ABSTRACT
Country music developed out of the folk traditions brought to North America by AngloCeltic immigrants and gradually absorbed influences from other musical sources until it emerged as a force strong enough to survive-and ultimately thrive-in an urbanindustrial-oriented society. However, to explain the genre solely in terms of its British background would be a limited and incomplete approach. Settlers of pre-revolutionary America, throughout the 13 colonies, came out of essentially the same ethnic and social backgrounds. Malone points out that southern history must be studied in order to explain how the area east of the Mississippi River and below the Mason-Dixon Line produced a diversity of musical styles-both Black and white-which later would coalesce into viable commercial entities. Historical study reveals that because of a complex variety of influences, involving geographical and climatological determinism and cultural preconditioning, southerners became committed very early to an agricultural economy and the rural way of life. Traditions that had once been the common property of Americans therefore endured in the South long after they had ceased to be important elsewhere.
