The History of Country music

Country music originated in the southern states of the USA in the 1920's, it was one of the first genres of popular American music but old-time music was its original style but it developed into a mixture of folk music from churches, African American blues and the British Isles. The instruments usually involved in country music would be banjos, guitars, harmonics, fiddles and mandolin. The first recording of country music was by the group called Carter Family, they consisted of vocalists and guitars.  This is what country music originally sounded like....

Country music is said to be mainly from white singers and there is a great lack of diversity within this genre as many of the popular or well known country music artists were white such as Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, who are the three most well known country music stars.

Throughout the years country music doesn't have a drastic change as the genre has a very traditional sound. In the 40's country music became very popular and overtook the previous country music known  as 'hillbilly' music because started to involve more Western styles of music so a broader audience was able to enjoy twist of their usual music.
In the 50's country music labels in Nashville were losing a lot of money because rock and roll and soul music had taken over, so the genre had to change its sound. To compete with the new popular music, the country music labels decided to have a smoother vocalist and kept the traditional instruments but gave it a more orchestra sound. This new country music then became more popular with people that didn't like soul or rock music but hadn't liked the previous country music, so new fans were brought to this sound.
However many country artists were unhappy about what Nashville had done to the traditional country music because it had changed so much. This then lead to a new genre of outlaw country music which involved musicians one being Johnny Cash. This outlaw country music saved the original sound of
country and was very popular once again.
Even though country music has evolved throughout the years and created many different subgenres, it is still very popular now especially in the southern countries of which it originated from, but in many other countries this genre is also very popular and not just with the older population. As the sound has modernised and kept up with the social trends but has still kept its traditional feeling.
The poplar country music artists in 2016 include Florida Georgia line, Kelsea Ballerini, Sam Hunt and many more, but these are the three most popular currently.