Celebrate statehood: I went on a hunt for the Arizona sound. Here's what I found

You could go looking for an Arizona sound.

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• → The 1920s to 1950s

• → The 1960s and 1970s

• → The 1980s and 1990s

• → The 2000s to now

But all you'll find is that the history of Arizona music is the story of assorted different scenes, sounds and players spanning countless generations.

It's a point we were reminded of repeatedly in compiling a list of 100 essential recordings in the history of Arizona music.

Yes, Lee Hazlewood was certainly a looming presence in the Arizona music of the 1950s, producing tracks as seminal (and popular) as Sanford Clark's "The Fool" and Duane Eddy's "Rebel-'Rouser," one of many instrumental classics included on Eddy's made-in-Phoenix calling card, "Have 'Twangy' Guitar Will Travel."

But that decade also brought the launch of Canyon Records, a Native American label based in Phoenix with Ed Lee Natay and his album, "Natay, Navajo Singer."

It started in 1929 with the 'Cowgirl Singer'

In 1929, Apache County's Billie Maxwell carved out her own place in Arizona music history by cutting six sides for the Victor Talking Machine Company, making Maxwell the first woman to record a country song as well the first Arizona act to be recorded.

Arizona's connection to country music would grow stronger over time.

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It played a role in the formative years of Mud Springs Canyon's Arizona Cowboy, Rex Allen, who starred in his first singing-cowboy Western in 1949. Country music also influenced a string of major stars, from Marty Robbins and Buck Owens to Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Jessi Colter and Dierks Bentley.

Yes, those country acts had all moved on to greener pastures by the time they made the records that continue to define them, but their time in Arizona shaped the artists they became.

Lalo Guerrero, a man often celebrated as the Father of Chicano Music, was born in Tucson and represented Arizona at the New York World's Fair in 1939.

And although jazz legend Charles Mingus was a toddler when his family settled in Los Angeles, he was born at an Army post in Nogales, which celebrates his birth with the Charles Mingus Hometown Jazz Festival.

Arizona rock stars like Alice Cooper, Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks

The '60s brought a string of big hit singles for acts with Arizona ties, from "Pretty Little Angel Eyes," a doo-wop-flavored smash by Yuma native Curtis Lee, to "Danke Schoen," by Wayne Newton, a singer whose journey to Mr. Las Vegas began on a Phoenix television show.

Meanwhile, Dyke and the Blazers spawned a Top 10 Wilson Pickett cover with the made-in-Phoenix classic "Funky Broadway."

And Alice Cooper scored a big regional hit with the garage-rocking "Don't Blow Your Mind" by the Spiders, a group that at that point included two fellow Cortez High School grads with whom he'd one day be inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, bassist Dennis Dunaway and the late Glen Buxton on guitar.

By the time the Spiders moved to Santa Monica, former North High School football played Michael Bruce had joined the fold. And with the addition of drummer Neal Smith, who befriended the guys in art class at Glendale Community College, and one final name change (from the Spiders to the Nazz to Alice Cooper), the classic lineup was complete.

Alice Cooper would, of course, become one of the biggest rock acts of the '70s, as would two legendary women born and raised in Arizona — Phoenix native Stevie Nicks and Tucson native Linda Ronstadt. While she was with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks' "Rumours" is among the biggest-selling albums of all time. Ronstadt became one of the most successful singers of her generation, selling out "stupid" arenas, as she calls them, thanks to hits as huge as "When Will I Be Loved" and "Blue Bayou."

Arizonans making a name in the '80s and '90s

As the music world continued to evolve and splinter in the '70s and '80s, Arizona artists made their mark in punk-rock (JFA, the Meat Puppets and more), New Wave (the Tubes, whose early rep was based more on what Rolling Stone labeled "one of the wildest stage shows in the business") and thrash-metal (Sacred Reich, Flotsam and Jetsam).

Formed by high-school friends from Phoenix, Mr. Mister topped the Billboard Hot 100 twice, in 1985 and 1986, with New Wave-flavored pop songs.

The Tempe scene exploded in the ‘90s when Gin Blossoms' quadruple-platinum breakthrough with “New Miserable Experience” had some people looking for the next Seattle on Mill Ave., which paved the way for major-label deals for the Refreshments, Dead Hot Workshop and Pistoleros.

But that decade also brought important works from the experimental fringes (Sun City Girls), a massive dance hit from CeCe Peniston, Chester Bennington bringing the grunge pre-Linkin Park with Grey Daze, Supermarket's old-school hip-hop and Native American New Age from R. Carlos Nakai, Canyon Records' biggest-selling artist.

Meanwhile, Tucson has produced a steady stream of nationally celebrated indie artists since the '80s, from the Sidewinders and Howe Gelb's Giant Sand to Calexico and Rainer Ptacek, with Neko Case recording several albums there.

Arizona music in the new millennium

The 21st Century had barely started when Jimmy Eat World emerged as the biggest Arizona rock act of this century with "Bleed American," which sent one of the most contagious pop-punk songs in history, "The Middle," to the upper reaches of the Hot 100, inspiring covers by both Prince and Taylor Swift.

Sedona native Michelle Branch named her double-platinum breakthrough, 2001's "The Spirit Room," after a corner saloon in a haunted historic hotel in Jerome and earned a Best New Artist Grammy nomination.

Glendale's Jordin Sparks rose to fame in 2007 by becoming the youngest "American Idol" winner in the series' history at 17 and followed through by sending three R&B songs to the Top 10.

While Sparks was competing on "Idol," her neighbors in Job For a Cowboy released the highest-charting debut by a metal act since Slipknot's self-titled debut in 1999 with a death-metal album called "Genesis."

Yet another Glendale native, Nate Ruess of the Format, topped the charts after moving to Brooklyn and starting a new band, fun., who took home Best New Artist and Song of the Year (for the chart-topping 10-times-platinum pop gem "We Are Young") at the 2013 Grammys.

A Paradise Valley brother act, Kongos, spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard alternative-songs chart in 2014 with the accordion-driven world-pop of "Come With Me Now." The hip-hop scene spawned Futuristic, Mega Ran and Injury Reserve while Gilbert native Lindsey Stirling sent five albums to the top of Billboard's classical chart since going viral with her platinum breakthrough single "Crystallize" in 2012.

And the Black Moods staked their claim as the Tempe rockers most likely to challenge Greta Van Fleet for the heart of classic-rock revivalists with the 2020 release of "Sunshine," an album that's spawned four hits (so far) on rock radio.

The one thing all these artists have in common is their shared connection to the state of Arizona. And the same is true of every artist featured on our list of essential recordings, chosen with an eye toward showcasing the breadth and depth of Arizona music.

Some acts obviously came up through the scene together, sharing bills and fans, some even sharing a producer. But for the most part, these musicians travel to the beat of what Ronstadt calls a different drum.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: The Arizona sound, from cowboy songs to Stevie Nicks, hip hop and more