A honky tonk (also called a honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is a type of bar with musical entertainment common in the Southern and Southwestern United States. The term has also been applied to various styles of 20th-century American music.
The origin of the term honky tonk is unknown. The earliest source explaining the derivation of the term (spelled "honkatonk") was an article published in 1900 by the New York Sun and widely reprinted in other newspapers. It states that the term came from the sound of geese, which led an unsuspecting group of cowboys to the flock instead of to the variety show they expected. The OED also states that the first use in print was in 1894 in the Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Oklahoma) newspaper, in which it was written "honk-a-tonk". However, honkatonk has been cited from at least 1892 in the Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas), which used the term to refer to an adult establishment in Fort Worth.
The "tonk" portion of the name may have come from a brand name of piano. One American manufacturer of large upright pianos was the firm of William Tonk & Bros. (established 1889), which made a piano with the decal "Ernest A. Tonk". These upright grand pianos, made in Chicago and New York, were called "Tonk pianos". Some found their way to Tin Pan Alley and may have given rise to the expression of "honky tonk bars". It is unlikely, however, that a Tin Pan Alley piano manufactured in 1889 would influence the vocabulary in either Texas or Indian Territory by 1892 or 1894.
The term honky was, as a term for whites, derived from bohunk and hunky. In the early 1900s, these were derogatory terms for Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants. According to Robert Hendrickson, author of the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Black workers in Chicago meatpacking plants picked up the term from white workers and began applying it indiscriminately to all Caucasians. "Father of the Blues" W.C. Handy wrote of "Negroes and hunkies" in his autobiography.
Honky tonks were rough establishments, mostly in the Deep South and Southwest, that served alcoholic beverages to working class clientele. Honky tonks sometimes also offered dancing to piano players or small bands, and were sometimes also centers of prostitution. Katrina Hazzard-Gordon writes that the honky-tonk was "the first urban manifestation of the jook", and that "the name itself became synonymous with a style of music. Related to the classic blues in tonal structure, honky-tonk has a tempo that is slightly stepped up. It is rhythmically suited for many African-American dance."
Although the derivation of the term is unknown, honky tonk originally referred to bawdy variety shows in the West (Oklahoma and Indian Territories and Texas) and to the theaters housing them. The earliest mention of them in print refers to them as "variety theaters" and describe the entertainment as "variety shows". The theaters often had an attached gambling house and always a bar.
In recollections long after the frontiers closed, writers such as Wyatt Earp and E.C. Abbott referred often to honky tonks in the cowtowns of Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, etc. of the 1870s and 1880s. Their recollections contain lurid accounts of the women and violence accompanying the shows. However, in contemporary accounts these were nearly always called hurdy gurdy shows, possibly derived from the term hurdy gurdy that was sometimes mistakenly applied to a small, portable barrel organ that was frequently played by organ grinders and buskers (street musicians).
As late as 1913, Col. Edwin Emerson, a former Rough Rider commander, hosted a honky-tonk party in New York City. The Rough Riders were recruited from the ranches of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territories, so the term was still in popular use during the Spanish American War.
The distinction between honky tonks, saloons and dancehalls was often blurred, especially in cowtowns, mining districts, military forts and oilfields of the West. As variety theaters and dancehalls disappeared, honky tonk eventually became associated mainly with