Early country music has long had the reputation of being a pristine folk music, an archaic holdover from a past deeply obscured by time. This reputation was powerfully reinforced by English folklorist Cecil Sharp’s 1916-18 trip to the Appalachians, where he found ancient ballads far better preserved than in Britain. It has been further enhanced by the
genuine folk songs found on early recordings done by field men and talent scouts for major record companies in the 1920s who scoured the hills and plains for what was then called “hillbilly music.”
Although this supposition is based on substantial fact, it is on the whole not true. From its earliest documentation (made a great deal easier by the advent of recordings) the folk music that was to become commercial country music displays an exceedingly wide and rich variety of sources.
There were fiddle tunes reminiscent of highland bagpipes, and English ballads that survived their journey intact. There were Irish tunes that were transplanted but transmogrified and became the basis—with new lyrics—for the cowboy songs of the
West. And there were the sentimental parlor songs of the 1880s and 1890s, which have composed a large part of country-music repertoire from “Wildwood Flower” to “I’ll Be All Smiles Tonight.” There was the blues of the black man, and the guitar and the banjo, instruments that he introduced to the mountaineer. There was a score of other ethnic strains: polkas and their attendant accordion from central Europe; Norteño songs and the Mariachi brass from Mexico; Swiss yodeling; the striking fiddling and rich dialect of the Cajuns (Acadians) of southwest Louisiana; the dreamy tunes and the steel guitar from Hawaii; the pomp of small-town brass bands; the foursquare harmony and melody of Protestant hymns; and heavy borrowing from jazz and swing. Country musicians have always been quick to adapt other music to enrich their own. -- Excerpt from the liner notes
Country Music: South and West
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