Country music, the first half of Billboard's country and western music category, is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States. It has roots in traditional folk music, Celtic music, blues, gospel music, hokum, and old-time
music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s.The term country music began to be used in the1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music was deemed to be degrading, and the termwas widely embraced in the 1970s, while country and western has declined in use since
that time. In the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups from Mexico, theBritish Isles, Germany, and the Czech Republic created the music that became the
Western music of the term Country Western. Country music has produced two of the top selling solo artists of all time. Elvis Presley,
“The Hillbilly Cat”, appeared on the Louisiana Hayride for three years,went on to helpdefine rock ‘n’ roll, and became known as “The King.” Garth Brooks, except for a shortforay into non-country near the end of his recording career, recorded and performedcountry music and is one top selling solo artist.
As of 2007, country is the most popular radio format in America, reaching 77.3 million adults--almost 40 percent of the adult population--every week.
Subgenres Country music is a catch-all category that embraces several different music genres. Each style is unique in its execution, use of rhythms, and its chord structures. Country

• 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 1970s by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy
  

  Joe Shaver, David Allan Coe, Jerry Jeff Walker, Mickey Newbury, Kris Kristofferson and
  

  Hank Williams, Jr.
• Cajun and zydeco
• honky tonk
• Old-time music
• rockabilly
• neotraditional country