Short Essay: Although the Great Depression was a time of economic suffering, it was also a time of creativity in country music. Wester Swing emerged in Texas in the 1930s and quickly spread to other states. This exciting new sound appealed to many teenagers in the 1920s. By the 1930s, they had taken the reels, waltzes, fiddle breaks, and other styles they had learned from their elders and combined them with blues, rags, jazz, swing, and pop to create a remarkably diverse and dynamic new sound that would come to be known as Western swing (Hartman, 144). The "King of Western Swing", Bob Wills, was a prominent figure from the 1930s to the 1950s. From an early age, he learned to play the violin and he and his father performed at dances and other events. social gatherings. He was exposed to other genres of music from a young age, such as blues, conjunto, and mariachi, but it was the new sounds of jazz that inspired him to experiment with traditional country music. In 1929, Wills moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where he formed a band, the Wills Fiddle Band, which soon became Light Crust Doughboys. Their music was played on Fort Worth radio station KFJZ Radio, and their unique sound quickly spread, something radio advertisers needed during the economic crisis. However, in 1933 Wills left the group and formed a new one called Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and they toured together for the next forty years. In 1945, Wills performed at the Grand Ole Opry and insisted that there be a horn and drum section on stage. The audience was surprisingly pleased with this unwanted change from the makers. Despite his somewhat strained relationship with Nashville, the local country music establishment officially recognized Wills and his significant overall impact on country music when the Country Music Association Hall of Fame inducted him in 1968 (Hartman, 146). Bob Wills died in 1975, but he still had a major influence on young, emerging country artists like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Strait and Lee Ann Womack..