Country Yodeling

A style of American country singing organized around the yodel, the rapid alternation between chest voice and falsetto used as refrain, ornament and display of technique. Absorbed from Alpine and minstrel-stage sources into early hillbilly recording, country yodeling was codified by *Jimmie Rodgers*, whose blue yodels of 1927 onward fused the device with blues form and railroad imagery. Singers such as *Elton Britt*, *Wilf Carter* and *Patsy Montana* made it a commercial specialty in the 1930s and 1940s, usually over guitar, fiddle and steel guitar accompaniment, with repertory of cowboy songs, lullabies, train songs and novelty numbers.