Country Music - Early Origins

Early Origins

Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years. They brought some of their most important valuables with them, and to most of them this was an instrument: “Early Scottish settlers enjoyed the fiddle because it could be played to sound sad and mournful or bright and bouncy” The Irish fiddle, the German derived dulcimer, the Italian mandolin, the Spanish guitar, and the West African banjo were the most common musical instruments. The harmonica, a 19th-century invention from central Europe, arrived in North America shortly before the American Civil War and quickly became popular because of its small size and portability. The interactions among musicians from different ethnic groups produced music unique to this region of North America. Appalachian string bands of the early 20th century primarily consisted of the fiddle, guitar, and banjo. This early country music along with early recorded country music is often referred to as old-time music.

According to Bill Malone in Country Music U.S.A, country music was “introduced to the world as a southern phenomenon." In the South, folk music was a combination of cultural strains, combining musical traditions of a variety of ethnic groups in the region. For example, some instrumental pieces from British and Irish immigrants were the basis of folk songs and ballads that form what is now known as old time music, from which country music descended. It is commonly thought that British and Irish folk music heavily influenced the development of old time music in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, where the earliest European settlers hailed principally from Northern England, the Scottish Lowlands and the Irish province of Ulster.

Country music is often erroneously thought of as solely the creation of European Americans. However, a great deal of style—and of course, the banjo, a major instrument in most early American folk songs—came from African Americans. One of the reasons country music was created by African Americans, as well as European Americans, is because blacks and whites in rural communities in the south often worked and played together, just as recollected by DeFord Bailey in the PBS documentary, DeFord Bailey: A Legend Lost. Influential black guitarist Arnold Schultz, known as the primary source for thumb style, or Travis picking, played with white musicians in West-central Kentucky.

Throughout the 19th century, several immigrant groups from Europe, most notably from Ireland, Germany, Spain, and Italy, moved to Texas. These groups interacted with Mexican, Native American and U.S. communities that were already established in Texas. As a result of this cohabitation and extended contact, Texas has developed unique cultural traits that are rooted in the culture of all of its founding communities.