Country music

The blues, old-time music, church music (such as Southern gospel and spirituals), old-time music, and American folk music forms such as Appalachian, Cajun, Creole, and the cowboy Western music styles of New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country are the roots of the popular music genre known as country (also known as country and western). Country is a subgenre of country and western music. The South and the Southwest of the United States are where its origins in popular culture may be traced back to the early 1920s.

Country music is typically comprised of ballads and dance tunes (more commonly known as "Honky Tonk music") with generally simple forms, folk lyrics, and harmonies. String instruments like electric and acoustic guitars, steel guitars (such as pedal steels and dobros), banjos, and fiddles, as well as harmonicas, are frequently used to accompany country music. Throughout the whole of its documented existence, blues modes have been used frequently.

It wasn't until the 1940s that the name "country music" began to eclipse its predecessor, "hillbilly music." Country music eventually came to include Western music, which developed concurrently with hillbilly music from roots that were comparable in the middle of the 20th century. In the United States, in 2009, country music was the genre of rush hour radio that was listened to the most during the evening commute, and it was the genre that was listened to the second most during the morning commute.

Nowadays, the word "country music" may refer to a wide variety of musical styles and subgenres. The blues and other forms of American folk music served as inspiration for the development of country music, which had its beginnings in the working class folk music of the United States. It has historical origins in the music of North American natives, Celtic music, early music from the British Isles, jota, Irish traditional music, singing cowboys, corrido, ranchera, norteo, French folk music, African-American music, and other traditional forms of folk music from throughout the world.