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Ally Jiovani
Prof. Sobocinski
English 1201
22 March 2022
Country Through the Ages
Ever since I knew about and listened to music, I have always felt a strong connection to
the country music genre. My parents were and still are big lovers of the older country music
which is also starting to grow on my brother. My mom grew up in a small country town, so she
has been immersed in all things country since she was a little girl. My dad, who came from a
bigger town than my mom, grew up listening to older country music on his dad’s radio. Their
liking of the country genre grew my interest in it and gave me the idea to research its roots and
how it evolved over time from the very beginning of country music to where it is now in the
present day. What I found is that country music has evolved greatly over time from its roots of
jazz and blues to the pop/country mix in today’s world that is slowly taking over the music
industry.
Many people who listen to the country music of today don’t really realize where it really
originated. Some might say a beat-up old bar down in Texas. Others might say some guy with a
country accent picked up a guitar, wrote and sung a song, and thus the success of country music
started. What those people don’t know is that the genre that is listened to by most of the world
today actually began with a voice and a fiddle.
From its start on either June 30th, 1922 or July 1, 1922, with the release of “The
Arkansas Traveler” by fiddler Alexander “Eck'' Robertson, country music has become a widely
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listened to genre of music. Robertson became the first person to release a country commercial
record which inspired future country singers like Jimmie Rodgers to go on and make their own
history (Dooley). According to Time Magazine, lots of songs that early country music artists
played were “inherited and adapted from black sources – like slave spirituals, field songs,
religious hymnals or the works of professional black songwriters” (Chow). Many hit country
songs nowadays were inspired by older country songs from back in the 80s or 90s which shows
that over the years, country music has changed with the times, so to speak.
In the 1920s and 30s, black songwriters wrote songs that were often later turned into
smashing hits by other coming-of-age songwriters. For example, the song “When the World is
On Fire”, written by a black minister, was the inspiration for Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land
is Your Land” in February of 1940 (Chow). Guthrie’s rendition of the minister’s song went on to
have more than 7.5 million views on Youtube and more than 12.5 million streams on Spotify.
This goes to show that even older music can have a significant influence on newer artists in the
modern world.
Country music in itself is a genre of songs that each tell a story. Almost every country
song you listen to will have some sort of well thought out tale conjured by the artist to inspire
you to succeed in life or go after your dreams. In an article from Deutsche Welle, broadcaster
Baylen Leonard mentions that country music is “a living, breathing art form” (Sanderson). He is
trying to explain that country music has changed from its roots to where it is now, and it is
something that will continue changing and evolving long into the future.
Of all the modern day country singers out there, Thomas Rhett is one of the most well-
known and inspiring singers you will ever hear. According to NPR, he “displayed an excellent
instinct for the pace of evolution in the [country] format” (Hight). Rhett is an artist who knows
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how to “go with the flow” and basically work with what he’s got. He was able to use the new
trend of combining country tones with a pop melody to his advantage and released the song “Die
A Happy Man” on January 1, 2015. Furthermore, he “made clear that his unfettered stylistic
sampling didn’t undermine his core identity as a country artist” (Hight). In a way, this was him
saying that he wasn’t opposed to the idea of mixing pop and country because it could be a cool
opportunity to showcase his country roots while sticking to the trends of modern day music.
Country music has changed and will always be changing as the years go on. According to
Time Magazine, “at its heart, country is the music of inclusion and universality” (Meacham). As
the years have changed, so has country music. In today’s world, out of all the genres of music,
country is the most inclusive genre to all races and ideas. It has paved the way for even the
youngest up-and-coming singer/songwriters out there and will continue to inspire many more to
come. As Dolly Parton once said, “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another
one”.
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Works Cited
Chow, Andrew. “Black Artists Helped Build Country Music—And Then It Left Them Behind.”
Time, 11 Sept. 2019, time.com/5673476/ken-burns-country-music-black-artists. Accessed
04 Mar. 2022.
Dooley, Sean. “Tracing Country Music History from Jimmie Rodgers to Garth Brooks.”
LiveAbout, 23 May 2019, www.liveabout.com/the-history-of-country-music-934030.
Accessed 06 Mar. 2022.
Hight, Jewly. “Npr.” Npr.Com, npr, 20 Mar. 2018,
choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/
2018/03/20/594037569/how-the-sound-of-country-music-changed. Accessed 04 Mar.
2022.
Meacham, Jon, and Tim McGraw. “EBSCOhost.” EBSCOhost.Com, EBSCO Industries, 26
Aug. 2019, login.sinclair.ohionet.org/login?qurl=https://web.s.ebscohost.com%2fehost
%2fdetail%2fdetail%3fvid%3d28%26sid%3d19d5dc86-44db-48c6-bc70-
48410a4d21a1%2540redis%26bdata%3dJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%253d
%253d#AN=138066434&db=a9h. Accessed 06 Mar. 2022.
Sanderson, Sertan. “How Country Music Is Taking over the World.” DW.COM, Deutsche Welle,
9 Mar. 2021, www.dw.com/en/how-country-music-is-taking-over-the-world/a-59058079.
Accessed 06 Mar. 2022.
