Country Music

Country music, the first half of Billbiard's country and western music category, is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in traditional folk music,celtic music,blues,gospel music,hokum, and old-time-music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s. The term country music began to be used in the 1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music was deemed to be degrading, and the term was widely embraced in the 1970s, while country and western has declined in use since that time.

Country Styles

• Nashville sound (the pop-like music very popular in the 1960s);
• bluegrass, a fast mandolin, banjo, and fiddle-based

• Western, which encompasses traditional Western cowboy campfire ballads and Hollywood

• Western swing, a sophisticated dance music
• the Bakersfield sound which used the new Fender telecaster guitars, a big drum beat, and dance style music that would catch your attention like "a freight train running" (Buck Owens)

Top Artist

Bill Monroe

Flatt and Scruggs

Roy Rogers

The Sons of the pooneers

Gene autry

Bob Wills

Buck Owens

Merle Haggard