Country Music

Country music is a genre of American popular music that originated in the rural regions of the Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from southeastern American folk music, Western cowboy. Blues mode has been used extensively throughout its recorded history. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjoes, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas.


The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music; it came to encompass Western music, which evolved parallel to hillbilly music from similar roots, in the mid-20th century. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute in the United States.

Origins

Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years. They brought some of their most important valuables with them, and to most of them this was an instrument: “Early Scottish settlers enjoyed the fiddle because it could be played to sound sad and mournful or bright and bouncy” The Irish fiddle, the German derived dulcimer, the Italian mandolin, the Spanish guitar, and the West African banjo were the most common musical instruments. The interactions among musicians from different ethnic groups produced music unique to this region of North America. Appalachian string bands of the early 20th century primarily consisted of the fiddle, guitar, and banjo. This early country music along with early recorded country music is often referred to as old-time music.

According to Bill Malone in Country Music U.S.A, country music was “introduced to the world as a southern phenomenon." In the South, folk music was a combination of cultural strains, combining musical traditions of a variety of ethnic groups in the region. For example, some instrumental pieces from British and Irish immigrants were the basis of folk songs and ballads that form what is now known as old time music, from which country music descended. It is commonly thought that British and Irish folk music heavily influenced the development of old time music in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, where the earliest European settlers hailed principally from Northern England, the Scottish Lowlands and the Irish province of Ulster.

Country music is often erroneously thought of as solely the creation of European Americans. However, a great deal of style—and of course, the banjo, a major instrument in most early American folk songs—came from African Americans. One of the reasons country music was created by African Americans, as well as European Americans, is because blacks and whites in rural communities in the south often worked and played together, just as recollected by DeFord Bailey in the PBS documentary, DeFord Bailey: A Legend Lost. Influential black guitarist Arnold Schultz, known as the primary source for thumb style, or Travis picking, played with white musicians in West-central Kentucky.

Throughout the 19th century, several immigrant groups from Europe, most notably from Ireland, Germany, Spain, and Italy, moved to Texas. These groups interacted with Mexican, Native American and U.S. communities that were already established in Texas. As a result of this cohabitation and extended contact, Texas has developed unique cultural traits that are rooted in the culture of all of its founding communities.

First generation (1920s)

People had come to the city to work in its cotton mills and brought their music with them. It would remain a major recording center for two decades and a major performance center for four decades, into the first country music TV shows on local Atlanta stations in the 1950s. Some record companies in Atlanta turned away early artists such as Fiddlin' John Carson; while others realized that his music would fit perfectly with the lifestyle of the country's agricultural workers. The first commercial recordings of what was considered country music were "Arkansas Traveler" and "Turkey in the Straw" by fiddlers Henry Gilliland & A.C. (Eck) Robertson on June 30, 1925 for Victor Records. Columbia Records began issuing records with "hillbilly" music (series 15000D "Old Familiar Tunes") as early as 1924.

A year earlier, on June 14, 1923, Fiddlin' John Carson recorded "Little Log Cabin in the Lane" for Okeh Records. Vernon Dalhart was the first country singer to have a nationwide hit in May 1924 with "Wreck of the Old '97". The flip side of the record was "Lonesome Road Blues," which also became very popular. In April 1924, "Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis became the first female musicians to record and release country songs.

Many "hillbilly" musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the decade and into the 30s. Other important early recording artists were Riley Puckett, Don Richardson, Fiddlin' John Carson, Uncle Dave Macon, Al Hopkins, Ernest V. Stoneman, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers and The Skillet Lickers. The steel guitar entered country music as early as 1922, when Jimmie Tarlton met famed Hawaiian guitarist Frank Ferera on the West Coast.

Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family are widely considered to be important early country musicians. Their songs were first captured at a historic recording session in Bristol on August 1, 1927, where Ralph Peer was the talent scout and sound recordist. A scene in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? (film)depicts a similar occurrence in the same timeframe.

Rodgers fused hillbilly country, gospel, jazz, blues, pop, cowboy, and folk; and many of his best songs were his compositions, including “Blue Yodel”,which sold over a million records and established Rodgers as the premier singer of early country music.

Beginning in 1927, and for the next 17 years, the Carters recorded some 300 old-time ballads, traditional tunes, country songs and gospel hymns, all representative of America's southeastern folklore and heritage

Some famous singers

Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers



Keith Urban




Taylor Swift
She is a newcomer, but she is a great success!