in the construction of those genres. Indeed, two popular music genres—so-called hillbilly music and cowboy or Western music—made yodeling an important, if not identifying, component. The focus here is on yodeling’s connotations and associations and how these established expressive relationships between the moods, personae, and images of the songs