Activity

One thing I found interesting was learning that it wasn’t called “Country and Western” music until the 1950’s.  Before that it was called “old-timey” music or “hillbilly” music, or just “folk” music.  About the same time that the term “Country and Western” came into vogue, the music industry also started using the term “Rhythm and Blues”.  Up until then they had simply called that style “Black” music or “Race” music.  Honestly.  That’s what they called it!  The music industry took it for granted that white people wouldn’t want to listen to it any more than black people would want to listen to white music.  Meanwhile the early country music legends were learning to perform from black street corner musicians and borrowing their styles.