1. What makes Country, country?

2. Quick History Country originates from many genres, but most distinctly from Folk. “Jingle Bells” is the most famous song in the world and falls into the folk genre that gave it’s roots to country. Country was originally developed by both African and Caucasian plantation workers in the south and called hillbilly music (black hillbilly music). 1920’s record companies used term country to segregate the artists. Lazy, Lazy River was one of the first black hillbilly music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz7Z5Xqmqis (^ "PBS.org". PBS.org. Retrieved 2011-02-01.)^"PBS.org" April 1924, "Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis –first females to record, release country music ( Thesylvaherald.com)Samantha Bumgarner Grand ole Opry: Founded on November 28, 1925 ( "Radio – Long Players". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 2010- 04-04.)"Radio – Long Players" Western: developed parallel to hillbilly music and was eventually combined to create country and western and then country. Directly related to isles folk and celebrates the life of a cowboy.( Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads,)

3. Country Timeline by Artist Folk( Appalachian Folk )-> Arnold Shultz (travis thumb picking )-> Carters ( recorded traditional )->Bob Wills ( 2 nd generation, electric guitar )->Hank Williams-> George Jones->Cash-> Gordon Lightfoot( cross over, 3 rd generation )-> Patsy Cline -> Loretta Lynn -> Merle Haggard-> Dylan-> Willie( 4 th generation )-> Dolly-> Alan Jackson-> George Strait-> Skynyrd ( 5 th generation ) Shania-> Garth Brooks -> Toby Keith- > Dixie Chicks->Reba-> EXPLOSION of sub genres and 6 th generation (Sheryl Crow->Taylor Swift, etc.). Compliments of Wikipedia and other sources.