New and Used Early Country Music CDs, LPs

HoWever, country music is actually a catch-all category that embraces several different genres of music: Nashville sound (the pop-like music very popular in the 1960s); bluegrass, a fast mandolin, banjo and fiddle-based music popularized by Bill Monroe and by Flatt and Scruggs; Western, which encompasses traditional Western cowboy campfire ballads and Hollywood cowboy music made famous by Roy Rogers, The Sons of the Pioneers, and Gene Autry; Western swing, a sophisticated dance music popularized by Bob Wills; the Bakersfield sound which used the new Fender Telecaster guitars, a big drum beat, and dance style music that would catch your attention like "a freight train running (Buck OWens)" (popularized by Buck OWens and Merle Haggard); outlaw country made famous in the 1970's by Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, Jr., Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard; Cajun style music from the Louisiana Bayou; zydeco; Evangelical Christian inspired gospel; oldtime (normally pre-1930 folk music); honky tonk; Appalachian; rockabilly; neotraditional country; and jug band.

Each style is unique in its execution, its use of rhythms, and its chord structures, though many songs are adapted to the different country styles. One example is the tune "Milk Cow Blues", an early blues tune by Kokomo Arnold that has been performed in a wide variety of country styles by everyone from Aerosmith to Bob Wills to Willie Nelson, George Strait to Ricky Nelson and Elvis Presley.