Accompanied recitations of poetry or dramatic texts, most often for spoken voice and piano, became very popular in the nineteenth century as an after dinner entertainment. The genre was often looked down on as something for authors and composers of lesser stature, though there are examples by Robert Schumann (Ballads for Declaration, 1850s)[1] and Richard Strauss (Enoch Arden (1897).[2] The English composer Stanley Hawley made many such settings, some of which were performed at the first season (1895) of the Henry Wood Proms in London.[3] His friend Lena Ashwell was often the performer.[4]
In popular music, especially country music, a recitation song or "recitation" as it is more commonly called, is a spoken narrative of a song, generally with a sentimental (or at times, religious) theme. Such numbers were quite popular from the 1930s into the 1960s, although there were only few in number. While they almost disappeared in the 1970s, that decade saw several of the biggest recitation songs of all time: Red Sovine's sentimental ode to an ill child "Teddy Bear" and C. W. McCall's truck-driving saga "Convoy", both songs hitting number one on the country charts and even crossing over into the pop market. McCall, who did not sing, became a popular country star in the 1970s with a string of recitations, most of them comic, although his last hit, 1977's "Roses for Mama" was a sentimental tale in the best Sovine tradition. A number of Elvis Presley's and Johnny Cash's songs, as well as a number of songs from other genres of popular music and a number of gospel songs, also featured recitations.
Semi-recitation songs were also very popular during this period. In a semi-recitation song, the verse, or part of a verse, is spoken and the chorus is sung.
Hits of this nature: