Folk Music Origins

The roots of country music lie in the folk music that English, Irish, and Scottish settlers brought to the Appalachian Mountain region of the South in the 18th and 19th centuries. English ballads and Irish reels in particular had a major early influence. Such music was performed from colonial times in both religious and social contexts, including church services, weddings, and barn dances. In the early 1920s the first country recordings appeared, introducing the music of string bands.

Important early country music artists included the Carter Family, a trio from rural Virginia, and the blues-oriented singer and songwriter Jimmie Rodgers, from Mississippi. From the late 1920s to the early 1940s the Carter family recorded old folk ballads. Since the 1930s country and folk styles have continued to influence one another. Other major figures of folk-country music include singer and fiddle player Roy Acuff in the 1940s and 1950s, singer Johnny Cash from the 1960s into the 1990s, and country artists Lyle Lovett and Mary Chapin Carpenter in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bluegrass

Bluegrass music developed in rural Kentucky during the 1920s and 1930s. It represented, primarily through its instrumentation, a return to the prerecording days of folk music. Characterized by the acoustic string-band sound of the Southeast, the bluegrass style usually features a banjo, fiddle, and mandolin in lead parts while a guitar and string bass provide accompaniment. Bluegrass vocals are often harmonized and emphasize a high-pitched tenor voice. Instrumental solos and improvisations may be featured between stanzas in a bluegrass song.

Honky-Tonk Music

The first truly urban form of country music, honky-tonk music originated in the roadside bars of Texas and Oklahoma in the 1930s and 1940s. Honky-tonk combined the often sad ballads of folk music and older forms of country music with driving, up-tempo rhythms and the improvisational freedom of jazz music. Drums and steel and electric guitars were prominent. The new style developed as a result of several factors, including the urbanization of the rural South, the introduction of electric guitars, and a more relaxed public attitude toward drinking following the repeal of prohibition in 1933. Honky-tonk broadened the scope of country music lyrics, and songs about drinking, infidelity, and divorce became national hits for the first time.