Was watching the Country Music Awards tonight and saw a good number of (male) artists wearing ballcaps rather than cowboy hats. Not being in touch with country music for some time I found this to be kind of out of place. So, when did ballcaps become country music attire and who was so bold enough to first attempt to change such a steadfast tradition?
And just for the record, I don’t even know if the CMA show I saw tonight was live or a repeat but it was a pretty good show.
Sure they weren’t tractor caps instead of ball caps? Tractor caps have been standard Good Ol’ Boy attire for a long time. See for example Larry the Cable Guywith a John Deere hat.
How would one distinguish a ball cap from a tractor cap? They look quite similar to me, aside from decoration.
That I know, but who and when did the musicians exchange their cowboy hats for the ballcap style? Never saw Hank Williams without his cowboy hat. Can’t imagine him wearing a John Deere brim.
They’re basically similar, but tractor capstend to have higher blockier crowns and longer brims. Sometimes they have mesh sides.
the real problem is that they are wearing their hats indoors.
Guys from Texas and Montana and wherever wear cowboy hats. Guys from the South wear ballcaps. Remember, it’s Country and Western.
Fashions change. I heard that some Texans who really worked on ranches began wearing caps back in Urban Cowboy days–they felt too many pseuds were adopting the look.
The original pioneers of country music dressed like “regular folk.” This famous picture shows Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family visiting the city–perhaps even NYC. Jimmie is the dude with the straw hat & cigarette; he knew he was in show biz & would also dress like the brakeman he’d been or like a cowboy–for publicity shots. The Carters were real mountain folk & are wearing the best clothes they could afford; they preferred a dignified image.
The suits behind the *Grand Ole Opry *dressed their artists like hayseeds–overalls for the guys, gingham for the girls. (Minnie Pearl was a Nashville society lady who formed her persona from mountain folk she’d met. I saw her on a Johnny Cash package show many years ago; even jokes old as the hills can make you laugh.) Hee Haw continued that “look” into the modern day…
Country artists looking for alternatives to hillbilly attire or Sears Roebuck suits soon looked to Western Wear. Prime examples: Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys. Here’s Bill Monroe & his brother; even before forming the Bluegrass Boys, he went for dignity. (Perhaps the bass player would wear a silly hat & do comedy routines.)
The Western Look was a mixture of working cowboy attire & what they wore in the movies. Across the border, mariachi groups traded in white cotton peasant attire for the dignified charro outfits of gentleman ranchers. Did the charro look, mixed with those gaudy felt souvineers from Tijuana, inspire Nudie of Hollywood?
Hippies came & went. Country people went from beating up longhairs to growing their own. Fashion keeps changing.
I agree that wearing hats inside is tacky. But it’s hard to be balding in showbiz!
Country music borrowed the cowboy look from the singing cowboy movies of the 1930s and 1940s.
As noted, Bill Monroe was an early adopter, but Hank Williams really sealed the deal-- an Alabama native wearing a big cowboy hat and calling his band the Drifting Cowboys. After Hank, most country stars went with the western look.
It was natural, I guess. There was always a lot of migration and cultural cross-pollination going on between the deep South and the Southwest.
But into which category would you place Conway Twitty? Plastic hair swept back beautifully, baby blue leisure suit with lapels the size of placemats. What a look!
His music transcended country…<hic>
<OK Andy, lock me up!>
The only hat I’ve ever seen Jimmy Buffet wearing is a baseball cap. I don’t know when he started wearing them, but I imagine it’s a while ago.
I am certainly not a Jimmy Buffet expert (I have seen him play twice at a couple of large music festivals over the years, and mostly enjoyed it, for what it was) but I don’t think his music has ever been seriously described as “Country”…
Well he does have a song on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack. In fact it’s the first cut on the album…“Hello Texas”.
ETA: From Buffet’s wiki page: "Buffett himself and others have used the term gulf and western to describe his musical style ".
There are lots of country artists who never adopted that ‘cowboy’ look, such as Charlie Pride, John Denver, Conway Twitty (as already mentioned) and George Jones to name a few.
Hey, there’s nothing more country than driving your John Deere mower to the liquor store, because your license has been suspended for DUI’s.
Was he wearing a tractor hat? 
I think actual working cowboys have been wearing ball caps as working hats for quite a while. Good cowboys hats are too expensive for a working hat. They are more of a Friday and Saturday night hat.
The “cowboy look”, codified by a cowboy hat, A western button down shirt, big rodeo belt buckle, 13MWZs, and cowboy boots was popularized by George Strait in the early 80s. When Garth Brooks, Clint Black, and the like came around in the late 80s, they copied him. Which led to a wave of look-alike “hat acts”. This is what most people these days think of when they think of a country singer, most likely.
Actually that look goes back to the 1980 Urban Cowboy looked. I actually grew in Nashville and before then the Roy Roger’s look was more commonplace.
At least the Urban Cowboy look was an improvement over the Saturday Night Fever look.
You forgot Nudie suits…
