New Glarus yodelers in traditional Swiss garb. (1922).

Yodeling (or yodelling, jodeling) is a form of singing that involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal or chest register (or "chest voice") to the falsetto/head register; making a high-low-high-low sound. The English word yodel is derived from a German word jodeln (originally Austro-Bavarian language) meaning "to utter the syllable jo" (pronounced "yo" in English). This vocal technique is used in many cultures throughout the world.^[1] Although traveling minstrels were yodeling in their performances in the United Kingdom and the United States as early as the eighteen-hundreds, the first country music recording to include yodeling was cut by singer Riley Puckett in 1924. In 1928, blending traditional work, blues, hobo and cowboy music, Jimmie Rodgers released his first recording "Blue Yodel No. 1", and created an instant national craze for yodeling in the United States. The popularity lasted through the 1940s, but by the 1950s it became rare to hear yodeling in Country or Western music.^[2]

History[link]

Most experts^[who?] agree that yodeling was used in Alpine folk music in the Central Alps as a method of communication between herders and their stock or between Alpine villages, with the multi-pitched "yelling" later becoming part of the region's traditional lore and musical expression. The calls may^{[weasel words]} also have been endearments shepherds used to express affection to their herds. The earliest record of a yodel is in 1545, where it is described as "the call of a cowherd from Appenzell".^[3][4]

British stage performances by yodelers were common as early as the nineteenth century.^[5] Sir Walter Scott wrote in his June 4, 1830 journal entry that "Anne wants me to go hear the Tyrolese Minstrels but...I cannot but think their yodeling...is a variation upon the tones of a jackass." In 1839 the Tyrolese Minstrels toured the United States and started an American craze for Alpine music. During the 1840s dozens of German, Swiss, and Austrian singing groups crisscrossed the country entertaining audiences with a combination of singing, yodeling, and “Alpine harmony.”^[6] Traveling American minstrels were yodeling in the United States as well. Tom Christian was the first American yodeling minstrel, appearing in 1847 in Chicago. Recordings of yodelers were made as early as 1892 and in 1920 the Victor recording company listed 17 yodels in their catalogue, many of them by George Watson, the most successful yodeler of the time. In 1897 Watson recorded the song, "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" which was later recorded in 1927 by Riley Puckett as the second yodeling record ever made (the first was "Rock All Our Babies to Sleep"). "Sleep Baby Sleep" was also the first song ever recorded by Jimmie Rodgers (at the Bristol sessions); Rodgers would eventually come to be known as the Father of Country Music.^[7]

In Persian classical music, singers frequently use tahrir, a yodeling technique that oscillates on neighbour tones. It is similar to the Swiss yodel, and is used as an ornament or trill in phrases which have long syllables, and usually falls at the end of a phrase.^[8]

In Georgian traditional music, yodeling takes the form of krimanchuli technique, and is used as a top part in three/four part polyphony.^[9]

In Central Africa, Pygmy singers use yodels within their elaborate polyphonic singing, and the Shona people of Zimbabwe sometimes yodel while playing the mbira.^[10] The Mbuti of the Congo incorporate distinctive whistles and yodels into their songs. Living from hunting and gathering, they sing hunting and harvest songs and use yodelling to call each other. In 1952 ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey recorded their songs and they have recently been released on compact discs. ^[11]

It is thought that yodeling was first introduced to the United States by German immigrants in Pennsylvania in the early 1800s. As the new settlers traveled south through the Appalachian Mountains and beyond into the Deep South they came into contact with Irish immigrants, Scandinavians (practictioners of a unique yodeling called kölning), and other nationalities including African slaves who communicated with "field hollers", described by Frederick Law Olmstead in 1853 as a ‘long, loud, musical shout, rising and falling and breaking into falsetto’. German yodeling may have converted southern field hollers into a more musical form and combined them with Irish narrative ballads, resulting in the unique form of the yodeling tradition in America. But it was Jimmie Rodgers, who combined the southern Black blues with the yodel in the 1920s, who introduced and popularized the American yodel in the United States.^[4]

But not all early American yodeling music came out of the Deep South. Western music was directly influenced by the folk music traditions of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and many cowboy songs can be traced back to European folk songs. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Western music became widely popular through the romanticization of the cowboy and idealized depictions of the west in Hollywood films. Singing cowboys such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry sang cowboy songs in their films and became popular throughout the United States.^[12][13]

First professional yodelers in the United States[link]

The American minstrel show was an entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the American Civil War, black people in blackface. Minstrel shows toured the same circuits as opera companies, circuses, and European entertainers, with venues ranging from lavish opera houses to makeshift tavern stages. When the European Tyrolese Minstrels toured the U.S. for several years in the early 1840s and created an American craze for Alpine yodeling music, four unemployed white actors decided to stage an African-American style spoof of this group's concerts. Calling themselves Dan Emmett's Virginia Minstrels, the performance was wildly popular and most historians mark this production as the beginning of minstrelsy in the U.S. According to jazz historian Gary Giddins:

Though antebellum (minstrel) troupes were white, the form developed in a form of racial collaboration, illustrating the axiom that defines – and continues to define – American music as it developed over the next century and a half : African American innovations metamorphose into American popular culture when white performers learn to mimic black ones.^[14]

Companies continued to perform in both the North and South throughout the Civil War, and after the war minstrelsy remained popular. Although African Americans were forbidden by law to perform on stage with whites in many states, some companies secretly included blacks, and as laws changed several all-black minstrel companies toured America and Great Britain. Black performers still had to wear blackface makeup in order to look "dark enough," and they performed material that demeaned their own race. Despite these drawbacks, minstrelsy provided African American performers with their first professional stage outlet.^[14]

By the 1880s the minstrel show had been replaced by Vaudeville and American Burlesque.^[15] By around 1905, more than 20 years before Jimmie Rodgers introduced his blue yodel, African Americans were touring the country singing and yodeling. The most noted yodelers of that time were Monroe Tabor ("The Yodeling Bellboy" - though he was not a bellboy), Beulah Henderson (who appeared in black face), and Charles Anderson (who played a singing "mammy" and a female impersonator in several of his acts). Tabor performed with the Dandy Dixie Minstrels. In New York in 1908 a 'well-known critic' reported:

Monroe Tabor sang "A Tear, a Kiss, a Smile". Mr Tabor is a new tenor with a good voice, which suffers only from a lack of training...While there was not quite enough comedy and ragtime, the Yoodle [sic] song, "Sleep, Baby, Sleep", was greatly in atonement and showed Monroe Tabor to be unexcelled as a yoodler.

And from a 1917 review:

...and Monroe Tabor yodeled as only J K Emmett Sr, of yore could do. At the Avenue Theater in December 1917, "When My Ship Comes Sailing Home" was a fine tenor solo by Tabor, who has no superiors as a yodeler.^[16]

Known as The Jolly Hendersons, Beulah Henderson toured with her husband Billy from 1905 through 1910. Billed as "The Classy Colored Comedy Pair" Beulah was featured as "America's only Colored Lady Yodeler". In Indianapolis in 1911 manager Tim Owsley noted:

The Jolly Hendersons offered a clean, bright and snappy act of singing, talking and dancing. Each song rendered by the jolly pair won for them an encore. Mr Henderson is a real clever light comedian, while his partner, Miss Henderson , is just as clever as a singing and talking soubrette. In fact she is one of the first lady yodlers that we have had the pleasure of hearing.

Charles Anderson was touring with vaudeville as early as 1909 singing a combination of blues and yodeling. A 1913 St. Louis review reports:

The Male Mockingbird, Charles Anderson, the man with the golden voice, is some character singer, imitator, and impersonator. As an imitator, Anderson has the best on the market skinned, his violin imitation intermezzo went big, and was one of the best imitations of a musical instrument heard in this neck of the woods for many moons. "Sleep Baby Sleep", a lullaby sung in costume of an old nurse went big. The yodeling in this song was excellent. "Baby Seals Blues", as rendered by Anderson, was worth going to hear. After a quick change, Anderson reappeared as the polished gentleman and sang "When the Cuckoo Sings", instantly winning the hearts of the audience with his perfect yodehng, causing said audience to cheer like mad for more.^[16]

Although most historians credit white singer Riley Puckett with the first recorded yodeling record (in 1924), in 1923 and 1924 Anderson recorded eight sides for the Okeh label which gave a summary account of his vaudeville repertoire during the previous decade. Five of the recorded songs are yodels - "Sleep, Baby, Sleep", "Comic Yodle Song", "Coo Coo" (J K Emmett's Cuckoo Song, adapted for Anderson's famous 60-second sustained soprano note), "Laughing Yodel" and "Roll On Silver Moon", a sentimental ballad, similar to Jimmie Rodgers' various Southern ballad recordings.

Country blues singer Lottie Kimbrough, billed as The Kansas City Butterball (she was a rather large woman) sang in speakeasys and nightclubs. and recorded her music from 1924 through 1929. Kimbrough's musical collaboration with Winston Holmes resulted in her best known recordings. Holmes supplied a series of yodels, vocalized bird calls and train whistles on some of their recordings.

When music critic Abbe Niles heard the Blue Yodel recordings released by Jimmy Rodgers in 1928 he was impressed by how distinctively black Rodger's Blue Yodel recordings sounded, yodeling and all. In his opinion Rodgers was a "white man gone black". In his 1928 record review column, writing under the heading 'White man singing black songs', Niles acknowledged that Rodger's first Blue Yodel had "started the whole epidemic of yodelling blues that now rages - though Clarence Williams wrote a good one five years ago." Niles went on to advise his readers to add race records to their collections saying, "Listening to race records is nearly the only way for white people to share the Negroes' pleasures without bothering the Negroes."^[16]

Authors Lynn Abbott & Doug Seroff^[17] write:

While some of the blue yodels heard on late 1920s Race recordings - those by the Mississippi Sheiks, for example - probably do owe something to Jimmie Rodgers' phenomenal success, others - like Billie Young's When They Get Lovin' They's Gone (accompanied by Jelly Roll Morton on Victor 23339,1930), Lottie Kimbrough and Winston Holmes' Lost Lover Blues (Gennett 6607, 1928), and Clint Jones' Mississippi Woman Blues and Blue Valley Blues (Okeh 8587, 1928) - seem more deeply connected to these precedent recordings by Charles Anderson, and to the venerable line of African-American yodelers they represent. There is no reason to doubt that Jimmie Rodgers, who could not resist a show, was exposed to and influenced by the black yodeler-blues singer tradition. Its practitioners were thoroughly entrenched in minstrelsy and vaudeville, and accessible to all races of people. Perhaps Jimmie even saw Charles Anderson himself perform, or heard some of Anderson's crystalline blues and yodeling 78s, before rising to immortality on his own great 'Blue Yodel' recordings. At any rate, the Freeman references strongly suggest that Charles Anderson and his generation of black professional yodelers had introduced the blue yodel in African-American entertainment before Jimmie Rodgers recorded.

Technique[link]

The Old Chisholm Trail

Autry, Blue Yodel 5

Bob Wills, Blue Yodel No. 1

All human voices are considered to have at least two distinct vocal registers, called the "head" and "chest" voices, which result from different ways that the tone is produced.^[18] Most people can sing tones within a certain range of lower pitch in their chest voices and tones within a certain range of higher pitch in their head voices and spring into their falsetto (an "unsupported" register forcing vocal cords in a higher pitch without any head or chest voice air support). In untrained or inexperienced singers, a gap between these ranges often exists, although more experienced singers can control their voices at the point where these ranges overlap and can easily switch between them to produce high-quality tones in either. Yodelling is a particular application of this technique, wherein a singer might switch between these registers several times in only a few seconds and at a high volume. Repeated alternation between registers at a singer's passaggio pitch range produces a very distinctive sound.

For example, in the famous "Yodel - Ay - EEE - Oooo", the "EEE" is sung in the head voice while all other syllables are in the chest voice.

The best places for Alpine-style yodelling are those with an echo. Ideal natural locations include not only mountain ranges but lakes, rocky gorges or shorelines, and high or open areas with one or more distant rock faces.

Performers[link]

Blue Yodel No. 1

Jimmie Rodgers

Caroline (l) and Mary Jane Dezurik

Early years[link]

Most music historians say that the first country music record to include yodeling was "Rock All Our Babies to Sleep" sung by Riley Puckett, a blind singer from Georgia. In 1924 in country music, his recording was one of the top hits of that year. Another early yodeler was Emmett Miller, a minstrel show performer, also from Georgia. Miller is little-remembered today, however in the 1920s he recorded the song, "Lovesick Blues" which was later a major hit for country singer Hank Williams. Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing, was also influenced by Miller (see the sound file above with Will's singer Tommy Duncan singing "Blue Yodel No. 1" in 1937)^[19] In the early 1920s African American Winston Holmes started a record label, Merritt Records, and was a performer himself. His vocals included bird calls, train whistles and yodels. He managed and made some songs with blues singer Lottie Kimbrough in the twenties.^[20]

Jimmie Rodgers[link]

Probably the most famous early yodeler was Jimmie Rodgers, known as The Singing Brakeman, who recoded dozens of popular songs in the late 1920s and early 1930s. While working on the railroad he learned blues techniques from African American gandy dancers, and eventually created his characteristic sound - a blend of traditional work, blues, hobo, and cowboy songs and his trademark "Blue Yodel." His first Blue Yodel, known as “Blue Yodel No. 1 (T For Texas) ”, was recorded in the Trinity Baptist Church at Camden, New Jersey. When the song was released in February 1928 it became “a national phenomenon and generated an excitement and record-buying frenzy that no-one could have predicted”.^[21] Rogers sang about everyday affairs and woes that many Americans of that time could relate to. Here are the lyrics of Blue Yodel No. 3:

She’s long she’s tall, she six feet from the ground

She’s long she’s tall, she six feet from the ground

She tailor made, lord she ain’t no hand me down

Oh-di-lay-ee-ay, di-lay-dee-oh, de-lay-ee

She got eyes like diamonds, lord her teeth shine just the same

She got eyes like diamonds and her teeth shine just the same

She got sweet ruby lips, and a hair like a horse’s mane

Oh-di-lay-ee-ay, di-lay-dee-oh, de-lay-ee

Every time I see you mama, you’re always on the street

Every time I see you mama, you’re always on the street

You hang out on the corner, like a police on his beat

Oh-di-lay-ee-ay, di-lay-dee-oh, de-lay-ee

Every time I need you mama, lord I always find you’re gone

Every time I need you mama, lord I always find you’re gone

Listen here sweet mama, I’m gonna put your air brakes on

Oh-di-lay-ee-ay, di-lay-dee-oh, de-lay-ee^[22]

According to a black musician who lived near Rodgers in Mississippi, everyone, both black and white alike, began to copy Rodgers: "Every one who could pick a guitar started yodeling like Rodgers."^[23] Rodgers died in 1933, however many performers that followed him claimed that he had been a big influence in their singing style and career.

Radio[link]

Other than the National Barn Dance, broadcast out of Chicago starting in 1924, and the Grand Ole Opry in 1925, American Country Western performers had only live performances and records to promote their music. When radios began to grow in popularity in the late 20s and early 30s, the powerful recording company RCA Victor, fearing that free music would devastate their record business, first attempted to prevent artists from appearing on the radio and then successfully stopped the growth of more powerful FM stations.^[24] But radio ownership grew from 2 out of 5 homes in 1931 to 4 out of 5 homes in 1938, and stations began to broadcast live shows featuring various artists, sometimes with a live audience. Some artists remained in their home area, however many traveled a circuit appearing on the dozens of low-power AM stations throughout the country, thus introducing the various styles of singing and yodeling to others outside of their region. Thus, a Georgia radio station of that era lists "cowboy Roy Lykes", the "Yodeling Fence Rider" from Texas, in its 1934 roster. Lykes is described as "a real cowboy" who wears "regulation cowboy shoes to get him in the mood".^[25]

Notable performers in the U.S.[link]

Jewel performing for US troops in 2000.

In 1934 yodeler Elton Britt recorded what was to become his signature song, "Chime Bells". Like so many others of that era, Britt listened to records of Jimmie Rodgers, which inspired him to learn how to yodel. Eventually he became renowned for his ability to sustain his yodel for an unusually long time, a skill he reportedly learned while swimming underwater for several minutes at a time.^[26] Country singer Jewel yodels and is known for her version of "Chime Bells" as well. Jewel says that she learned to yodel from her father who also learned to yodel by listening to Jimmie Rodgers.^[27]

Blue yodeler Cliff Carlisle was one of the most prolific recording artists of the 1930s, and a pioneer in the use of the Hawaiian steel guitar in country music. He frequently released songs with sexual connotations including barnyard metaphors (which became something of a trademark).^[28]

Jack Guthrie, the cousin of Woody Guthrie, performed in the thirties and early forties. Known as "Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy", he developed a style of singing and yodeling influenced by his idol, Jimmie Rodgers, and his experiences as a bucking-horse rider and rodeo performer.^[29]

Hank Snow was one of the great country legends of the 1950s, but he had actually been singing in Canada for years where he was known as "The Yodeling Ranger". He admired Jimmie Rodgers as well, and learned to yodel by listening to his records. He even named his son Jimmie Rodgers Snow.^[30]

Tommy Duncan, vocalist for "Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys", was a good yodeler. (See the sound file above with Duncan singing Rodger's "Blue Yodel No. 1" in 1937) Bob Wills is considered by music authorities to be the co-founder of Western Swing.

The DeZurik Sisters were two of the first women to become stars on both the National Barn Dance and the Grand Ole Opry, largely a result of their original yodeling style. Carolina Cotton^[31] and Patsy Montana were early cowgirl yodeling singers as well.^[32] Patsy Montana's signature song, "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" was again popularized by singer/yodeler LeAnn Rimes in the 1990s. In 1996 Rimes also recorded "The Cattle Call", a "singing cowboy" song written by cowboy yodeler Tex Owens, with legendary singer Eddy Arnold. "The Cattle Call" was Arnold's signature song, but it has been recorded by many artists including Emmylou Harris and even Elvis Presley.^[33]

Cowboy singer and actor Roy Rogers yodeled, as did his box office competitor Gene Autry. (See the sound file above in which Autry sings the Jimmie Rodgers song "Blue Yodel No. 5") "Yodelin' Slim Clark", hailed from Maine and performed for 70 years. (See the sound file above "The Old Chisholm Trail" recorded by Clark in 1956.)^[34] Yodeler Don Walker was from Texas. Though widely known in Texas, his singing career didn't really take off until he was 60 years old in 1994. In 2000 he received a lifetime "Heritage" award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he and his band played at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.^[35] Jimmie Davis, who served two terms as the Governor of Louisiana, was also a successful country singer who yodeled.

Perhaps yodeler Bill Haley of Bill Haley and the Comets has one of the strangest histories of all. Bill Haley zoomed to fame as the "King of Rock and Roll" when his song "Rock Around the Clock" was featured in the popular film Blackboard Jungle. But it is little-known that Haley and his band had been around for years doing Western swing music with Haley featured as a yodeler. Haley was born in 1925 and "Rock Around the Clock" made the scene in 1955 and at that time he and his band were using the name the Comets. However, prior to that time they had gone under the names the Down Homers, the Texas Range Riders, the Four Aces of Western Swing and finally, The Saddlemen. At one point in the 1940s, Bill Haley was even awarded Indiana State Yodeling Champion for his skill, perhaps something that his skillful manager Colonel Tom Parker felt not important to mention to his screaming teenage rock 'n' roll fans.^[36][37][38]

Slim Whitman has been performing for over 60 years. Whitman avoided the "down on yer luck" songs, preferring instead to sing laid-back romantic melodies about simple life and love. Critics dubbed his musical style "countrypolitan," due to its fusion of country music and a more sophisticated crooner vocal style. Pop singer Michael Jackson cited Whitman as one of his ten favorite vocalists.^[39] Beatles George Harrison and Paul McCartney cite Whitman as an early influence^{[40] [41][42]} In the film Mars Attacks!, a Kansas teenager discovers that the Martians are vulnerable to Whitman's song "Indian Love Call", whereupon he and his grandmother use it to destroy the Martians.

Other western music yodeling singers include Douglas B. Green (Ranger Doug) and Wylie Gustafson. Green sings with his band Riders in the Sky.^[43] He is also a music historian and has written a book, Singing in the Saddle "the first comprehensive look at the singing cowboy phenomenon that swept the United States in the 1930s". Gustafson learned to yodel from his dad, who learned from Austrians on the ski team in Bozeman, Montana. In 2007, he released an instructional book and CD titled, How to Yodel: Lessons to Tickle Your Tonsils.

Yodeler Taylor Ware was a contestant on America's Got Talent when she was eleven years old. According to Ware, she taught herself to yodel from an audiotape and instruction book when she was seven years old.^[44] Alyse Eady, who holds the title of Miss Arkansas 2010 and was 1st runner-up in the Miss America 2011 Pageant, both yodeled and did ventriloquism in the song "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" as her talent performance.

Outside of the U.S.[link]

Franzl Lang (left) and Schwarz Ferdl.

Canadian Wilf Carter (Montana Slim) was known as the "Father of Canadian Country Music". He began singing in the 1920s after seeing a traveling Swiss performer named "The Yodeling Fool" in a nearby town. Carter sang in the "singing cowboy" style and developed a yodel with a Swiss-sound sometimes called an "echo yodel" or a "three-in-one."^[45]

Stompin' Tom Connors of Canada is also noted for yodeling in some of his songs.

Bobbejaan Schoepen was a Belgian yodeler^[46] and Franzl Lang, also known as "Der Jodlerkönig" or the Yodel King, is a professional yodeler from the Alps.

Joy McKean, Australian country music singer-songwriter, is known as the "grand lady" of Australian country music. By the age of 18 she was performing with her sister Heather on their own radio show as the McKean Sisters, noted for their yodeling harmonies. Mckean performed with her husband Slim Dusty till his death in 2003. Slim, a singer-songwriter and yodeler as well, wrote his first song, "The Way the Cowboy Dies" when he was only 10 years old. He received 37 Golden Guitar and two ARIA awards and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.^[47]

Kishore Kumar was a playback singer from India, famous for his yodeling,^[48] while it was JP Chandrababu talented comedian of Tamil film who introduced yodeling as playback singing in India.^[48][49][49]

Recent developments[link]

One of the earliest songs to portray an unusual marriage between yodeling and rock music was "Hocus Pocus" by the Dutch band Focus. A UK example of this style was the Glasgow-born Karl Denver; the style can be heard in Frank Ifield's version of Johnny Mercer's "I Remember You." Slim Cessna's Auto Club often features Slim and Jay Munly yodeling.

The Tarzan yell[link]

	Weissmuller's famous "Tarzan yell" noicon audio sequence extracted from one of Weissmuller's Tarzan movies
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The Tarzan yell is the yodel-like call of the character Tarzan, as portrayed by actor Johnny Weissmuller in the films based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, starting with Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). The yell was a creation of the movies, based on what Burroughs described in his books as "the victory cry of the bull ape."

See also[link]

• Field holler
• Singing cowboy
• Western music (North America)
• Old time music
• Western swing

References[link]

External links[link]

• [1] America's Blue Yodel
• Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World by Bart Plantenga, New York: Routledge, 2004), ISBN 0-415-93990-9 – from Switzerland to the avant-garde, an exhaustive survey of the field.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2008)

Taylor Marie Ware (born September 17, 1994) is an American singer and yodeler from Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville.

Before Ware knew how to yodel, she performed at a county fair at age four. Her talent was singing and playing a violin. When she was six she decided to sing to seniors, so she started an Adopt-a-Grandparent program. According to Ware, she taught herself to yodel from an audiotape and instruction book when she was seven years old, after going to a convention with a friend.

In 2003, Ware won $10,000 in the Yahoo! Yodel Challenge. She beat eight other yodelers to receive her prize. She was later featured in a Yahoo commercial. She also participated in a challenge to beat a Guinness world record.

Taylor honed her yodeling skills while taking lessons from country music star Margo Smith who is known worldwide as the Tennessee Yodeler. Shortly after taking yodeling lessons from Smith, Taylor was the runner-up on the NBC show America's Got Talent in August 2006.

Ware performed on the Grand Ole Opry with Riders in the Sky when she was nine years old. At age eleven, she competed on NBC's America's Got Talent and was selected by the viewers on July 13, 2006 to advance to the final competition (which aired on August 16, 2006). She was one of the top five finalists but she lost to 11-year old Bianca Ryan and Irish step-dancers/fiddlers, Celtic Spring. The million-dollar prize was later awarded to Ryan.

When Ware was nine, she was given a dog as a gift by Wayne Brady after she appeared on his now defunct television show, The Wayne Brady Show. She named the dog Brady after him.

Ware's younger brother, Harrison, is also a singer and yodeler. He has performed onstage at the Tennessee State Fair.

Ware released her self-titled debut album in 2004. In 2007, she released her second album, titled America's Yodeling Sweetheart. She appeared in an episode of Laguna Beach as herself.^[1] Ware was an opening act at the Liberty Bowl for singer LeAnn Rimes in Memphis, Tennessee on December 29, 2006, performing the national anthem.

She also has appeared in commercials for Beech Bend Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Discography[link]

America's Yodeling Sweetheart track listing:

1. "How Does She Yodel?"
2. "Yodeling Cowgirls"
3. "Mockingbird Yodel"
4. "Chocolate Ice Cream Cone"
5. "Taylor's Yodel"
6. "Cowboy's Sweetheart"
7. "My Little Lady Who"
8. "Nola"
9. "Hillbilly Fever"
10. "Jesse The Yodeling Cowgirl"
11. "He Taught Me How To Yodel"
12. "Yodel Your Troubles Away"

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Taylor Ware at the Internet Movie Database
• Taylor Ware on Myspace

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2009)

Franzl Lang
Franzl Lang (with Schwarz Ferdl, right) in 1988.
Background information
Birth name	Franz Lang
Also known as	Yodelking (Jodlerkönig)
Born	(1930-12-28) 28 December 1930 (age 81) Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Genres	Folk music (yodeling)
Instruments	Vocals, accordion, guitar
Years active	1957–present
Labels	Universal Music GmbH

Franz "Franzl" Lang (born December 28, 1930), known as the Yodelking (German: Jodlerkönig), is a famous yodeler from Bavaria, Lang also sings and plays the guitar and the accordion; he has further authored several books on yodeling. Lang's genre is German folk music; he typically sings in Bavarian dialect of the rural Alpine regions and its inhabitants. He inevitably breaks into yodeling at some point within each song. Now retired as a performer, he still occasionally records.

By general consensus, Lang is considered to be the best Alpine yodler in the world; he is certainly the best-selling.

Career[link]

Raised in Munich, Lang trained as a toolmaker. He started playing his trademark accordion at the age of nine. His greatest hit was his 1968 composition "Kufstein-Lied". For many years in the 1970s, he was a permanent feature of musical variety shows on West German television, especially on the ZDF program Lustige Musikanten.

Lang has sold more than 10 million recordings; he has earned 20 gold records and one platinum record within the German recording industry. He is known as one of the most famous yodelers to have ever lived.

Personal life[link]

He has been married to his wife Johanna since 1954; he has one son (Franz Herbert Lang) and one daughter (Christl).

References[link]

Francis Edward Ifield (born 30 November 1937) is an early Australian-English easy listening and country music singer. He achieved considerable success in the early 1960s, especially in the UK Singles Chart, where he had four Number 1 hits between 1962 and 1963.

Early years[link]

Born in Coundon, Coventry, Warwickshire, England, Ifield moved with his Australian parents to Dural, 50 km (31 mi) from Sydney, about 1946. It was a rural district and he listened to hillbilly music (now called country) while milking the cows. He learned how to yodel in imitation of country stars like Hank Snow. At the age of thirteen he recorded "Did You See My Daddy Over There?", and by the age of 19 was the number one recording star in Australia and New Zealand.^{[citation needed]} He returned to the UK in 1959.

1960s success[link]

His first record in the UK was "Lucky Devil" (1960) which got to number 22 in the UK charts. His next six records were less successful, but he finally broke through with "I Remember You" which topped the charts for seven weeks in 1962. Known for Ifield's falsetto and a slight yodel, it was the second highest-selling single of that year in the UK^[1] and became the seventh million-selling single.^[2]

His next single was a double A-side: "Lovesick Blues" and "She Taught Me How to Yodel". "Lovesick Blues" was originally sung by Hank Williams and was treated in an upbeat "Let's Twist Again" style. The other song is a virtuoso piece of yodelling with the final verse - entirely yodelling - sung at double-speed. It also reached number 44 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. His next hit, "Wayward Wind", made him the first UK-based person to reach number one three times in the UK in succession. The only other person to have done so at that point was Elvis Presley.

His other recordings include "Nobody's Darling but Mine", "Confessin'" (his fourth and final UK number one), "Mule Train" and "Don't Blame Me". In 1963 he sang at the Grand Ole Opry, introduced by one of his heroes, Hank Snow. Many of his records were produced by Norrie Paramor.

[edit] Jolly What!

Ifield toured the UK in 1963. While Vee-Jay Records temporarily had the U.S. rights to a number of The Beatles' recordings, they released an album called Jolly What! England's Greatest Recording Stars: The Beatles and Frank Ifield on Stage on 26 February 1964. The LP consisted of four studio Beatles songs (all previously released), plus eight recordings of Ifield. The original pressing has a drawing of a chubby old man with a moustache, and is itself quite rare. However, just before Vee Jay's publishing rights were about to expire on 10 October 1964 they changed the sleeve cover to a drawing of the Beatles. Probably less than one hundred copies were pressed, making it is one of the rarest Beatles albums. Three sealed stereo copies were discovered in 1976, selling for $600, $900 and $1,800. One of the three was re-sold in 1995 for $22,000.^[3]

Like many of the albums rushed out to cash in on the Beatles success, Jolly What! has been called a "rip-off", due to its intentional misleading of buyers. The album consisted entirely of studio recordings (not live, and thus not "on stage"), and all the Beatles material had been previously released. Moreover, while Ifield was a moderate success in his own country he was hardly a "great recording star".^[4] The album is also known for a mistake in the liner notes: "It is with a good deal of pride and pleasure that this copulation has been presented" -- presumably "copulation" should have been "compilation". (One person commented that "copulation" was appropriate, since the makers of the album were "trying to screw the fans out of their money.")^[4] The album, however, was significant in that, until the release of the Beatles' 1973 compilation album, The Beatles/1962-1966, Jolly What! was the only American Beatles album to include "From Me to You".

[edit] A Song for Europe

Ifield twice entered the UK heat of the Eurovision Song Contest. He came second in the 1962 heat with "Alone Too Long" (losing to Ronnie Carroll). In the 1976 heat he tried with "Ain't Gonna Take No For An Answer", finishing last of 12.

"She Taught Me to Yodel"[link]

In 1991, Ifield returned to the UK chart when "She Taught Me to Yodel", billed as 'Frank Ifield featuring The Backroom Boys', reaching #40 in the UK Singles Chart. In over thirty years, it is his sixteenth appearance in that list.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

Notes

• ^A"It's My Time" peaked at #12 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada.
• ^BCredited to Frank Ifield featuring The Backroom Boys

References[link]