Country is a genre of popular music that originated with blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, old-time, and American folk music forms including Appalachian, Cajun, Creole, and the cowboy Western music styles of New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country. Its popularized roots originate in the Southern and Southwestern United States of the early 1920s.
A honky-tonk is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. It can also refer to the type of piano used to play such music. Bars of this kind are common in the South and Southwest United States. Many eminent country music artists, such as Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Johnny Horton, and Merle Haggard, began their careers as amateur musicians in honky-tonks.
Outlaw country is a subgenre of American country music created by a small group of iconoclastic artists active in the 1970s and early 1980s, known collectively as the outlaw movement, who fought for and won their creative freedom outside of the Nashville establishment that dictated the sound of country music of the era. Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and David Allan Coe were among the movement's most commercially successful members.
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 1940s until a federal war-time nightclub tax in 1944 contributed to the genre's decline.
Honky is an insulting and contemptuous term used against white people, predominantly heard in the United States.
BR549 was an American country music band founded in 1993. It originally consisted of Gary Bennett, Don Herron, "Smilin'" Jay McDowell, Chuck Mead, and "Hawk" Shaw Wilson. Bennett and McDowell left the band in 2001, with Chris Scruggs and Geoff Firebaugh respectively replacing them. Both Firebaugh and Scruggs later left the band as well; Mark Miller has become the band's third bassist. The name of the band is taken from a mangled phone number from Hee Haw comedian Junior Samples' car salesman skit.
This is a list of notable events in country music that took place in the year 1998.
Dale Watson is an American country/Texas country singer, guitarist, songwriter, and self-published author based in Marshall, Texas. He champions "Ameripolitan" as a new genre of original music and has positioned himself as a tattooed, stubbornly independent outsider who is interested in recording authentic country music. As a result, he has become a favorite of critics and alt-country fans.
Red Dirt is a genre of country music that gets its name from the color of soil found in Oklahoma. Stillwater, Oklahoma is considered to be the center of Red Dirt music ; but the genre also extends to music made south of the Red River in Texas. Outlaw country legends Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson have been associated with the distinctive Texas sound, while the late Oklahoma singer-songwriter Bob Childers is widely recognized as the Father of Oklahoma Red Dirt music. At one time, the distinction between the two genres was sonically obvious, but by 2008, that gap had diminished.
Rosie Flores is an American rockabilly and country music artist. Her music blends rockabilly, honky tonk, jazz, and Western swing along with traditional influences from her Tex-Mex heritage. She currently resides in Austin, Texas, where August 31 was declared Rosie Flores Day by the Austin City Council in 2006.
Elana James is an American songwriter, Western swing, folk and jazz violinist, vocalist, and a founding member of the band Hot Club of Cowtown.
William Knight Kirchen is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a member of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen from 1967 to the mid-1970s and later worked with Nick Lowe. Guitar Player magazine described Kirchen as "Titan of The Telecaster" for his prowess on the guitar.
Outlaw Country is a Sirius XM Radio channel devoted to outlaw country music, along with various related genres including classic honky tonk, alternative country and roots rock. It is carried on Sirius XM Radio channel 60 and DISH Network channel 6060.
The Bakersfield sound is a sub-genre of country music developed in the mid-to-late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. Bakersfield was the first subgenre of country music significantly influenced by rock and roll, relying heavily on electric instrumentation and a strongly defined backbeat. It was also a reaction against the slickly produced, orchestra-laden Nashville sound, which was becoming popular in the late 1950s. The Bakersfield sound became one of the most popular and influential country genres of the 1960s, initiating a revival of honky-tonk music and influencing later country rock and outlaw country musicians.
Pete Anderson is an American guitarist, music producer, arranger and songwriter.
Dallas Wayne is a singer, songwriter, voice-over artist and on-air radio personality for SiriusXM Satellite Radio. A native of Springfield, Missouri, Dallas began performing professionally while in high school. After moving to Nashville, he further developed his vocal style singing demos for many of the top publishing houses in the music industry.
Whitey Morgan and the 78's are an American honky tonk country band, based in Flint, Michigan, United States. In 2010, they signed a recording contract with Chicago-based Bloodshot Records.
Muddy Roots is an American music festival held in Cookeville, Tennessee, U.S. It began in 2010 as an annualfestival at the June Bug Boogie Ranch in Cookeville, Tennessee. The music festival included camping, vendors, a car show, and a pin-up pageant. In 2012, the festival expanded to Europe at the Cowboy Up Steakhouse Saloon in Waardamme, Belgium and featured the same blend of musical styles as the festival held in Tennessee. Muddy Roots announced a third separate festival would be held in May 2013 at the Red River Canoe Campground in Adams, Tennessee, called the Muddy Roots Spring Weekender. All of the Muddy Roots music festivals featured musicians of varying genres, including country, blues, rock and roll, rockabilly, punk rock, bluegrass, and folk.
Ameripolitan is a genre of contemporary original music encompassing four prominent subcategories: Western swing, honky-tonk, rockabilly and outlaw country. Championed by Austin-based singer Dale Watson, the Ameripolitan genre was established for contemporary artists upholding traditional roots-influenced musical formats to distinguish themselves from the formats produced by the mainstream country pop music industry.
