• Country music started in 1920s as a commercial genre that pulled together diverse sources of music from religious, popular, and folk traditions.


• The business accompanying the new technologies of radio and records fostered the development of the new genre.


• The audience for country music was largely rural, was mostly (but not exclusively) white, and had not been targeted directly by other musical genres.


• There was no single musical style present in the early days of the genre; the unifying factor for the genre was mainly the performers’ and audience’s identities.