Country music is a genre of American popular music that began in the rural regions of the Southern United States in the 1920s and 20th century Canada. 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.
Read more about Country Music: Early Origins, First Generation (1920s), Second Generation (1930s–1940s), Third Generation (1950s–1960s), Decline of Western Music and The Cowboy Ballad, Fifth Generation (1990s), Sixth Generation (2000s), Seventh Generation (2010s)
Famous quotes containing the words country and/or music:
“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.”
—Andy Warhol (1928–1987)
“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)