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Texas State Historical Association - Handbook of Texas - Country Music
NPR - How The Sound Of Country Music Changed
Library of Congress - Dolly Parton and the Roots of Country Music - Country Music Timeline
Oklahoma Historical Society - The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - COUNTRY MUSIC.
LiveAbout - The History of Country Music
CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas - Country music
Music Rising at Tulane - Country Music
country music - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
country music - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

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country music , style of American popular music that originated in rural areas of the South and West in the early 20th century. The term country and western music (later shortened to country music ) was adopted by the recording industry in 1949 to replace the derogatory label hillbilly music .

Ultimately, country music’s roots lie in the ballads, folk songs, and popular songs of the English, Scots, and Irish settlers of the Appalachians and other parts of the South. In the early 1920s the traditional string-band music of the Southern mountain regions began to be commercially recorded, with Fiddlin’ John Carson garnering the genre’s first hit record in 1923. The vigour and realism of the rural songs, many lyrics of which were rather impersonal narratives of tragedies pointing to a stern Calvinist moral , stood in marked contrast to the often mawkish sentimentality of much of the popular music of the day.

Young girl wearing a demin jacket playing the trumpet (child, musical instruments, Asian ethnicity)

More important than recordings for the growth of country music was broadcast radio. Small radio stations appeared in the larger Southern and Midwestern cities in the 1920s, and many devoted part of their airtime to live or recorded music suited to white rural audiences. Two regular programs of great influence were the “National Barn Dance” from Chicago , begun in 1924, and the “Grand Ole Opry” from Nashville , begun in 1925. The immediate popularity of such programs encouraged more recordings and the appearance of talented musicians from the hills at radio and record studios. Among these were the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers , whose performances strongly influenced later musicians. These early recordings were of ballads and country dance tunes and featured the fiddle and guitar as lead instruments over a rhythmic foundation of guitar or banjo . Other instruments occasionally used included Appalachian dulcimer , harmonica , and mandolin ; vocals were done either by a single voice or in high close harmony .

With the migration of many Southern rural whites to industrial cities during the Great Depression and World War II , country music was carried into new areas and exposed to new influences, such as blues and gospel music . The nostalgic bias of country music, with its lyrics about grinding poverty, orphaned children, bereft lovers, and lonely workers far from home, held special appeal during a time of wide-scale population shifts.

During the 1930s a number of “singing cowboy” film stars, of whom Gene Autry was the best known, took country music and with suitably altered lyrics made it into a synthetic and adventitious “western” music. A second and more substantive variant of country music arose in the 1930s in the Texas-Oklahoma region, where the music of rural whites was exposed to the swing jazz of black orchestras. In response, a Western swing style evolved in the hands of Bob Wills and others and came to feature steel and amplified guitars and a strong dance rhythm . An even more important variant was honky-tonk , a country style that emerged in the 1940s with such figures as Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams . Honky-tonk’s fiddle–steel-guitar combination and its bitter, maudlin lyrics about rural whites adrift in the big city were widely adopted by other country musicians.

The same period saw a concerted effort to recover some of country music’s root values. Mandolin player Bill Monroe and his string band , the Blue Grass Boys , discarded more recently adopted rhythms and instruments and brought back the lead fiddle and high harmony singing . His banjoist, Earl Scruggs , developed a brilliant three-finger picking style that brought the instrument into a lead position. Their music, with its driving, syncopated rhythms and instrumental virtuosity, took the name “ bluegrass ” from Monroe’s band.

But commercialization proved a much stronger influence as country music became popular in all sections of the United States after World War II. In 1942 Roy Acuff , one of the most important country singers, co-organized in Nashville the first publishing house for country music. Hank Williams’ meteoric rise to fame in the late 1940s helped establish Nashville as the undisputed centre of country music, with large recording studios and the Grand Ole Opry as its chief performing venue . In the 1950s and ’60s country music became a huge commercial enterprise , with such leading performers as Tex Ritter , Johnny Cash , Tammy Wynette , Buck Owens , Merle Haggard , Patsy Cline , Loretta Lynn , and Charley Pride . Popular singers often recorded songs in a Nashville style, while many country music recordings employed lush orchestral backgrounds.

The 1970s saw the growth of the “ outlaw ” music of prominent Nashville expatriates Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings . The gap between country and the mainstream of pop music continued to narrow in that decade and the next as electric guitars replaced more traditional instruments and country music became more acceptable to a national urban audience. Country retained its vitality into the late 20th century with such diverse performers as Dolly Parton , Randy Travis , Garth Brooks , Reba McEntire , Emmylou Harris , and Lyle Lovett . Its popularity continued unabated into the 21st century, exemplified by performers Kenny Chesney , Brad Paisley , Alan Jackson , Blake Shelton , Carrie Underwood , Miranda Lambert , the Zac Brown Band, and Chris Stapleton, among others. Despite its embrace of other popular styles, country music retained an unmistakable character as one of the few truly indigenous American musical styles.

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What Reckoning?

Country music is exactly where it was last summer, when the dam on the industry’s ocean of racism supposedly broke. duh ..

“There’s something new in western swing music,” declared a 1975 article in the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle . “And it’s no gimmick … in fact it’s just a brand new sound by a lady named Ruby Falls. Miss Falls is black — and to my knowledge, this the first attempt at black female western swing music on record — or at least the first I’ve heard.”

Falls wasn’t the first Black woman to attempt a career in country music — just six years prior, Linda Martell’s “Color Him Father” rose to No. 22 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, a record that still stands — but the mid-’70s was a renaissance of sorts. Lenora Ross signed to RCA Nashville (Charley Pride’s label) in ’75, while Virginia Kirby, Barbara Cooper, and Falls launched independent careers. The press was supportive, as were many fans, but a lack of real traction stalled any forward movement. “If something doesn’t happen real soon I may have to change my name,” Falls said in 1979. “How do you think ‘Ruby Fails’ would sound?” Seven years later, Falls died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 40. An obituary written by the Associated Press noted that she’d left the music business and was working at a computer firm.

In the early ’90s, Cleve Francis, a Virginia-based cardiologist, took a swing at country music’s mainstream and was able to scratch out some early success, namely by self-financing a video for the song “Love Light.” The track was featured on Francis’s 1990 album Last Call for Love , released by the independent label Playback, and though the music itself didn’t garner much buzz, getting the “Love Light” video played on Country Music Television was enough to pique the interest of a Nashville label. But here’s where the story repeats itself: Francis’s last project was released in ’94; a few years later, he was back to practicing medicine full time. Before he left town, though, he kick-started what would become the Black Country Music Association, a group designed to provide community for Black country artists and, ideally, help them achieve tangible, sustainable success. “They let you into the restaurant, they let you be the first to do this or that,” Francis recently told Rolling Stone about the ways of the country-music industry. “Well, I figured, we can stop this. We can give other blacks an avenue to come in, through this organization.”

Aspiring artist and songwriter Frankie Staton took over the BCMA and , after reading a 1996 New York Times article that dismissed systemic racism and instead attributed the lack of Black artists in the genre to a lack of Black interest and talent (“Nashville’s new broadened constituency, which is both younger and better educated than in the past, makes such blanket dismissals hard to support,” wrote Bruce Feiler), decided to expand on the BCMA’s mission. For years she hosted Black country-music showcases, filling a stage with Black artists so undeniably good — so undeniably country — that they began to receive requests to take the show on the road. Nisha Jackson, the 1987 winner of TNN’s You Can Be a Star was a featured performer in February 1998. Despite winning the competition and landing a deal with Capitol Records in 1998, Jackson never actually became a star. She was dropped by the record label in 1990 and joined Staton’s showcases, hoping they would lead to a second-chance breakthrough.

Again, though, the measure of country music’s improvements never extended beyond the shallow, fleeting support of a handful of artists; the lines of (white) folks that spilled onto the sidewalk in front of the Bluebird Café for Staton’s showcases and the reporters who came to witness these would-be Black country stars and their rabid fans did nothing to force the hand of the industry. “We don’t know how to market you,” label execs said. “Country radio will never play you,” radio promoters said. “Country fans don’t want to listen to you,” program directors said. At the same time, Staton’s demonstrated proficiency in identifying and developing Black talent failed to materialize into a gig as an industry receptionist, let alone as an A&R rep. By the mid-aughts, she was juggling piano gigs at local restaurants and bars, piecing together enough cash to give her Black son the advantage of a private-school education in a still-segregated town. Black country singers Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer came to town soon after, their current outside-the-industry success ( via a nonprofit, Bay-area record label and an Apple-hosted podcast, respectively ) a clear rebuke of their all-too-familiar experiences in Nashville .

Today, there are lots of people who, when asked about the current state of country music, will say that the industry is making “progress.” They forget that the story has already been written, that the script has a predetermined victor in its white male hero, that the illusion of anything contrary is only meant to keep things interesting — and only temporarily. For these people, the current crop of up-and-coming Black country artists and the subsequent support from the press looks like the hopeful rise of an egalitarian sun, the dawn of a new day in which country music will finally break free from its shameful past. They don’t consider that the country-music industry hasn’t made a single notable Black hire in the last year, that one of the earliest catalysts for country music’s “reckoning” — the changing of Lady Antebellum’s name to an abbreviated version … of the same name … that already belonged to the blues singer Lady A — is drenched in the insensitivity and nod to white supremacy it claimed to address . What’s worse, they don’t know the stories of Falls or Francis or Staton, how, despite their enthusiasm and expectation, they were pushed up against the same glaringly white walls that current artists face and were left broken from the impact. They can’t imagine the ways those artists were eventually brushed aside and, with cyclical predictability, expunged from collective memory. If they did , they would know better. And if they understood how perfectly history repeats itself, how the unexamined past is the best predictor of the future, they would see the suddenly Blacker awards-show stages and the swirling excitement for what it is — but, more crucially, what it isn’t.

The last year has shades of 1975 , of 1998, of 2007, when Palmer made her Opry debut and released the declarative “Country Girl,” which peaked at No. 54 on Billboard ’s Hot Country Songs chart. From summer 2020 through fall and early winter this year, country music went out of its way to lift new Black voices, to show a more progressive side of itself. Even the N-word video from Morgan Wallen , the industry’s platinum playboy, seemed to present only a minor hiccup. Leaked on February 2, the clip drew an immediate line in the sand settled beneath country music’s foundation and forced everyone to choose a side. They did, of course, and as quickly as there were artists and fans who denounced the word and behavior, declaring that it had no place in an industry working toward a more inclusive future and demanding Wallen’s accountability, there were others who took a different approach. There was the pointing of fingers to the N-word’s use in hip-hop, to Wallen’s excessive drinking, to the fact that the man whom Wallen referred to as a p***y-a** n****r was actually Wallen’s Black friend, his existence therefore absolving Wallen of any actual racism. The most significant of these voices, however, was the industry itself, a sign that, perhaps, country music was finally willing to rid itself of rot and hollow rhetoric. The ACMs declared Wallen ineligible for the in-process awards cycle; his music disappeared from terrestrial and satellite radio; his label, Big Loud, suspended him.

Meanwhile, the backlash from Wallen’s supporters was swift and furious. Already at the top of Billboard ’s 200 chart pre-N-word, Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album remained there for seven weeks after, buoyed by fans who streamed and purchased in record numbers. They called radio stations, asking that Wallen be reinstated while bemoaning “cancel culture.” And they hurled vicious cyber threats toward those within the industry who dared to call Wallen out, including Mickey Guyton and Maren Morris. In a video posted to social media on February 10, Wallen urged “those who still see something in me and have defended me” to stop, adding, “I fully accept any penalties I’m facing.” The defense didn’t stop, though, and a February 5 report that country-music execs believed Wallen’s banishment should last “for six months to a year or longer” started to seem like a wild overestimation for the artist with the biggest album in all of music — more significantly, for the artist who reached the pinnacle by way of a segregated industry that has always privately accepted the behavior that had now been caught on film.

It can’t be overstated how much Wallen is but a symptom of country music’s chronic racism, and while he should be held fully accountable for his actions, the more critical care should be directed toward the industry that got him and itself in this mess. But that would require an admission of sickness, and at this point, there’s been none. In all of the months leading up to the Wallen incident and after, there has been no corporate penance. There was no commitment to the high-level hiring of Black folks who could have an immediate impact on the industry’s diversity issues; there wasn’t even an industry acknowledgement of its refusal to welcome the descendants of those who helped to create this genre, even as that exclusion became a harbor provided to card-carrying racists. The people who slip into Mickey Guyton’s mentions when she posts a video of her singing or a photo of her son, who call her the N-word and accuse her of trying to turn country music “ghetto”? They feel welcome here; they believe country music is their home. And for the last hundred years, the industry has agreed. It has stopped the architects and builders at the door, making them feel like unwanted guests and accepting only a handful for temporary stays, all while allowing the long-term occupants to turn something once shared and sacred into a shrine of their own sins.

It wasn’t a surprise, then, when the announcement came in, quietly, on a Friday afternoon, that the Country Music Association decided, just three and a half weeks post-N-word and sans press release, that Morgan Wallen’s eligibility would be “amended” for the 2021 awards cycle. Reports that Wallen had, perhaps, not quite “done the work” were already circulating: Wallen’s first public appearance was at Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N Roll Steakhouse of all places, and his faithful followers were continuing to spew their venom. To the CMA, however, it was important to maintain Wallen’s eligibility in the categories of Single, Song, Album, Musical Event, and Music Video of the Year, “so as not to limit opportunity for other credited collaborators.” Never mind that the list of collaborators on Dangerous is starkly white, as is the board that voted on this decision, save for Jimmie Allen. The CMA is the most prominent and prestigious organization in all of country music, with its self-appointed dedication “to bringing the poetry and emotion of Country Music to the world.” It plays a role in shaping the industry it’s all too happy to lead, as well as its surrounding community. So it’s also not surprising that, as of this writing, Wallen’s radio suspension has been largely revoked , his music once again spinning regularly, across nearly all of country radio.

The pat explanation for country music’s enduring racism is that, in the 1920s, the industry was designed that way, that Black people weren’t forced out as much as they were told we never belonged in the first place. The more truthful, more nuanced, answer is that the initial color line drawn by the industry has been repeatedly darkened over time, traced over and over by each new wave of industry executives. History may be written around the big events — the births and deaths, wars waged and won, the cases tried and laws passed — but it is made in the interim: the private conversations, the secret negotiations, the votes cast beyond the reach of photographers’ lenses and reporters’ pens.

When people say they want a family, they don’t suddenly manifest a 50-year wedding anniversary and three grown, well-adjusted children. They find partners with whom they must learn to coexist and get along; they are given kids who must be nurtured and taught and fed at inconvenient hours. Somehow, though, the decision-makers in country music who claim to want better believe this transformed industry will just magically appear, notwithstanding their constant support of the opposite. And this isn’t just happening on the corporate level. Of all of Wallen’s collaborators — whose creative output, the CMA has decided, is more important than a no-excuses stand against racism — only Jason Isbell, who wrote “Cover Me Up,” made an effort to publicly address his involvement with Dangerous , as well as his support of this long-overdue reckoning. “Wallen’s behavior is disgusting and horrifying,” he tweeted on February 3. “I think this is an opportunity for the country music industry to give that spot to somebody who deserves it, and there are lots of black artists who deserve it.” (On February 10, Isbell also announced that all of his revenue earned from Dangerous, up to that point, would be donated to the Nashville chapter of the NAACP.)

But if the mid-’70s and subsequent eras have shown us nothing else, opening up select spots for Black artists isn’t enough . Making room matters, but championing diversity without creating an environment in which it can actually flourish is an exercise in performative futility, a Juneteenth celebration without an honest assessment of the enduring effects of slavery — or earnest efforts to rectify them. Without structural change, those given “opportunity” are bound to fail, the “progress” destined to be short lived. And while no one in the modern industry can openly state that country music is still the exclusive domain of white folks, they can certainly create a safe space for racism and intolerance. In the case of the genre’s biggest artist — a man who became more successful after a drunken, hateful rage — they can also put on a good face and express their disgust. Then, just a few months later, they can act as if it never happened.

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Collection The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America

Country music encompasses everything from fiddler Eck Robertson to the arena-pop of Taylor Swift. American country music has roots in many older traditions: the folksongs, instruments, and musical traditions brought by English, Celtic, and other European immigrants and enslaved Africans in the seventeenth century; Indigenous music traditions that already flourished in North America; genres and styles brought by subsequent waves of immigration; and neighboring traditions in Mexico and Canada, each with its own complex history. Country music has seen various developments since the first commercial recordings, but whatever form it takes, country music speaks to particular American musical traditions and values.

The first commercial country music recordings date to the 1920s. In 1922, the Victor and Okeh recording companies recorded the first country music artists, among them fiddler Eck Robertson, who performed "Arkansas Traveler" and "Sallie Gooden" for Victor Records. Both were staples of the traditional repertoire, a status that was reinforced by the success of the recordings.

If tradition informed the music, commerce and technology, in the form of recordings and radio, helped it spread. Budding country artists of the 1920s could purchase musical instruments, as well as songbooks and printed music, through the Sears catalog. WLS Radio in Chicago introduced the National Barn Dance on April 19, 1924. The influential program was broadcast throughout the Midwest and ran in some form until 1968. It had many imitators, and directly led to the Nashville-based Grand Ole Opry.

In 1927, Ralph Peer of Victor Records held an audition for new talent in Bristol, Tennessee and discovered two defining and influential acts: The Carter Family, who made more than 250 recordings, many of them now standards, in the next fourteen years, and Jimmie Rodgers, an erstwhile railroad worker soon to gain fame as "The Singing Brakeman." Rodgers' career was cut short when he died in 1933 at the age of thirty-five, but his influence can be felt not just in modern country music but in modern pop music. In 1997 Bob Dylan assembled an all-star cast for The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers , a tribute album that included performances of Rodgers' songs by Dylan, Van Morrison, Bono, Jerry Garcia, Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, and Dwight Yoakam.

With the arrival of talking pictures in the late 1920s, Hollywood westerns popularized the image of the cowboy as the face of country music. Gene Autry was known as "America's favorite singing cowboy," but he had competition in Roy Rogers and The Sons of the Pioneers.

In 1939, John Lomax and his wife, Ruby, began a recording tour through the South for the fledgling Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. The Lomaxes recorded hundreds of performances of ballads, blues, cowboy songs, field hollers, spirituals, and work songs in nine southern states. Ethnomusicologists consider the recordings made on this field trip to be among the most important in this genre.

The same year Lomax began his journey, the Grand Ole Opry, which had been airing on radio station WSM of Nashville since 1925, made its first nationwide network broadcast on NBC. The broadcasts brought country music to a wider audience and led to Nashville's stature as the home of country music.

The Grand Ole Opry's host at this time was fiddler and singer Roy Acuff. In 1942, Acuff, with Fred Rose, established Acuff-Rose Publishing, Nashville's first country music publishing company. Country music grew in national popularity in the 1940s, and absorbed many aspects of mainstream popular music. Acuff-Rose benefitted from this move to the mainstream, but also from the harder edged honky-tonk styles that were also gaining in popularity when they signed future country music legends like Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell.

During World War II, the Special Service Division of the military introduced hillbilly bands to a wide audience of soldiers in USO shows. Honky-tonk, bluegrass, and other country standards spread across the world along with the America soldiers, and as the music spread, so did its influences. Western and Cowboy Songs developed throughout the 1940s and 1950s and gave rise to major country artists like Hank Thompson, Lefty Frizzell and Floyd Tillman in the 1940s, and Buck Owens and Merle Haggard in the 1950s and 1960s. Read more about Western Swing and Cowboy songs here . Read about Bill Monroe and other Bluegrass artists here .

The rock 'n' roll era ushered in yet another development in country music, with rockabilly and crossover artists such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and the Everly Brothers. Read more about Rockabilly here .

In the 1960s, country producers and artists continued to mix popular, more urban styles into their performances, and the resulting fusion was dubbed "Countrypolitan." It was in this era that female singers and songwriters came into their own as star performers. In the 1950s, Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline paved the way for Jean Shepard, Skeeter Davis, Dottie West, Connie Smith, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton. Country music is primarily thought of as a white rural music, but in 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Charley Pride rose to the top of the country music charts as the first black performer to excel in the genre. Even as much of country music absorbed pop music influences, many country artists sang topical songs about contentious issues such as divorce, birth control, poverty and the war in Vietnam.

During the 1960s, California became the center for a West Coast country music style known as the Bakersfield Sound, led by southwestern migrants such as Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, which blended honky-tonk, western and rockabilly styles. Contemporary artists like Dwight Yoakum continue this style.

Westerner Willie Nelson's career in country music goes back to the 1950s, but it was in the 1970s that his outlaw persona brought him crossover acclaim from rock and pop audiences. In 1976, he and Waylon Jennings, Jessie Colter and Tompall Glaser appeared on an anthology called Wanted: The Outlaws , which epitomized and gave a name to the non-mainstream music and lyrics coming out of Austin, Texas. A variation on the cowboy persona of country music artists, musicians like Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Hank Williams, Jr., also personified the country music outlaw in their 1970s recordings.

"Countrypolitan" artists enjoyed popularity into the 1980s, but elements of western swing and bluegrass came to the fore in mainstream country music as well. Artists like Asleep at the Wheel, George Strait and Reba McEntire personified this sound. Ricky Skaggs infused his New Country with driving bluegrass instrumentals, while Randy Travis used a more traditional "lonesome" vocal style influenced by Lefty Frizzell.

A new generation of country music television grew in the 1980s. The Nashville Network debuted in 1983. MTV Networks created CMT (Country Music Television) to air country programming, including news and music videos, in a twenty-four hour format.

In the 1990s, honky-tonk, bluegrass, pop, and new country contributed to crossover appeal on the pop charts. Country-rock artists like Emmylou Harris stayed close to their traditional roots, while breakout stars like Garth Brooks brought an arena-rock sound to country music.

Since 2010, the Library of Congress has hosted the annual Country Music Association Songwriters Series. This popular concert series features performances from contemporary country songwriters and performers like Jim Beavers, Clint Black, Brett James, Little Big Town, Patti Loveless, Lori McKenna, Ronnie Milsap, Lorrie Morgan, and Tim Nichols. View webcasts from previous CMA Songwriters Concerts here: 2010 , 2011 .

Modern country music artists have also performed at the Library in Congress in concerts celebrating the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). The 2010 ASCAP concert featured singer-songwriter Jessi Alexander and Nashville songwriter Wayland Holyfield, whose music has been recorded by Randy Travis, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Reba McEntire, Ernest Tubb, George Strait and George Jones. In 2011, the ASCAP concert included singer-songwriters Brett James and Lyle Lovett.

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Song Analysis Essay

In this first major essay of the semester, you will analyze the kairos and rhetorical situation (speaker, occasion, audience, and presuppositions) of a song. Put simply, your task is to tell a story about how the song came about and what it might have meant to listeners at that time. Among other things, you might want to discuss the careers of the artist and songwriter, the state of the country music industry, and relevant world events. To help you brainstorm, I recommend that you browse the Wikipedia entries on the artist, the year in country music, and the year in world events.

The paper must be 1250-1500 words long include 4+ sources and a list of Works Cited in MLA format. Since the paper will be published on the class website (under the “Music” tab), it should discuss rhetorical concepts using the same audience-friendly language that you have been practicing in your blog posts.

Before continuing, please download the rubric .

Guidelines & Suggestions

Selecting a Song: Choose any country song that has not already been analyzed by students in previous semesters. (Note that I have altered these guidelines and that your paper will cover different ground than the earlier song analyses did.)

Format: Since they’re appearing side by side on the class website, all papers will follow the same format . Among other things, this includes embedding a video at the top of the page and printing a song analysis table at the bottom of the page.

Song Analysis Table: Note that this part of the assignment is due before the rough draft. We will discuss it in class in greater detail, but you will follow the directions that appear in Jocelyn Neal’s Country Music textbook.

Structure: Start with an introduction that catches the reader’s interest and includes a thesis statement that stakes a clear claim about the song’s place in the artist’s career, country music, and/or the world at the time of its release. (It’s okay to cover only one or two of these pieces, if you have enough to say about them.) In the next paragraphs, summarize the sound and content of the song and develop your remarks on its kairos and rhetorical situation. Conclude with an introduction that ties everything together.

Sources: Use 4+ sources to defend your analysis. The best sources will shed light on the song’s rhetorical situation and/or indicate how the song’s intended audience responded to it. Clearly indicate the details that you borrow from sources by using quotation marks (for direct quotes), hyperlinks (for digital sources), and parenthetical references (for digital and print sources).

Consider using user comments as a source.

Works Cited: Include a list of Works Cited in MLA format at the bottom of the essay. See the Easy Writer textbook for the details on MLA format.

Submission: Submit your rough draft to Canvas. Post your final draft to the class website as a “Page” ( not a “Post”) under the “Music” tab.

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Country Music Essay Examples

The identity of country music.

Country music has undergone many changes throughout the years, with an ever-changing identity difficult to pinpoint. Country artists still struggle with the thought of keeping their music conservative versus exploring new sounds to reach broader audiences. With its “honky tonk” melodies and twangy instruments, in...

Johnny Paycheck: the Country Outlaw Who Made a Mark in Country Music

Johnny Paycheck, his life, his songs, his hardships, and even his name, are all such great masterpieces that were revealed to the world. His existence has been a wonderful influence to many people. We are lucky enough to meet such a rare and glorious artist...

Red Dirt – One of the Genres of Country Music

Country music has evolved and changed over the past decades, but one genre that can be overlooked the most is red dirt. Red dirt is not as popular as the classics such as Garth Brooks or George Strait or even the new generation of Luke...

Country Music and Its Connotation with Social Status

Contrary to popular belief, country music is not as universally American as is often assumed. For many, in fact, the genre is almost taboo – those willing to publicly admit they enjoy country music are often ridiculed or written off, despite the continued presence of...

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