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After such criticism, Linnaeus felt he needed to explain himself more clearly. The 10th edition of ' introduced new terms, including "Mammalia" and "Primates", the latter of which would replace "Anthropomorpha" as well as giving humans the full binomial "Homo sapiens". The new classification received less criticism, but many natural historians still believed he had demoted humans from their former place of ruling over nature and not being a part of it. Linnaeus believed that man biologically belongs to the animal kingdom and had to be included in it. In his book ', he said, "One should not vent one's wrath on animals, Theology decree that man has a soul and that the animals are mere 'automata mechanica', but I believe they would be better advised that animals have a soul and that the difference is of nobility." Linnaeus added a second species to the genus "Homo" in "" based on a figure and description by Jacobus Bontius from a 1658 publication: "Homo troglodytes" ("caveman") and published a third in 1771: "Homo lar". Swedish historian Gunnar Broberg states that the new human species Linnaeus described were actually simians or native people clad in skins to frighten colonial settlers, whose appearance had been exaggerated in accounts to Linnaeus. For "Homo troglodytes" Linnaeus asked the Swedish East India Company to search for one, but they did not find any signs of its existence. "Homo lar" has since been reclassified as "Hylobates lar", the lar gibbon.
In the first edition of "", Linnaeus subdivided the human species into four varieties: "Europæus albesc[ens]" (whitish European), "Americanus rubesc[ens]" (reddish American), "Asiaticus fuscus" (tawny Asian) and "Africanus nigr[iculus]" (blackish African). In the tenth edition of Systema Naturae he further detailed phenotypical characteristics for each variety, based on the concept of the four temperaments from classical antiquity, and changed the description of Asians' skin tone to "luridus" (yellow). While Linnaeus believed that these varieties resulted from environmental differences between the four known continents, the Linnean Society acknowledges that his categorization's focus on skin color and later inclusion of cultural and behavioral traits cemented colonial stereotypes and provided the foundations for scientific racism. Additionally, Linnaeus created a wastebasket taxon "monstrosus" for "wild and monstrous humans, unknown groups, and more or less abnormal people". In 1959, W. T. Stearn designated Linnaeus to be the lectotype of "H. sapiens".
Influences and economic beliefs. Linnaeus's applied science was inspired not only by the instrumental utilitarianism general to the early Enlightenment, but also by his adherence to the older economic doctrine of Cameralism. Additionally, Linnaeus was a state interventionist. He supported tariffs, levies, export bounties, quotas, embargoes, navigation acts, subsidised investment capital, ceilings on wages, cash grants, state-licensed producer monopolies, and cartels. Commemoration. Anniversaries of Linnaeus's birth, especially in centennial years, have been marked by major celebrations. Linnaeus has appeared on numerous Swedish postage stamps and banknotes. There are numerous statues of Linnaeus in countries around the world. The Linnean Society of London has awarded the Linnean Medal for excellence in botany or zoology since 1888. Following approval by the Riksdag of Sweden, Växjö University and Kalmar College merged on 1 January 2010 to become Linnaeus University. Other things named after Linnaeus include the twinflower genus "Linnaea", "Linnaeosicyos" (a monotypic genus in the family Cucurbitaceae), the crater Linné on the Earth's moon, a street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the cobalt sulfide mineral Linnaeite.
Commentary. Linnaeus wrote a description of himself in his autobiography "Egenhändiga anteckningar af Carl Linnæus om sig sjelf: med anmärkningar och tillägg", which was published by his student Adam Afzelius in 1823: Andrew Dickson White wrote in "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom" (1896): The mathematical PageRank algorithm, applied to 24 multilingual Wikipedia editions in 2014, published in "PLOS ONE" in 2015, placed Carl Linnaeus at the top historical figure, above Jesus, Aristotle, Napoleon, and Adolf Hitler (in that order). In the 21st century, Linnæus's taxonomy of human "races" has been criticized. Some claim that Linnæus was one of the forebears of the modern pseudoscientific notion of scientific racism, while others hold the view that while his classification was stereotyped, it did not imply that certain human "races" were superior to others. External links. Biographies Resources
Coast A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, such as that caused by waves. The geological composition of rock and soil dictates the type of shore that is created. Earth has about of coastline. Coasts are important zones in natural ecosystems, often home to a wide range of biodiversity. On land, they harbor ecosystems, such as freshwater or estuarine wetlands, that are important for birds and other terrestrial animals. In wave-protected areas, coasts harbor salt marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses, all of which can provide nursery habitat for finfish, shellfish, and other aquatic animals. Rocky shores are usually found along exposed coasts and provide habitat for a wide range of sessile animals (e.g. mussels, starfish, barnacles) and various kinds of seaweeds. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past and present, and the beach is at the edge of the shore, including the intertidal zone where there is one. Along tropical coasts with clear, nutrient-poor water, coral reefs can often be found at depths of .
According to an atlas prepared by the United Nations, about 44% of the human population lives within of the sea . Due to its importance in society and its high population concentrations, the coast is important for major parts of the global food and economic system, and they provide many ecosystem services to humankind. For example, important human activities happen in port cities. Coastal fisheries (commercial, recreational, and subsistence) and aquaculture are major economic activities and create jobs, livelihoods, and protein for the majority of coastal human populations. Other coastal spaces like beaches and seaside resorts generate large revenues through tourism. Marine coastal ecosystems can also provide protection against sea level rise and tsunamis. In many countries, mangroves are the primary source of wood for fuel (e.g. charcoal) and building material. Coastal ecosystems like mangroves and seagrasses have a much higher capacity for carbon sequestration than many terrestrial ecosystems, and as such can play a critical role in the near-future to help mitigate climate change effects by uptake of atmospheric anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
However, the economic importance of coasts makes many of these communities vulnerable to climate change, which causes increases in extreme weather and sea level rise, as well as related issues like coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion, and coastal flooding. Other coastal issues, such as marine pollution, marine debris, coastal development, and marine ecosystem destruction, further complicate the human uses of the coast and threaten coastal ecosystems. The interactive effects of climate change, habitat destruction, overfishing, and water pollution (especially eutrophication) have led to the demise of coastal ecosystem around the globe. This has resulted in population collapse of fisheries stocks, loss of biodiversity, increased invasion of alien species, and loss of healthy habitats. International attention to these issues has been captured in Sustainable Development Goal 14 "Life Below Water", which sets goals for international policy focused on preserving marine coastal ecosystems and supporting more sustainable economic practices for coastal communities. Likewise, the United Nations has declared 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, but restoration of coastal ecosystems has received insufficient attention.
Since coasts are constantly changing, a coastline's exact perimeter cannot be determined; this measurement challenge is called the coastline paradox. The term "coastal zone" is used to refer to a region where interactions of sea and land processes occur. Both the terms "coast" and "coastal" are often used to describe a geographic location or region located on a coastline (e.g., New Zealand's West Coast, or the East, West, and Gulf Coast of the United States.) Coasts with a narrow continental shelf that are close to the open ocean are called "pelagic" "coast", while other coasts are more sheltered coast in a gulf or bay. A shore, on the other hand, may refer to parts of land adjoining any large body of water, including oceans (sea shore) and lakes (lake shore). Size. The Earth has approximately of coastline. Coastal habitats, which extend to the margins of the continental shelves, make up about 7 percent of the Earth's oceans, but at least 85% of commercially harvested fish depend on coastal environments during at least part of their life cycle. about 2.86% of exclusive economic zones were part of marine protected areas.
The definition of coasts varies. Marine scientists think of the "wet" (aquatic or intertidal) vegetated habitats as being coastal ecosystems (including seagrass, salt marsh etc.) whilst some terrestrial scientists might only think of coastal ecosystems as purely terrestrial plants that live close to the seashore (see also estuaries and coastal ecosystems). While there is general agreement in the scientific community regarding the definition of coast, in the political sphere, the delineation of the extents of a coast differ according to jurisdiction. Government authorities in various countries may define coast differently for economic and social policy reasons. Formation. Tides often determine the range over which sediment is deposited or eroded. Areas with high tidal ranges allow waves to reach farther up the shore, and areas with lower tidal ranges produce deposition at a smaller elevation interval. The tidal range is influenced by the size and shape of the coastline. Tides do not typically cause erosion by themselves; however, tidal bores can erode as the waves surge up the river estuaries from the ocean.
Geologists classify coasts on the basis of tidal range into "macrotidal coasts" with a tidal range greater than ; "mesotidal coasts" with a tidal range of ; and "microtidal coasts" with a tidal range of less than . The distinction between macrotidal and mesotidal coasts is more important. Macrotidal coasts lack barrier islands and lagoons, and are characterized by funnel-shaped estuaries containing sand ridges aligned with tidal currents. Wave action is much more important for determining bedforms of sediments deposited along mesotidal and microtidal coasts than in macrotidal coasts. Waves erode coastline as they break on shore releasing their energy; the larger the wave the more energy it releases and the more sediment it moves. Coastlines with longer shores have more room for the waves to disperse their energy, while coasts with cliffs and short shore faces give little room for the wave energy to be dispersed. In these areas, the wave energy breaking against the cliffs is higher, and air and water are compressed into cracks in the rock, forcing the rock apart, breaking it down. Sediment deposited by waves comes from eroded cliff faces and is moved along the coastline by the waves. This forms an abrasion or cliffed coast.
Sediment deposited by rivers is the dominant influence on the amount of sediment located in the case of coastlines that have estuaries. Today, riverine deposition at the coast is often blocked by dams and other human regulatory devices, which remove the sediment from the stream by causing it to be deposited inland. Coral reefs are a provider of sediment for coastlines of tropical islands. Like the ocean which shapes them, coasts are a dynamic environment with constant change. The Earth's natural processes, particularly sea level rises, waves and various weather phenomena, have resulted in the erosion, accretion and reshaping of coasts as well as flooding and creation of continental shelves and drowned river valleys (rias). Importance for humans and ecosystems. Human settlements. More and more of the world's people live in coastal regions. According to a United Nations atlas, 44% of all people live within 150 km (93 mi) of the sea. Many major cities are on or near good harbors and have port facilities. Some landlocked places have achieved port status by building canals.
Nations defend their coasts against military invaders, smugglers and illegal migrants. Fixed coastal defenses have long been erected in many nations, and coastal countries typically have a navy and some form of coast guard. Tourism. Coasts, especially those with beaches and warm water, attract tourists often leading to the development of seaside resort communities. In many island nations such as those of the Mediterranean, South Pacific Ocean and Caribbean, tourism is central to the economy. Coasts offer recreational activities such as swimming, fishing, surfing, boating, and sunbathing. Growth management and coastal management can be a challenge for coastal local authorities who often struggle to provide the infrastructure required by new residents, and poor management practices of construction often leave these communities and infrastructure vulnerable to processes like coastal erosion and sea level rise. In many of these communities, management practices such as beach nourishment or when the coastal infrastructure is no longer financially sustainable, managed retreat to remove communities from the coast.
Types. Emergent coastline. According to one principle of classification, an emergent coastline is a coastline that has experienced a fall in sea level, because of either a global sea-level change, or local uplift. Emergent coastlines are identifiable by the coastal landforms, which are above the high tide mark, such as raised beaches. In contrast, a submergent coastline is one where the sea level has risen, due to a global sea-level change, local subsidence, or isostatic rebound. Submergent coastlines are identifiable by their submerged, or "drowned" landforms, such as rias (drowned valleys) and fjords Concordant coastline. According to the second principle of classification, a concordant coastline is a coastline where bands of different rock types run parallel to the shore. These rock types are usually of varying resistance, so the coastline forms distinctive landforms, such as coves. Discordant coastlines feature distinctive landforms because the rocks are eroded by the ocean waves. The less resistant rocks erode faster, creating inlets or bay; the more resistant rocks erode more slowly, remaining as headlands or outcroppings.
High and low energy coasts. Parts of a coastline can be categorised as high energy coast or low energy coast. The distinguishing characteristics of a high energy coast are that the average wave energy is relatively high so that erosion of small grained material tends to exceed deposition, and consequently landforms like cliffs, headlands and wave-cut terraces develop. Low energy coasts are generally sheltered from waves, or in regions where the average wind wave and swell conditions are relatively mild. Low energy coasts typically change slowly, and tend to be depositional environments. High energy coasts are exposed to the direct impact of waves and storms, and are generally erosional environments. High energy storm events can make large changes to a coastline, and can move significant amounts of sediment over a short period, sometimes changing a shoreline configuration. Destructive and constructive waves. Swash is the shoreward flow after the break, backwash is the water flow back down the beach. The relative strength of flow in the swash and backwash determines what size grains are deposited or eroded. This is dependent on how the wave breaks and the slope of the shore.
Depending on the form of the breaking wave, its energy can carry granular material up the beach and deposit it, or erode it by carrying more material down the slope than up it. Steep waves that are close together and break with the surf plunging down onto the shore slope expend much of their energy lifting the sediment. The weak swash does not carry it far up the slope, and the strong backwash carries it further down the slope, where it either settles in deeper water or is carried along the shore by a longshore current induced by an angled approach of the wave-front to the shore. These waves which erode the beach are called destructive waves. Low waves that are further apart and break by spilling, expend more of their energy in the swash which carries particles up the beach, leaving less energy for the backwash to transport them downslope, with a net constrictive influence on the beach. Rivieras. "Riviera" is an Italian word for "shoreline", ultimately derived from Latin ("riverbank"). It came to be applied as a proper name to the coast of the Ligurian Sea, in the form "riviera ligure", then shortened to "riviera". Historically, the Ligurian Riviera extended from Capo Corvo (Punta Bianca) south of Genoa, north and west into what is now French territory past Monaco and sometimes as far as Marseille. Today, this coast is divided into the Italian Riviera and the French Riviera, although the French use the term "Riviera" to refer to the Italian Riviera and call the French portion the "Côte d'Azur".
As a result of the fame of the Ligurian rivieras, the term came into English to refer to any shoreline, especially one that is sunny, topographically diverse and popular with tourists. Such places using the term include the Australian Riviera in Queensland and the Turkish Riviera along the Aegean Sea. Landforms. The following articles describe some coastal landforms: Coastal waters. "Coastal waters" (or "coastal seas") is a term that carries different meanings depending upon the context, ranging from a geographic reference to the waters within a few kilometers of the coast, to describing the entire continental shelf that may stretch for more than a hundred kilometers from land. The term is used in a different manner when describing legal and economic boundaries, such as territorial waters and international waters, or when describing the geography of coastal landforms or the ecological systems operating through the continental shelf (marine coastal ecosystems). The dynamic fluid nature of the ocean means that all components of the whole ocean system are ultimately connected, although certain regional classifications are useful and relevant. The waters of the continental shelves represent such a region. The term "coastal waters" has been used in a wide variety of different ways in different contexts. In European Union environmental management it extends from the coast to just a few nautical miles while in the United States the US EPA considers this region to extend much further offshore.
"Coastal waters" has specific meanings in the context of commercial coastal shipping, and somewhat different meanings in the context of naval littoral warfare. Oceanographers and marine biologists have yet other takes. Coastal waters have a wide range of marine habitats from enclosed estuaries to the open waters of the continental shelf. Similarly, the term littoral zone has no single definition. It is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal environments, the littoral zone extends from the high water mark, which is rarely inundated, to shoreline areas that are permanently submerged. Coastal waters can be threatened by coastal eutrophication and harmful algal blooms. In geology. The identification of bodies of rock formed from sediments deposited in shoreline and nearshore environments (shoreline and nearshore "facies") is extremely important to geologists. These provide vital clues for reconstructing the geography of ancient continents ("paleogeography"). The locations of these beds show the extent of ancient seas at particular points in geological time, and provide clues to the magnitudes of tides in the distant past.
Sediments deposited in the shoreface are preserved as lenses of sandstone in which the upper part of the sandstone is coarser than the lower part (a "coarsening upwards sequence"). Geologists refer to these are "parasequences". Each records an episode of retreat of the ocean from the shoreline over a period of 10,000 to 1,000,000 years. These often show laminations reflecting various kinds of tidal cycles. Some of the best-studied shoreline deposits in the world are found along the former western shore of the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow sea that flooded central North America during the late Cretaceous Period (about 100 to 66 million years ago). These are beautifully exposed along the Book Cliffs of Utah and Colorado. Geologic processes. The following articles describe the various geologic processes that affect a coastal zone: Wildlife. Animals. Larger animals that live in coastal areas include puffins, sea turtles and rockhopper penguins, among many others. Sea snails and various kinds of barnacles live on rocky coasts and scavenge on food deposited by the sea. Some coastal animals are used to humans in developed areas, such as dolphins and seagulls who eat food thrown for them by tourists. Since the coastal areas are all part of the littoral zone, there is a profusion of marine life found just off-coast, including sessile animals such as corals, sponges, starfish, mussels, seaweeds, fishes, and sea anemones.
There are many kinds of seabirds on various coasts. These include pelicans and cormorants, who join up with terns and oystercatchers to forage for fish and shellfish. There are sea lions on the coast of Wales and other countries. Plants. Many coastal areas are famous for their kelp beds. Kelp is a fast-growing seaweed that can grow up to half a meter a day in ideal conditions. Mangroves, seagrasses, macroalgal beds, and salt marsh are important coastal vegetation types in tropical and temperate environments respectively. Restinga is another type of coastal vegetation. Threats. Coasts also face many human-induced environmental impacts and coastal development hazards. The most important ones are: Pollution. The pollution of coastlines is connected to marine pollution which can occur from a number of sources: Marine debris (garbage and industrial debris); the transportation of petroleum in tankers, increasing the probability of large oil spills; small oil spills created by large and small vessels, which flush bilge water into the ocean.
Global goals. International attention to address the threats of coasts has been captured in Sustainable Development Goal 14 "Life Below Water" which sets goals for international policy focused on preserving marine coastal ecosystems and supporting more sustainable economic practices for coastal communities. Likewise, the United Nations has declared 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, but restoration of coastal ecosystems has received insufficient attention.
Catatonia Catatonia is a complex syndrome most commonly seen in people with underlying mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder, or psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. People with catatonia exhibit abnormal movement and behaviors, which vary from person to person and may fluctuate in intensity within a single episode. People with catatonia appear withdrawn, meaning that they do not interact with the outside world and have difficulty processing information. They may be nearly motionless for days on end or perform repetitive purposeless movements. People may exhibit very different sets of behaviors and still be diagnosed with catatonia. Treatment with benzodiazepines or ECT are most effective and lead to remission of symptoms in most cases. There are different subtypes of catatonia, which represent groups of symptoms that commonly occur together. These include stuporous/akinetic catatonia, excited catatonia, malignant catatonia, and periodic catatonia. Catatonia has historically been related to schizophrenia (catatonic schizophrenia), but is most often seen in mood disorders. It is now known that catatonic symptoms are nonspecific and may be observed in other mental, neurological, and medical conditions.
Classification. Modern classifications. In both the DSM-5 and the ICD-11, catatonia is diagnosed if an individual has at least three different symptoms associated with catatonia at once. These symptoms are stupor, catalepsy, waxy flexibility, mutism, negativism, posturing, mannerisms, stereotypies, psychomotor agitation, grimacing, echolalia, and echopraxia. The ICD-11 divides catatonia into three types based on the underlying cause: catatonia associated with another mental disorder, catatonia induced by psychoactive substance, and secondary catatonia. Like the ICD-11, the DSM-5 divides catatonia into three diagnoses, Catatonia Associated with Another Mental Disorder, Catatonic Disorder due to Another Medical Condition, and Unspecified Catatonia (when the underlying cause is unknown). The most common of the three diagnoses is Catatonia Associated with Another Mental Disorder. Around 20% of cases are caused by an underlying medical condition. Signs and symptoms. As discussed previously, the ICD-11 and DSM-5 both require 3 or more of the symptoms defined in the table below in order to diagnose catatonia. However, each person can have a different set of symptoms that may worsen, improve, and change in appearance throughout a single episode. Symptoms may develop over hours or days to weeks.
Because most patients with catatonia have an underlying psychiatric illness, the majority will present with worsening depression, mania, or psychosis followed by catatonia symptoms. Even when unable to interact, it should not be assumed that patients presenting with catatonia are unaware of their surroundings as some patients can recall in detail their catatonic state and their actions. Subtypes. There are several subtypes of catatonia which are used currently: stuporous catatonia, excited catatonia, malignant catatonia, and periodic catatonia. Subtypes are defined by the group of symptoms and associated features that a person is experiencing or displaying. Notably, while catatonia can be divided into various subtypes, the appearance of catatonia is often dynamic and the same individual may have different subtypes at different times. Stuporous catatonia: This form of catatonia is characterized by immobility, mutism, and a lack of response to the world around them. They may appear frozen in one position for long periods of time unable to eat, drink, or speak.
Excited catatonia: This form of catatonia is characterized by odd mannerisms and gestures, purposeless or inappropriate actions, excessive motor activity, restlessness, stereotypy, impulsivity, agitation, and combativeness. Speech and actions may be repetitive or mimic another person's. People in this state are extremely hyperactive and may have delusions and hallucinations. Malignant catatonia: This form of catatonia is life-threatening. It is characterized by fever, dramatic and rapid changes in blood pressure, increased heart rate and respiratory rate, and excessive sweating. Laboratory tests may be abnormal. Periodic catatonia: This form of catatonia is characterized by a person having recurrent episodes of catatonia. Individuals will experience multiple episodes over time, without signs of catatonia in between episodes. Historically, the Wernicke-Kleist-Leonhard School considered periodic catatonia a distinct form of "non-system schizophrenia" characterized by recurrent acute phases with hyperkinetic and akinetic features and often psychotic symptoms, and the build-up of a residual state in between these acute phases, which is characterized by low-level catatonic features and aboulia of varying severity.
Causes. Catatonia can only develop if a person has another underlying condition – the most common causes being psychiatric disorders, medical conditions, and substance use. Psychiatric conditions. Mood disorders such as bipolar disorder and depression are the most common conditions underlying catatonia. Other psychiatric conditions that can cause catatonia include schizophrenia and other primary psychotic disorders, autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In autism, people tend to present with catatonia during periods of regression. Psychodynamic theorists have interpreted catatonia as a defense against the potentially destructive consequences of responsibility, with the passivity of the disorder providing relief. Medical conditions. Catatonia is also seen in many medical disorders, including encephalitis, meningitis, autoimmune disorders, focal neurological lesions (including strokes), alcohol withdrawal, abrupt or overly rapid benzodiazepine withdrawal, cerebrovascular disease, neoplasms, head injury, and some metabolic conditions (homocystinuria, diabetic ketoacidosis, hepatic encephalopathy, and hypercalcaemia).
Neurological disorders. Catatonia can occur due to a number of neurological conditions. For instance, certain types of encephalitis can cause catatonia. Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is a form of autoimmune encephalitis which is known to cause catatonia in some people. Additionally, encephalitis has been reported to cause catatonia in people who have encephalitis due to HIV and herpes simplex virus (HSV). The research is limited, but some evidence suggests that people can develop catatonia after traumatic brain injury without a primary psychiatric disorder. Similarly, there are several case reports suggesting that people have experienced catatonia after a stroke, with some people having catatonia-associated symptoms that were unexplainable by their stroke itself, and which improved after treatment with benzodiazepines. Parkinson's disease can cause catatonia for some people by impairing their ability to produce and secrete dopamine, a neurotransmitter which is thought to contribute to motor dysfunction in people with catatonia.
Metabolic and endocrine disorders. Abnormal thyroid function can cause catatonia when the thyroid overproduces or underproduces thyroid hormones. This is thought to occur due to thyroid hormones impact on metabolism including in the cells of the nervous system. Abnormal electrolyte levels have also been shown to cause catatonia in rare cases. Most notably, low levels of sodium in the blood can cause catatonia in some people. Autoimmune disorders. As discussed previously, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is a form of autoimmune encephalitis which can cause catatonia. Additionally, autoimmune diseases that are not exclusively neurological can cause neurological and psychiatric symptoms including catatonia. For instance, systemic lupus erythematosus can cause catatonia and is thought to do by causing inflammation in the blood vessels of the brain or possibly by the body's own antibodies damaging neurons. Infectious diseases. Certain types of infections are known to cause catatonia either through directly impairing brain function or by making a person more likely to contract diseases that impair brain function. HIV and AIDS can cause catatonia, most likely by predisposing one to infections in the brain, including different types of viral encephalitis. "Borrelia burgdorferi" causes Lyme disease, which has been shown to cause catatonia by infecting the brain and causing encephalitis.
Pharmacological causes. Use of NMDA receptor antagonists including ketamine and phencyclidine (PCP) can lead to catatonia-like states. Information about these effects has improved scientific understanding of the role of glutamate in catatonia. High dose and chronic use of stimulants such as cocaine and amphetamines can lead to cases of catatonia, typically associated with psychosis. This is thought to be due to changes in the function of circuits of the brain associated with dopamine release. Pathogenesis. The mechanisms in the brain that cause catatonia are poorly understood. Currently, there are two main categories of explanations for what may be happening in the brain to cause catatonia. The first is that there is disruption of normal neurotransmitter production or release in certain areas of the brain preventing normal function of those areas of the brain, leading to behavioral and motor symptoms associated with catatonia. The second claims that disruption of communication between different areas of the brain causes catatonia.
Neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters that are most strongly associated with catatonia are GABA, dopamine, and glutamate. GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter of the brain, meaning that it slows down the activity of the systems of the brain it acts on. In catatonia, people have low levels of GABA which causes them to be overly activated, especially in the areas of the brain that cause inhibition. This is thought to cause the behavioral symptoms associated with catatonia including withdrawal. Dopamine can increase or decrease the activity of the area of the brain it acts on depending on where in the brain it is. Dopamine is lower than normal in people with catatonia, which is thought to cause many of the motor symptoms, because dopamine is the main neurotransmitter which activates the parts of the brain responsible for movement. Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter, meaning that it increases the activity of the areas of the brain it acts on. Notably, glutamate increases tells the neuron it acts on to fire, by binding to the NMDA receptor. People with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis can develop catatonia because their own antibodies attack the NMDA receptor, which reduces the ability of the brain to activate different areas of the brain using glutamate.
Neurological pathways. Several pathways in the brain have been studied which seem to contribute to catatonia when they are not functioning properly. However, these studies were unable to determine if the abnormalities they observed were the cause of catatonia or if the catatonia caused the abnormalities. Furthermore, it has also been hypothesized that pathways that connect the basal ganglia with the cortex and thalamus is involved in the development of catatonia. Diagnosis. There is not yet a definitive consensus regarding diagnostic criteria of catatonia. In the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM-5, 2013) and the eleventh edition of the World Health Organization's "International Classification of Diseases ("ICD-11, 2022), the classification is more homogeneous than in earlier editions. Prominent researchers in the field have other suggestions for diagnostic criteria. Still, diagnosing catatonia can be challenging. Evidence suggests that there is as high as a 15-day average delay to diagnosis for people with catatonia.
DSM-5 classification The DSM-5 does not classify catatonia as an independent disorder, but rather it classifies it as catatonia associated with another mental disorder, due to another medical condition, or as unspecified catatonia. Catatonia is diagnosed by the presence of three or more of the following 12 psychomotor symptoms in association with a mental disorder, medical condition, or unspecified: Other disorders (additional code 293.89 [F06.1] to indicate the presence of the co-morbid catatonia): If catatonic symptoms are present but do not form the catatonic syndrome, a medication- or substance-induced aetiology should first be considered. ICD-11 classification In the ICD-11, catatonia is defined as a syndrome of primarily psychomotor disturbances that is characterized by the simultaneous occurrence of several symptoms such as stupor, catalepsy, waxy flexibility, mutism, negativism, posturing, mannerisms, stereotypies, psychomotor agitation, grimacing, echolalia, and echopraxia. Catatonia may occur in the context of specific mental disorders, including mood disorders, schizophrenia or other primary psychotic disorders, and neurodevelopmental disorders, and may be induced by psychoactive substances, including medications. Catatonia may also be caused by a medical condition not classified under mental, behavioral, or neurodevelopmental disorders.
Assessment/physical. Catatonia is often overlooked and under-diagnosed. Patients with catatonia most commonly have an underlying psychiatric disorder. For this reason, physicians may overlook signs of catatonia due to the severity of the psychosis the patient is presenting with. Furthermore, the patient may not be presenting with the common signs of catatonia such as mutism and posturing. Additionally, the motor abnormalities seen in catatonia are also present in psychiatric disorders. For example, a patient with mania will show increased motor activity and may not be considered for a diagnosis of excited catatonia, even if symptoms are developing that are not associated with mania. One way in which physicians can differentiate between the two is to observe the motor abnormality. Patients with mania present with increased goal-directed activity. On the other hand, the increased activity in catatonia is not goal-directed and often repetitive. Catatonia is a clinical diagnosis and there is no specific laboratory test to diagnose it. However, certain testing can help determine what is causing the catatonia. An EEG will likely show diffuse slowing. If seizure activity is driving the syndrome, then an EEG would also be helpful in detecting this. CT or MRI will not show catatonia; however, they might reveal abnormalities that might be leading to the syndrome. Metabolic screens, inflammatory markers, or autoantibodies may reveal reversible medical causes of catatonia.
Vital signs should be frequently monitored as catatonia can progress to malignant catatonia which is life-threatening. Malignant catatonia is characterized by fever, hypertension, tachycardia, and tachypnea. Rating scale. Various rating scales for catatonia have been developed, however, their utility for clinical care has not been well established. The most commonly used scale is the Bush-Francis Catatonia Rating Scale (BFCRS) (external link is provided below). The scale is composed of 23 items with the first 14 items being used as the screening tool. If 2 of the 14 are positive, this prompts for further evaluation and completion of the remaining 9 items. A diagnosis can be supported by the lorazepam challenge or the zolpidem challenge. While proven useful in the past, barbiturates are no longer commonly used in psychiatry; thus the option of either benzodiazepines or ECT. Laboratory findings. Certain lab findings are common with malignant catatonia that are uncommon in other forms of catatonia. These lab findings include: leukocytosis, elevated creatine kinase, low serum iron. The signs and symptoms of malignant catatonia overlap significantly with neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS). Therefore, the results of laboratory tests need to be considered in the context of clinical history, review of medications, and physical exam findings.
Differential diagnosis. The differential diagnosis of catatonia is extensive as signs and symptoms of catatonia may overlap significantly with those of other conditions. Therefore, a careful and detailed history, medication review, and physical exam are key to diagnosing catatonia and differentiating it from other conditions. Furthermore, some of these conditions can themselves lead to catatonia. The differential diagnosis is as follows: Treatment. Treating catatonia effectively requires treating the catatonia itself, treating the underlying condition, and helping them with their basic needs, like eating, drinking, and staying clean and safe, while they are withdrawn and incapable of caring for themselves. Catatonia-specific treatments. The specifics of treating catatonia itself can vary from region to region, hospital to hospital, and individual to individual, but typically involves the use of benzodiazepines. In fact, in some cases it is unclear whether a person has catatonia or another condition which may present similarly. In these cases a "benzodiazepine challenge" is often done. During a "benzodiazepine challenge" a healthcare provider will give a moderate dose of a benzodiazepine to the patient and monitor them. If a person has catatonia they will often have improvements in their symptoms within 15 to 30 minutes. If the person does not improve within 30 minutes they are given a second dose and the process is repeated once more. If the person responds to either of the doses then they can be given benzodiazepines at a consistent dose and timing until their catatonia resolves. Depending on the person, a person may need to reduce their dosing slowly over time in order to prevent reoccurrence of their symptoms.
ECT is also commonly used to treat catatonia in people who do not improve with medication alone or whose symptoms reoccur whenever the dose of medications are reduced. ECT is usually administered with multiple sessions per week over two to four weeks. ECT has a success rate of 80% to 100%. ECT is effective for all subtypes of catatonia, however people who have catatonia with an underlying neurological condition show less improvement with ECT treatment. Excessive glutamate activity is believed to be involved in catatonia; when first-line treatment options fail, NMDA antagonists such as amantadine or memantine may be used. Amantadine may have an increased incidence of tolerance with prolonged use and can cause psychosis, due to its additional effects on the dopamine system. Memantine has a more targeted pharmacological profile for the glutamate system, reduced incidence of psychosis and may therefore be preferred for individuals who cannot tolerate amantadine. Topiramate is another treatment option for resistant catatonia; it produces its therapeutic effects by producing glutamate antagonism via modulation of AMPA receptors.
Non-specific aspects of treatment. Treating the underlying condition. There are many medications that are known to cause catatonia in some people including steroids, stimulants, anticonvulsants, neuroleptics or dopamine blockers. If a person has catatonia and is on these medications, they should be considered as a potential cause if another cause is not apparent and discontinued if possible. Antipsychotics are sometimes used in those with a co-existing psychosis, however they should be used with care as they may worsen catatonia and have a risk of neuroleptic malignant syndrome, a dangerous condition that can mimic catatonia and requires immediate discontinuation of the antipsychotic. There is evidence that clozapine works better than other antipsychotics to treat catatonia. Supportive care. Supportive care is required in those with catatonia. This includes monitoring vital signs and fluid status, and in those with chronic symptoms; maintaining nutrition and hydration, medications to prevent a blood clot, and measures to prevent the development of pressure ulcers.
Prognosis. Twenty-five percent of psychiatric patients with catatonia will have more than one episode throughout their lives. Treatment response for patients with catatonia is 50–70%, with treatment failure being associated with a poor prognosis. Many of these patients will require long-term and continuous mental health care. The prognosis for people with catatonia due to schizophrenia is much worse compared to other causes. In cases of catatonia that develop into malignant catatonia, the mortality rate is as high as 20%. Complications. Patients may experience several complications from being in a catatonic state. The nature of these complications will depend on the type of catatonia being experienced by the patient. For example, patients presenting with withdrawn catatonia may have refusal to eat which will in turn lead to malnutrition and dehydration. Furthermore, if immobility is a symptom the patient is presenting with, then they may develop pressure ulcers, muscle contractions, and are at risk of developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolus (PE). Patients with excited catatonia may be aggressive and violent, and physical trauma may result from this. Catatonia may progress to the malignant type which will present with autonomic instability and may be life-threatening. Other complications also include the development of pneumonia and neuroleptic malignant syndrome.
Epidemiology. Catatonia has been historically studied in psychiatric patients. Catatonia is under-recognized because the features are often mistaken for other disorders including delirium or the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The prevalence has been reported to be as high as 10% in those with acute psychiatric illnesses, and 9–30% in the setting of inpatient psychiatric care. The incidence of catatonia is 10.6 episodes per 100 000 person-years, which essentially means that in a group of 100,000 people, the group as a whole would experience 10 to 11 episodes of catatonia per year. Catatonia can occur at any age, but is most commonly seen in adolescence or young adulthood or in older adults with existing medical conditions. It occurs in males and females in approximately equal numbers. Around 20% of all catatonia cases can be attributed to a general medical condition. History. Ancient history. There have been reports of stupor-like and catatonia-like states in people throughout the history of psychiatry. In ancient Greece, the first physician to document stupor-like or catatonia-like states was Hippocrates, in his "Aphorisms." He never defined the syndrome, but seemingly observed these states in people he was treating for melancholia. In ancient China, the first descriptions of people that appear in the Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), the book which forms the basis of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is thought to have been compiled by many people over the course of centuries during the Warring States Period (475-221 BCE) and the early Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE).
Modern history. The term “catatonia” was first used by German psychiatrist Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum in 1874, in his book "Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein", which translates to "Catatonia or Tension Insanity". He viewed catatonia as its own illness, which would get worse over time in stages of mania, depression, and psychosis leading to dementia. This work heavily influenced another German psychiatrist, Emil Kraeplin, who was the first to classify catatonia as a syndrome. Kraeplin associated catatonia with a psychotic disorder called dementia praecox, which is no longer used as a diagnosis, but heavily informed the development of the concept of schizophrenia. Kraeplin's work influenced two other notable German psychiatrists, Karl Leonhard and Max Fink, and their colleagues to expand the concept of catatonia as a syndrome which could occur in the setting of many mental illnesses, not just psychotic disorders. They also laid the groundwork to describe different subtypes of catatonia still used today, including Stuporous Catatonia, Excited Catatonia, Malignant Catatonia, and Periodic Catatonia. Additionally, Leonhard and his colleagues categorized catatonia as either systematic or unsystematic, based on whether or not symptoms happened according to consistent and predictable patterns. These ways of thinking shaped the way that psychologists and psychiatrists thought of catatonia well into the 20th century. In fact, catatonia was a subtype of schizophrenia as recently as the DSM-III, and was not revised to be able to be applied to mood disorders until 1994 with the release of the DSM-IV.
In the latter half of the 20th century, clinicians observed that catatonia occurred in various psychiatric and medical conditions, not exclusively in schizophrenia. Max Fink and colleagues advocated for recognizing catatonia as an independent syndrome, highlighting its frequent association with mood disorders and responsiveness to treatments like benzodiazepines and ECT. Society and culture. Popular conceptions and origins. Catatonia, historically misunderstood, has been subject to shifting perceptions in society. As discussed previously, since the 19th century it was often linked exclusively to schizophrenia, perpetuating misconceptions. These historical misunderstandings have shaped the public opinions on catatonia. This has contributed to a lack of understanding about catatonia and its broader association with other mental disorders and medical conditions. Popular culture and media have played a significant role in shaping societal perceptions of catatonia. In many cases, media portrayals reduce it to a stereotypical "frozen state," similar to a coma, failing to capture the complexity of symptoms like stupor, agitation, and mutism. Such oversimplifications contribute to public misperceptions and get in the way of people receiving the care they need.
Cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is "encipherment". To encipher or encode is to convert information into cipher or code. In common parlance, "cipher" is synonymous with "code", as they are both a set of steps that encrypt a message; however, the concepts are distinct in cryptography, especially classical cryptography. Codes generally substitute different length strings of characters in the output, while ciphers generally substitute the same number of characters as are input. A code maps one meaning with another. Words and phrases can be coded as letters or numbers. Codes typically have direct meaning from input to key. Codes primarily function to save time. Ciphers are algorithmic. The given input must follow the cipher's process to be solved. Ciphers are commonly used to encrypt written information. Codes operated by substituting according to a large codebook which linked a random string of characters or numbers to a word or phrase. For example, "UQJHSE" could be the code for "Proceed to the following coordinates." When using a cipher the original information is known as plaintext, and the encrypted form as ciphertext. The ciphertext message contains all the information of the plaintext message, but is not in a format readable by a human or computer without the proper mechanism to decrypt it.
The operation of a cipher usually depends on a piece of auxiliary information, called a key (or, in traditional NSA parlance, a "cryptovariable"). The encrypting procedure is varied depending on the key, which changes the detailed operation of the algorithm. A key must be selected before using a cipher to encrypt a message. Without knowledge of the key, it should be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to decrypt the resulting ciphertext into readable plaintext. Most modern ciphers can be categorized in several ways: Etymology. Originating from the Arabic word for zero صفر (ṣifr), the word "cipher" spread to Europe as part of the Arabic numeral system during the Middle Ages. The Roman numeral system lacked the concept of zero, and this limited advances in mathematics. In this transition, the word was adopted into Medieval Latin as cifra, and then into Middle French as cifre. This eventually led to the English word cipher (minority spelling cypher). One theory for how the term came to refer to encoding is that the concept of zero was confusing to Europeans, and so the term came to refer to a message or communication that was not easily understood.
The term "cipher" was later also used to refer to any Arabic digit, or to calculation using them, so encoding text in the form of Arabic numerals is literally converting the text to "ciphers". Versus codes. In casual contexts, "code" and "cipher" can typically be used interchangeably; however, the technical usages of the words refer to different concepts. Codes contain meaning; words and phrases are assigned to numbers or symbols, creating a shorter message. An example of this is the commercial telegraph code which was used to shorten long telegraph messages which resulted from entering into commercial contracts using exchanges of telegrams. Another example is given by whole word ciphers, which allow the user to replace an entire word with a symbol or character, much like the way written Japanese utilizes Kanji (meaning Chinese characters in Japanese) characters to supplement the native Japanese characters representing syllables. An example using English language with Kanji could be to replace "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" by "The quick brown 狐 jumps 上 the lazy 犬". Stenographers sometimes use specific symbols to abbreviate whole words.
Ciphers, on the other hand, work at a lower level: the level of individual letters, small groups of letters, or, in modern schemes, individual bits and blocks of bits. Some systems used both codes and ciphers in one system, using superencipherment to increase the security. In some cases the terms "codes" and "ciphers" are used synonymously with "substitution" and "transposition", respectively. Historically, cryptography was split into a dichotomy of codes and ciphers, while coding had its own terminology analogous to that of ciphers: ""encoding", "codetext", "decoding"" and so on. However, codes have a variety of drawbacks, including susceptibility to cryptanalysis and the difficulty of managing a cumbersome codebook. Because of this, codes have fallen into disuse in modern cryptography, and ciphers are the dominant technique. Types. There are a variety of different types of encryption. Algorithms used earlier in the history of cryptography are substantially different from modern methods, and modern ciphers can be classified according to how they operate and whether they use one or two keys.
Historical. The Caesar Cipher is one of the earliest known cryptographic systems. Julius Caesar used a cipher that shifts the letters in the alphabet in place by three and wrapping the remaining letters to the front to write to Marcus Tullius Cicero in approximately 50 BC. Historical pen and paper ciphers used in the past are sometimes known as classical ciphers. They include simple substitution ciphers (such as ROT13) and transposition ciphers (such as a Rail Fence Cipher). For example, "GOOD DOG" can be encrypted as "PLLX XLP" where "L" substitutes for "O", "P" for "G", and "X" for "D" in the message. Transposition of the letters "GOOD DOG" can result in "DGOGDOO". These simple ciphers and examples are easy to crack, even without plaintext-ciphertext pairs. In the 1640s, the Parliamentarian commander, Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, developed ciphers to send coded messages to his allies during the English Civil War. The English theologian John Wilkins published a book in 1641 titled "Mercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger" and described a musical cipher wherein letters of the alphabet were substituted for music notes. This species of melodic cipher was depicted in greater detail by author Abraham Rees in his book Cyclopædia (1778).
Simple ciphers were replaced by polyalphabetic substitution ciphers (such as the Vigenère) which changed the substitution alphabet for every letter. For example, "GOOD DOG" can be encrypted as "PLSX TWF" where "L", "S", and "W" substitute for "O". With even a small amount of known or estimated plaintext, simple polyalphabetic substitution ciphers and letter transposition ciphers designed for pen and paper encryption are easy to crack. It is possible to create a secure pen and paper cipher based on a one-time pad, but these have other disadvantages. During the early twentieth century, electro-mechanical machines were invented to do encryption and decryption using transposition, polyalphabetic substitution, and a kind of "additive" substitution. In rotor machines, several rotor disks provided polyalphabetic substitution, while plug boards provided another substitution. Keys were easily changed by changing the rotor disks and the plugboard wires. Although these encryption methods were more complex than previous schemes and required machines to encrypt and decrypt, other machines such as the British Bombe were invented to crack these encryption methods.
Modern. Modern encryption methods can be divided by two criteria: by type of key used, and by type of input data. By type of key used ciphers are divided into: In a symmetric key algorithm (e.g., DES and AES), the sender and receiver must have a shared key set up in advance and kept secret from all other parties; the sender uses this key for encryption, and the receiver uses the same key for decryption. The design of AES (Advanced Encryption System) was beneficial because it aimed to overcome the flaws in the design of the DES (Data encryption standard). AES's designer's claim that the common means of modern cipher cryptanalytic attacks are ineffective against AES due to its design structure.[12] Ciphers can be distinguished into two types by the type of input data: Key size and vulnerability. In a pure mathematical attack, (i.e., lacking any other information to help break a cipher) two factors above all count: Since the desired effect is computational difficulty, in theory one would choose an algorithm and desired difficulty level, thus decide the key length accordingly. Claude Shannon proved, using information theory considerations, that any theoretically unbreakable cipher must have keys which are at least as long as the plaintext, and used only once: one-time pad.
Country music Country (also called country and western) is a music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is primarily focused on singing stories about working-class and blue-collar American life. Country music is known for its ballads and dance tunes (i.e., "honky-tonk music") with simple form, folk lyrics, and harmonies generally accompanied by instruments such as banjos, fiddles, harmonicas, and many types of guitar (including acoustic, electric, steel, and resonator guitars). Though it is primarily rooted in various forms of American folk music, such as old-time music and Appalachian music, many other traditions, including African-American, Mexican, Irish, and Hawaiian music, have had a formative influence on the genre. Blues modes from blues music have been used extensively throughout its history as well. Once called "hillbilly music", the term "country music" gained popularity in the 1940s. The genre came to encompass western music, which evolved parallel to “hillbilly music” from similar roots, in the mid-20th century. Contemporary styles of western music include Texas country, red dirt, and Hispano- and Mexican American-led Tejano and New Mexico music, which still exists alongside longstanding indigenous traditions.
In 2009, in the United States, country music was the most-listened-to rush-hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second-most popular in the morning commute. Origins. The main components of the modern country music style date back to music traditions throughout the Southern United States and Southwestern United States, while its place in American popular music was established in the 1920s during the early days of music recording. According to country historian Bill C. Malone, country music was "introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon." Migration into the southern Appalachian Mountains, of the Southeastern United States, brought the folk music and instruments of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin along with it for nearly 300 years, which developed into Appalachian music. As the country expanded westward, the Mississippi River and Louisiana became a crossroads for country music, giving rise to Cajun music. In the Southwestern United States, it was the Rocky Mountains, American frontier, and Rio Grande that acted as a similar backdrop for Native American, Mexican, and cowboy ballads, which resulted in New Mexico music and the development of western music, and it is directly related to Red Dirt, Texas country, and Tejano music styles. In the Asia-Pacific, the steel guitar sound of country music has its provenance in the music of Hawaii.
Role of East Tennessee. The U.S. Congress has formally recognized Bristol, Tennessee, as the "Birthplace of Country Music", based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. Historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. In addition, the Mountain City Fiddlers Convention, held in 1925, helped to inspire modern country music. Before these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a rich musical heritage. Generations. The first generation emerged in the 1920s, with Atlanta's music scene playing a major role in launching country's earliest recording artists. James Gideon "Gid" Tanner (1885–1960) was an American old-time fiddler and one of the earliest stars of what would come to be known as country music. His band, the Skillet Lickers, was one of the most innovative and influential string bands of the 1920s and 1930s. Its most notable members were Clayton McMichen (fiddle and vocal), Dan Hornsby (vocals), Riley Puckett (guitar and vocal) and Robert Lee Sweat (guitar). New York City record label Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin' John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records (series 15000D "Old Familiar Tunes") (Samantha Bumgarner) in 1924, and RCA Victor Records in 1927 with the first famous pioneers of the genre Jimmie Rodgers, who is widely considered the "Father of Country Music", and the first family of country music the Carter Family. Many "hillbilly" musicians recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s.
During the second generation (1930s–1940s), radio became a popular source of entertainment, and "barn dance" shows featuring country music were started all over the South, as far north as Chicago, and as far west as California. The most important was the "Grand Ole Opry", aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville and continuing to the present day. During the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood, many featuring Gene Autry, who was known as king of the "singing cowboys," along with Hank Williams. Bob Wills was another country musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a "hot string band," and who also appeared in Hollywood westerns. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, would become known as western swing. Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had been played at Carnegie Hall, when Johnny Barfield recorded "Boogie Woogie".
The third generation (1950s–1960s) started at the end of World War II with "mountaineer" string band music known as bluegrass, which emerged when Bill Monroe, along with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, were introduced by Roy Acuff at the Grand Ole Opry. Gospel music remained a popular component of country music. The Native American, Hispano, and American frontier music of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico, became popular among poor communities in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas; the basic ensemble consisted of classical guitar, bass guitar, dobro or steel guitar, though some larger ensembles featured electric guitars, trumpets, keyboards (especially the honky-tonk piano, a type of tack piano), banjos, and drums. By the early 1950s it blended with rock and roll, becoming the rockabilly sound produced by Sam Phillips, Norman Petty, and Bob Keane. Musicians like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ritchie Valens, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash emerged as enduring representatives of the style. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the Nashville sound turned country music into a multimillion-dollar industry centered in Nashville, Tennessee; Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves were two of the most broadly popular Nashville sound artists, and their deaths in separate plane crashes in the early 1960s were a factor in the genre's decline. Starting in the 1950s to the mid-1960s, western singer-songwriters such as Marty Robbins rose in prominence as did others, throughout western music traditions, like New Mexico music's Al Hurricane. The late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres. In the aftermath of the British Invasion, many desired a return to the "old values" of rock n' roll. At the same time there was a lack of enthusiasm in the country sector for Nashville-produced music. What resulted was a crossbred genre known as country rock.
Fourth generation (1970s–1980s) music included outlaw country with roots in the Bakersfield sound, and country pop with roots in the countrypolitan, folk music and soft rock. Between 1972 and 1975 singer/guitarist John Denver released a series of hugely successful songs blending country and folk-rock musical styles. By the mid-1970s, Texas country and Tejano music gained popularity with performers like Freddie Fender. During the early 1980s country artists continued to see their records perform well on the pop charts. In 1980 a style of "neocountry disco music" was popularized. During the mid-1980s a group of new artists began to emerge who rejected the more polished country-pop sound that had been prominent on radio and the charts in favor of more traditional "back-to-basics" production. During the fifth generation (the 1990s), neotraditionalists and stadium country acts prospered. The sixth generation (2000s–present) has seen a certain amount of diversification in regard to country music styles. It has also, however, seen a shift into patriotism and conservative politics since 9/11, though such themes are less prevalent in more modern trends. The influence of rock music in country has become more overt during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Most of the best-selling country songs of this era were those by Lady A, Florida Georgia Line, Carrie Underwood, and Taylor Swift. Hip hop also made its mark on country music with the emergence of country rap.
History. First generation (1920s). The first commercial recordings of what was considered instrumental music in the traditional country style were "Arkansas Traveler" and "Turkey in the Straw" by fiddlers Henry Gilliland & A.C. (Eck) Robertson on June 30, 1922, for Victor Records and released in April 1923. Columbia Records began issuing records with "hillbilly" music (series 15000D "Old Familiar Tunes") as early as 1924. The first commercial recording of what is widely considered to be the first country song featuring vocals and lyrics was Fiddlin' John Carson with "Little Log Cabin in the Lane" for Okeh Records on June 14, 1923. Vernon Dalhart was the first country singer to have a nationwide hit in May 1924 with "Wreck of the Old 97". The flip side of the record was "Lonesome Road Blues", which also became very popular. In April 1924, "Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis became the first female musicians to record and release country songs. The record 129-D produced by Columbia features Samantha playing fiddle and singing Big-Eyed Rabbit while Eva Davis plays banjo. The other side features Eva Davis playing banjo while singing Wild Bill Jones. Many of the early country musicians, such as the yodeler Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs into the 1930s. Other important early recording artists were Riley Puckett, Don Richardson, Fiddlin' John Carson, Uncle Dave Macon, Al Hopkins, Ernest V. Stoneman, Blind Alfred Reed, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers and the Skillet Lickers. The steel guitar entered country music as early as 1922, when Jimmie Tarlton met famed Hawaiian guitarist Frank Ferera on the West Coast.
Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family are widely considered to be important early country musicians. From Scott County, Virginia, the Carters had learned sight reading of hymnals and sheet music using solfege. Their songs were first captured at a historic recording session in Bristol, Tennessee, on August 1, 1927, where Ralph Peer was the talent scout and sound recordist. A scene in the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" depicts a similar occurrence in the same timeframe. Rodgers fused hillbilly country, gospel, jazz, blues, pop, cowboy, and folk, and many of his best songs were his compositions, including "Blue Yodel", which sold over a million records and established Rodgers as the premier singer of early country music. Beginning in 1927, and for the next 17 years, the Carters recorded some 300 old-time ballads, traditional tunes, country songs and gospel hymns, all representative of America's southeastern folklore and heritage. Maybelle Carter went on to continue the family tradition with her daughters as The Carter Sisters; her daughter June would marry (in succession) Carl Smith, Rip Nix and Johnny Cash, having children with each who would also become country singers.
Second generation (1930s–1940s). Record sales declined during the Great Depression. However, radio became a popular source of entertainment, and "barn dance" shows featuring country music were started by radio stations all over the South, as far north as Chicago, and as far west as California. The most important was the "Grand Ole Opry", aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville and continuing to the present day. Some of the early stars on the "Opry" were Uncle Dave Macon, Roy Acuff and African American harmonica player DeFord Bailey. WSM's 50,000-watt signal (in 1934) could often be heard across the country. Many musicians performed and recorded songs in any number of styles. Moon Mullican, for example, played western swing but also recorded songs that can be called rockabilly. Between 1947 and 1949, country crooner Eddy Arnold placed eight songs in the top 10. From 1945 to 1955 Jenny Lou Carson was one of the most prolific songwriters in country music. Singing cowboys and western swing. In the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Some of the popular singing cowboys from the era were Gene Autry, the Sons of the Pioneers, and Roy Rogers. Country music and western music were frequently played together on the same radio stations, hence the term "country and western" music, despite country and western being two distinct genres.
Cowgirls contributed to the sound in various family groups. Patsy Montana opened the door for female artists with her history-making song "I Want To Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart". This would begin a movement toward opportunities for women to have successful solo careers. Bob Wills was another country musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a "hot string band," and who also appeared in Hollywood westerns. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, would become known as western swing. Cliff Bruner, Moon Mullican, Milton Brown and Adolph Hofner were other early western swing pioneers. Spade Cooley and Tex Williams also had very popular bands and appeared in films. At its height, western swing rivaled the popularity of big band swing music. Changing instrumentation. Drums were scorned by early country musicians as being "too loud" and "not pure", but by 1935 western swing big band leader Bob Wills had added drums to the Texas Playboys. In the mid-1940s, the Grand Ole Opry did not want the Playboys' drummer to appear on stage. Although drums were commonly used by rockabilly groups by 1955, the less-conservative-than-the-Grand-Ole-Opry "Louisiana Hayride" kept its infrequently used drummer backstage as late as 1956. By the early 1960s, however, it was rare for a country band not to have a drummer. Bob Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. A decade later (1948) Arthur Smith achieved top 10 US country chart success with his MGM Records recording of "Guitar Boogie", which crossed over to the US pop chart, introducing many people to the potential of the electric guitar. For several decades Nashville session players preferred the warm tones of the Gibson and Gretsch archtop electrics, but a "hot" Fender style, using guitars which became available beginning in the early 1950s, eventually prevailed as the signature guitar sound of country.
Hillbilly boogie. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had been played at Carnegie Hall, when Johnny Barfield recorded "Boogie Woogie". The trickle of what was initially called hillbilly boogie, or okie boogie (later to be renamed country boogie), became a flood beginning in late 1945. One notable release from this period was the Delmore Brothers' "Freight Train Boogie", considered to be part of the combined evolution of country music and blues towards rockabilly. In 1948, Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith achieved top ten US country chart success with his MGM Records recordings of "Guitar Boogie" and "Banjo Boogie", with the former crossing over to the US pop charts. Other country boogie artists included Moon Mullican, Merrill Moore and Tennessee Ernie Ford. The hillbilly boogie period lasted into the 1950s and remains one of many subgenres of country into the 21st century. Bluegrass, folk and gospel. By the end of World War II, "mountaineer" string band music known as bluegrass had emerged when Bill Monroe joined with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, introduced by Roy Acuff at the Grand Ole Opry. That was the ordination of bluegrass music and how Bill Monroe came to be known as the "Father of Bluegrass." Gospel music, too, remained a popular component of bluegrass and other sorts of country music. Red Foley, the biggest country star following World War II, had one of the first million-selling gospel hits ("Peace in the Valley") and also sang boogie, blues and rockabilly. In the post-war period, country music was called "folk" in the trades, and "hillbilly" within the industry. In 1944, "Billboard" replaced the term "hillbilly" with "folk songs and blues," and switched to "country and western" in 1949.
Honky tonk. Another type of stripped-down and raw music with a variety of moods and a basic ensemble of guitar, bass, dobro or steel guitar (and later) drums became popular, especially among rural residents in the three states of Texhomex, those being "Tex"as, Okla"ho"ma, and New "Mex"ico. It became known as honky tonk and had its roots in western swing and the ranchera music of Mexico and the border states, particularly New Mexico and Texas, together with the blues of the American South. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys personified this music which has been described as "a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, a little bit of black and a little bit of white... just loud enough to keep you from thinking too much and to go right on ordering the whiskey." East Texan Al Dexter had a hit with "Honky Tonk Blues", and seven years later "Pistol Packin' Mama". These "honky tonk" songs were associated with barrooms, and was performed by the likes of Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells (the first major female country solo singer), Ted Daffan, Floyd Tillman, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams; the music of these artists would later be called "traditional" country. Williams' influence in particular would prove to be enormous, inspiring many of the pioneers of rock and roll, such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Ike Turner, while providing a framework for emerging honky tonk talents like George Jones. Webb Pierce was the top-charting country artist of the 1950s, with 13 of his singles spending 113 weeks at number one. He charted 48 singles during the decade; 31 reached the top ten and 26 reached the top four.
Third generation (1950s–1960s). By the early 1950s, a blend of western swing, country boogie, and honky tonk was played by most country bands, a mixture which followed in the footsteps of Gene Autry, Lydia Mendoza, Roy Rogers, and Patsy Montana. Western music, influenced by the cowboy ballads, New Mexico, Texas country and Tejano music rhythms of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico, reached its peak in popularity in the late 1950s, most notably with the song "El Paso", first recorded by Marty Robbins in September 1959. Western music's influence would continue to grow within the country music sphere, western musicians like Michael Martin Murphey, New Mexico music artists Al Hurricane and Antonia Apodaca, Tejano music performer Little Joe, and even folk revivalist John Denver, all first rose to prominence during this time. This western music influence largely kept the music of the folk revival and folk rock from influencing the country music genre much, despite the similarity in instrumentation and origins (see, for instance, the Byrds' negative reception during their appearance on the "Grand Ole Opry"). The main concern was largely political: most folk revival was largely driven by progressive activists, a stark contrast to the culturally conservative audiences of country music. John Denver was perhaps the only musician to have major success in both the country and folk revival genres throughout his career, later only a handful of artists like Burl Ives and Canadian musician Gordon Lightfoot successfully made the crossover to country after folk revival fell out of fashion. During the mid-1950s a new style of country music became popular, eventually to be referred to as rockabilly.
In 1953, the first all-country radio station was established in Lubbock, Texas. The music of the 1960s and 1970s targeted the American working class, and truckers in particular. As country radio became more popular, trucking songs like the 1963 hit song "Six Days on the Road" by Dave Dudley began to make up their own subgenre of country. These revamped songs sought to portray American truckers as a "new folk hero", marking a significant shift in sound from earlier country music. The song was written by actual truckers and contained numerous references to the trucker culture of the time like "ICC" for Interstate Commerce Commission and "little white pills" as a reference to amphetamines. Starday Records in Nashville followed up on Dudley's initial success with the release of "Give Me 40 Acres" by the Willis Brothers. Rockabilly.
Country music gained national television exposure through "Ozark Jubilee" on ABC-TV and radio from 1955 to 1960 from Springfield, Missouri. The program showcased top stars including several rockabilly artists, some from the Ozarks. As Webb Pierce put it in 1956, "Once upon a time, it was almost impossible to sell country music in a place like New York City. Nowadays, television takes us everywhere, and country music records and sheet music sell as well in large cities as anywhere else." The Country Music Association was founded in 1958, in part because numerous country musicians were appalled by the increased influence of rock and roll on country music. The Nashville and countrypolitan sounds. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the Nashville sound turned country music into a multimillion-dollar industry centered in Nashville, Tennessee. Under the direction of producers such as Chet Atkins, Bill Porter, Paul Cohen, Owen Bradley, Bob Ferguson, and later Billy Sherrill, the sound brought country music to a diverse audience and helped revive country as it emerged from a commercially fallow period.
Under the direction of producers such as Chet Atkins, Bill Porter, Paul Cohen, Owen Bradley, Bob Ferguson, and later Billy Sherrill, the sound brought country music to a diverse audience and helped revive country as it emerged from a commercially fallow period. This subgenre was notable for borrowing from 1950s pop stylings: a prominent and smooth vocal, backed by a string section (violins and other orchestral strings) and vocal chorus. Instrumental soloing was de-emphasized in favor of trademark "licks". Leading artists in this genre included Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, the Browns, Patsy Cline, and Eddy Arnold. The "slip note" piano style of session musician Floyd Cramer was an important component of this style. The Nashville Sound collapsed in mainstream popularity in 1964, a victim of both the British Invasion and the deaths of Reeves and Cline in separate airplane crashes. By the mid-1960s, the genre had developed into countrypolitan. Countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets, and it sold well throughout the later 1960s into the early 1970s.
Countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets, and it sold well throughout the later 1960s into the early 1970s. Top artists included Tammy Wynette, Lynn Anderson and Charlie Rich, as well as such former "hard country" artists as Ray Price and Marty Robbins. Despite the appeal of the Nashville sound, many traditional country artists emerged during this period and dominated the genre: Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Porter Wagoner, George Jones, and Sonny James among them. Country-soul crossover. In 1962, Ray Charles surprised the pop world by turning his attention to country and western music, topping the charts and rating number three for the year on "Billboard's" pop chart with the "I Can't Stop Loving You" single, and recording the landmark album "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music". Bakersfield sound. Another subgenre of country music grew out of hardcore honky tonk with elements of western swing and originated north-northwest of Los Angeles in Bakersfield, California, where many "Okies" and other Dust Bowl migrants had settled. Influenced by one-time West Coast residents Bob Wills and Lefty Frizzell, by 1966 it was known as the Bakersfield sound. It relied on electric instruments and amplification, in particular the Telecaster electric guitar, more than other subgenres of the country music of the era, and it can be described as having a sharp, hard, driving, no-frills, edgy flavor—hard guitars and honky-tonk harmonies. Leading practitioners of this style were Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tommy Collins, Dwight Yoakam, Gary Allan, and Wynn Stewart, each of whom had his own style.
Ken Nelson, who had produced Owens and Haggard and Rose Maddox became interested in the trucking song subgenre following the success of "Six Days on the Road" and asked Red Simpson to record an album of trucking songs. Haggard's "White Line Fever" was also part of the trucking subgenre. Western music merges with country. The country music scene of the 1940s until the 1970s was largely dominated by western music influences, so much so that the genre began to be called "country and western". Even today, cowboy and frontier values continue to play a role in the larger country music, with western wear, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats continues to be in fashion for country artists. West of the Mississippi River, many of these western genres continue to flourish, including the Red Dirt of Oklahoma, New Mexico music of New Mexico, and both Texas country music and Tejano music of Texas. During the 1950s until the early 1970s, the latter part of the western heyday in country music, many of these genres featured popular artists that continue to influence both their distinctive genres and larger country music. Red Dirt featured Bob Childers and Steve Ripley; for New Mexico music Al Hurricane, Al Hurricane Jr., and Antonia Apodaca; and within the Texas scenes Willie Nelson, Freddie Fender, Johnny Rodriguez, and Little Joe.
As Outlaw country music emerged as subgenre in its own right, Red Dirt, New Mexico, Texas country, and Tejano grew in popularity as a part of the Outlaw country movement. Originating in the bars, fiestas, and honky-tonks of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, their music supplemented outlaw country's singer-songwriter tradition as well as 21st-century rock-inspired alternative country and hip hop-inspired country rap artists. Fourth generation (1970s–1980s). Outlaw movement. Outlaw country was derived from the traditional western, including Red Dirt, New Mexico, Texas country, Tejano, and honky-tonk musical styles of the late 1950s and 1960s. Songs such as the 1963 Johnny Cash popularized "Ring of Fire" show clear influences from the likes of Al Hurricane and Little Joe, this influence just happened to culminate with artists such as Ray Price (whose band, the "Cherokee Cowboys", included Willie Nelson and Roger Miller) and mixed with the anger of an alienated subculture of the nation during the period, a collection of musicians that came to be known as the outlaw movement revolutionized the genre of country music in the early 1970s. "After I left Nashville (the early 70s), I wanted to relax and play the music that I wanted to play, and just stay around Texas, maybe Oklahoma. Waylon and I had that outlaw image going, and when it caught on at colleges and we started selling records, we were O.K. The whole outlaw thing, it had nothing to do with the music, it was something that got written in an article, and the young people said, 'Well, that's pretty cool.' And started listening." (Willie Nelson) The term "outlaw country" is traditionally associated with Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Hank Williams, Jr., Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Joe Ely. It was encapsulated in the 1976 album "Wanted! The Outlaws".
Though the outlaw movement as a cultural fad had died down after the late 1970s (with Jennings noting in 1978 that it had gotten out of hand and led to real-life legal scrutiny), many western and outlaw country music artists maintained their popularity during the 1980s by forming supergroups, such as The Highwaymen, Texas Tornados, and Bandido. Country pop. Country pop or soft pop, with roots in the countrypolitan sound, folk music, and soft rock, is a subgenre that first emerged in the 1970s. Although the term first referred to country music songs and artists that crossed over to top 40 radio, country pop acts are now more likely to cross over to adult contemporary music. It started with pop music singers like Glen Campbell, Bobbie Gentry, John Denver, Olivia Newton-John, Anne Murray, B. J. Thomas, the Bellamy Brothers, and Linda Ronstadt having hits on the country charts. Between 1972 and 1975, singer/guitarist John Denver released a series of hugely successful songs blending country and folk-rock musical styles ("Rocky Mountain High", "Sunshine on My Shoulders", "Annie's Song", "Thank God I'm a Country Boy", and "I'm Sorry"), and was named Country Music Entertainer of the Year in 1975. The year before, Olivia Newton-John, an Australian pop singer, won the "Best Female Country Vocal Performance" as well as the Country Music Association's most coveted award for females, "Female Vocalist of the Year". In response George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Jean Shepard and other traditional Nashville country artists dissatisfied with the new trend formed the short-lived "Association of Country Entertainers" in 1974; the ACE soon unraveled in the wake of Jones and Wynette's bitter divorce and Shepard's realization that most others in the industry lacked her passion for the movement.
During the mid-1970s, Dolly Parton, a successful mainstream country artist since the late 1960s, mounted a high-profile campaign to cross over to pop music, culminating in her 1977 hit "Here You Come Again", which topped the U.S. country singles chart, and also reached No. 3 on the pop singles charts. Parton's male counterpart, Kenny Rogers, came from the opposite direction, aiming his music at the country charts, after a successful career in pop, rock and folk music with the First Edition, achieving success the same year with "Lucille", which topped the country charts and reached No. 5 on the U.S. pop singles charts, as well as reaching Number 1 on the British all-genre chart. Parton and Rogers would both continue to have success on both country and pop charts simultaneously, well into the 1980s. Country music propelled Kenny Rogers’ career, making him a three-time Grammy Award winner and six-time Country Music Association Awards winner. Having sold more than 50 million albums in the US, one of his Song "The Gambler," inspired several TV films, with Rogers as the main character. Artists like Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap and Barbara Mandrell would also find success on the pop charts with their records. In 1975, author Paul Hemphill stated in the "Saturday Evening Post", "Country music isn't really country anymore; it is a hybrid of nearly every form of popular music in America."
During the early 1980s, country artists continued to see their records perform well on the pop charts. Willie Nelson and Juice Newton each had two songs in the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the early eighties: Nelson charted "Always on My Mind" (#5, 1982) and "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (#5, 1984, a duet with Julio Iglesias), and Newton achieved success with "Queen of Hearts" (#2, 1981) and "Angel of the Morning" (#4, 1981). Four country songs topped the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the 1980s: "Lady" by Kenny Rogers, from the late fall of 1980; "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, "I Love a Rainy Night" by Eddie Rabbitt (these two back-to-back at the top in early 1981); and "Islands in the Stream", a duet by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers in 1983, a pop-country crossover hit written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees. Newton's "Queen of Hearts" almost reached No. 1, but was kept out of the spot by the pop ballad juggernaut "Endless Love" by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. The move of country music toward neotraditional styles led to a marked decline in country/pop crossovers in the late 1980s, and only one song in that period—Roy Orbison's "You Got It", from 1989—made the top 10 of both the "Billboard" Hot Country Singles" and Hot 100 charts, due largely to a revival of interest in Orbison after his sudden death. The only song with substantial country airplay to reach number one on the pop charts in the late 1980s was "At This Moment" by Billy Vera and the Beaters, an R&B song with slide guitar embellishment that appeared at number 42 on the country charts from minor crossover airplay. The record-setting, multi-platinum group Alabama was named Artist of the Decade for the 1980s by the Academy of Country Music.
Country rock. Country rock is a genre that started in the 1960s but became prominent in the 1970s. The late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres. In the aftermath of the British Invasion, many desired a return to the "old values" of rock n' roll. At the same time there was a lack of enthusiasm in the country sector for Nashville-produced music. What resulted was a crossbred genre known as country rock. Early innovators in this new style of music in the 1960s and 1970s included Bob Dylan, who was the first to revert to country music with his 1967 album "John Wesley Harding" (and even more so with that album's follow-up, "Nashville Skyline"), followed by Gene Clark, Clark's former band the Byrds (with Gram Parsons on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo") and its spin-off the Flying Burrito Brothers (also featuring Gram Parsons), guitarist Clarence White, Michael Nesmith (the Monkees and the First National Band), the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, Commander Cody, the Allman Brothers Band, Charlie Daniels, the Marshall Tucker Band, Poco, Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills' band Manassas and Eagles, among many, even the former folk music duo Ian & Sylvia, who formed Great Speckled Bird in 1969. The Eagles would become the most successful of these country rock acts, and their compilation album "Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)" remains the second-best-selling album in the US with 29 million copies sold. The Rolling Stones also got into the act with songs like "Dead Flowers"; the original recording of "Honky Tonk Women" was performed in a country style, but it was subsequently re-recorded in a hard rock style for the single version, and the band's preferred country version was later released on the album "Let It Bleed", under the title "Country Honk".
Described by AllMusic as the "father of country-rock", Gram Parsons' work in the early 1970s was acclaimed for its purity and for his appreciation for aspects of traditional country music. Though his career was cut tragically short by his 1973 death, his legacy was carried on by his protégé and duet partner Emmylou Harris; Harris would release her debut solo in 1975, an amalgamation of country, rock and roll, folk, blues and pop. Subsequent to the initial blending of the two polar opposite genres, other offspring soon resulted, including Southern rock, heartland rock and in more recent years, alternative country. In the decades that followed, artists such as Juice Newton, Alabama, Hank Williams, Jr. (and, to an even greater extent, Hank Williams III), Gary Allan, Shania Twain, Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Dolly Parton, Rosanne Cash and Linda Ronstadt moved country further towards rock influence. Neocountry. In 1980, a style of "neocountry disco music" was popularized by the film "Urban Cowboy". It was during this time that a glut of pop-country crossover artists began appearing on the country charts: former pop stars Bill Medley (of the Righteous Brothers), "England Dan" Seals (of England Dan and John Ford Coley), Tom Jones, and Merrill Osmond (both alone and with some of his brothers; his younger sister Marie Osmond was already an established country star) all recorded significant country hits in the early 1980s. Sales in record stores rocketed to $250 million in 1981; by 1984, 900 radio stations began programming country or neocountry pop full-time. As with most sudden trends, however, by 1984 sales had dropped below 1979 figures.
Truck-driving country. Truck-driving country music is a genre of country music and is a fusion of honky-tonk, country rock and the Bakersfield sound. It has the tempo of country rock and the emotion of honky-tonk, and its lyrics focus on a truck driver's lifestyle. Truck-driving country songs often deal with the profession of trucking and love. Well-known artists who sing truck driving country include Dave Dudley, Red Sovine, Dick Curless, Red Simpson, Del Reeves, the Willis Brothers and Jerry Reed, with C. W. McCall and Cledus Maggard (pseudonyms of Bill Fries and Jay Huguely, respectively) being more humorous entries in the subgenre. Dudley is known as the father of truck driving country. Neotraditionalist movement. During the mid-1980s, a group of new artists began to emerge who rejected the more polished country-pop sound that had been prominent on radio and the charts, in favor of more, traditional, "back-to-basics" production. Many of the artists during the latter half of the 1980s drew on traditional honky-tonk, bluegrass, folk and western swing. Artists who typified this sound included Travis Tritt, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Keith Whitley, Alan Jackson, John Anderson, Patty Loveless, Kathy Mattea, Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, Clint Black, Ricky Skaggs, and the Judds.
Fifth generation (1990s). Country music was aided by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Docket 80–90, which led to a significant expansion of FM radio in the 1980s by adding numerous higher-fidelity FM signals to rural and suburban areas. At this point, country music was mainly heard on rural AM radio stations; the expansion of FM was particularly helpful to country music, which migrated to FM from the AM band as AM became overcome by talk radio (the country music stations that stayed on AM developed the classic country format for the AM audience). At the same time, beautiful music stations already in rural areas began abandoning the format (leading to its effective demise) to adopt country music as well. This wider availability of country music led to producers seeking to polish their product for a wider audience. In 1990, "Billboard", which had published a country music chart since the 1940s, changed the methodology it used to compile the chart: singles sales were removed from the methodology, and only airplay on country radio determined a song's place on the chart.
In the 1990s, country music became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to Garth Brooks, who enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music history, breaking records for both sales and concert attendance throughout the decade. The RIAA has certified his recordings at a combined (128× platinum), denoting roughly 113 million U.S. shipments. Other artists who experienced success during this time included Clint Black, John Michael Montgomery, Tracy Lawrence, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Travis Tritt, Alan Jackson and the newly formed duo of Brooks & Dunn; George Strait, whose career began in the 1980s, also continued to have widespread success in this decade and beyond. Toby Keith began his career as a more pop-oriented country singer in the 1990s, evolving into an outlaw persona in the early 2000s with "Pull My Chain" and its follow-up, "Unleashed". Success of female artists.
Canadian artist Shania Twain became the best selling female country artist of the decade. This was primarily due to the success of her breakthrough sophomore 1995 album, "The Woman in Me", which was certified 12× platinum sold over 20 million copies worldwide and its follow-up, 1997's "Come On Over", which was certified 20× platinum and sold over 40 million copies. The album became a major worldwide phenomenon and became one of the world's best selling albums for three years (1998, 1999 and 2000); it also went on to become the best selling country album of all time. Unlike the majority of her contemporaries, Twain enjoyed large international success that had been seen by very few country artists, before or after her. Critics have noted that Twain enjoyed much of her success due to breaking free of traditional country stereotypes and for incorporating elements of rock and pop into her music. In 2002, she released her successful fourth studio album, titled "Up!", which was certified 11× platinum and sold over 15 million copies worldwide. Shania Twain has been nominated eighteen times for Grammy Awards and won five Grammys. [] She was the best-paid country music star in 2016 according to Forbes, with a net worth of $27.5 million. []Twain has been credited with breaking international boundaries for country music, as well as inspiring many country artists to incorporate different genres into their music in order to attract a wider audience. She is also credited with changing the way in which many female country performers would market themselves, as unlike many before her she used fashion and her sex appeal to get rid of the stereotypical 'honky-tonk' image the majority of country singers had in order to distinguish herself from many female country artists of the time.
Line dancing revival. In the early-mid-1990s, country western music was influenced by the popularity of line dancing. This influence was so great that Chet Atkins was quoted as saying, "The music has gotten pretty bad, I think. It's all that damn line dancing." By the end of the decade, however, at least one line dance choreographer complained that good country line dance music was no longer being released. In contrast, artists such as Don Williams and George Jones who had more or less had consistent chart success through the 1970s and 1980s suddenly had their fortunes fall rapidly around 1991 when the new chart rules took effect. Alternative country. Country influences combined with Punk rock and alternative rock to forge the "cowpunk" scene in Southern California during the 1980s, which included bands such as the Long Ryders, Lone Justice and the Beat Farmers, as well as the established punk group X, whose music had begun to include country and rockabilly influences. Simultaneously, a generation of diverse country artists outside of California emerged that rejected the perceived cultural and musical conservatism associated with Nashville's mainstream country musicians in favor of more countercultural outlaw country and the folk singer-songwriter traditions of artists such as Woody Guthrie, Gram Parsons and Bob Dylan.
Artists from outside California who were associated with early alternative country included singer-songwriters such as Lucinda Williams, Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle, the Nashville country rock band Jason and the Scorchers, the Providence "cowboy pop" band Rubber Rodeo, and the British post-punk band the Mekons. Earle, in particular, was noted for his popularity with both country and college rock audiences: He promoted his 1986 debut album "Guitar Town" with a tour that saw him open for both country singer Dwight Yoakam and alternative rock band the Replacements. Yoakam also cultivated a fanbase spanning multiple genres through his stripped-down honky-tonk influenced sound, association with the cowpunk scene, and performances at Los Angeles punk rock clubs. These early styles had coalesced into a genre by the time the Illinois group Uncle Tupelo released their influential debut album "No Depression" in 1990. The album is widely credited as being the first "alternative country" album, and inspired the name of "No Depression" magazine, which exclusively covered the new genre. Following Uncle Tupelo's disbanding in 1994, its members formed two significant bands in the genre: Wilco and Son Volt. Although Wilco's sound had moved away from country and towards indie rock by the time they released their critically acclaimed album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" in 2002, they have continued to be an influence on later alt-country artists.
Other acts who became prominent in the alt-country genre during the 1990s and 2000s included the Bottle Rockets, the Handsome Family, Blue Mountain, Robbie Fulks, Blood Oranges, Bright Eyes, Drive-By Truckers, Old 97's, Old Crow Medicine Show, Nickel Creek, Neko Case, and Whiskeytown, whose lead singer Ryan Adams later had a successful solo-career. Alt-country, in various iterations overlapped with other genres, including Red Dirt country music (Cross Canadian Ragweed), jam bands (My Morning Jacket and the String Cheese Incident), and indie folk (the Avett Brothers). Despite the genre's growing popularity in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, alternative country and neo-traditionalist artists saw minimal support from country radio in those decades, despite strong sales and critical acclaim for albums such as the soundtrack to the 2000 film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?". In 1987, the Beat Farmers gained airplay on country music stations with their song "Make It Last", but the single was pulled from the format when station programmers decreed the band's music was too rock-oriented for their audience. However, some alt-country songs have been crossover hits to mainstream country radio in cover versions by established artists on the format; Lucinda Williams' "Passionate Kisses" was a hit for Mary Chapin Carpenter in 1993, Ryan Adams' "When the Stars Go Blue" was a hit for Tim McGraw in 2007, and Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel" was a hit for Darius Rucker (member of Hootie & The Blowfish) in 2013.
In the 2010s, the alt-country genre saw an increase in its critical and commercial popularity, owing to the success of artists such as the Civil Wars, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, Lydia Loveless and Margo Price. In 2019, Kacey Musgraves – a country artist who had gained a following with indie rock fans and music critics despite minimal airplay on country radio – won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for her album "Golden Hour". Sixth generation (2000s–present). The sixth generation of country music continued to be influenced by other genres such as pop, rock, and R&B. Richard Marx crossed over with his "Days in Avalon" album, which features five country songs and several singers and musicians. Alison Krauss sang background vocals to Marx's single "Straight from My Heart." Also, Bon Jovi had a hit single, "Who Says You Can't Go Home", with Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland. Kid Rock's collaboration with Sheryl Crow, "Picture," was a major crossover hit in 2001 and began Kid Rock's transition from hard rock to a country-rock hybrid that would later produce another major crossover hit, 2008's "All Summer Long." (Crow, whose music had often incorporated country elements, would also officially cross over into country with her hit "Easy" from her debut country album "Feels like Home"). Darius Rucker, frontman for the 1990s pop-rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, began a country solo career in the late 2000s, one that to date has produced five albums and several hits on both the country charts and the Billboard Hot 100. Singer-songwriter Unknown Hinson became famous for his appearance in the Charlotte television show "Wild, Wild, South", after which Hinson started his own band and toured in southern states. Other rock stars who featured a country song on their albums were Don Henley (who released "Cass County" in 2015, an album which featured collaborations with numerous country artists) and Poison.
The back half of the 2010–2020 decade saw an increasing number of mainstream country acts collaborate with pop and R&B acts; many of these songs achieved commercial success by appealing to fans across multiple genres; examples include collaborations between Kane Brown and Marshmello and Maren Morris and Zedd. There has also been interest from pop singers in country music, including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber and Pink. Supporting this movement is the new generation of contemporary pop-country, including Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Sam Hunt, Chris Young, who introduced new themes in their works, touching on fundamental rights, feminism, and controversies about racism and religion of the older generations. Popular culture.
In 2016, Underwood topped the Country Airplay chart for the 15th time, becoming the female artist with the most number ones on that chart. Carrie Underwood was only one of several country stars produced by a television series in the 2000s. In addition to Underwood, "American Idol" launched the careers of Kellie Pickler, Josh Gracin, Bucky Covington, Kristy Lee Cook, Danny Gokey, Lauren Alaina and Scotty McCreery (as well as that of occasional country singer Kelly Clarkson) in the decade, and would continue to launch country careers in the 2010s. The series "Nashville Star", while not nearly as successful as "Idol", did manage to bring Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves and Chris Young to mainstream success, also launching the careers of lower-profile musicians such as Buddy Jewell, Sean Patrick McGraw, and Canadian musician George Canyon. "Can You Duet?" produced the duos Steel Magnolia and Joey + Rory. Teen sitcoms also have influenced modern country music; in 2008, actress Jennette McCurdy (best known as the sidekick Sam on the teen sitcom "iCarly") released her first single, "So Close", following that with the single "Generation Love" in 2011. Another teen sitcom star, Miley Cyrus (of Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana"), also had a crossover hit in the late 2000s with "The Climb" and another with a duet with her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, with "Ready, Set, Don't Go." Jana Kramer, an actress in the teen drama "One Tree Hill", released a country album in 2012 that has produced two hit singles as of 2013. Actresses Hayden Panettiere and Connie Britton began recording country songs as part of their roles in the TV shows "Nashville" and "Pretty Little Liars" star Lucy Hale released her debut album "Road Between" in 2014.
In 2010, the group Lady Antebellum won five Grammys, including the coveted Song of the Year and Record of the Year for "Need You Now". A large number of duos and vocal groups emerged on the charts in the 2010s, many of which feature close harmony in the lead vocals. In addition to Lady A, groups such as Little Big Town, the Band Perry, Gloriana, Thompson Square, Eli Young Band, Zac Brown Band and British duo the Shires have emerged to occupy a large share of mainstream success alongside solo singers such as Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert. One of the most commercially successful country artists of the late 2000s and early 2010s has been singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Swift first became widely known in 2006 when her debut single, "Tim McGraw", was released when Swift was only 16 years old. In 2006, Swift released her self-titled debut studio album, which spent 275 weeks on "Billboard" 200, one of the longest runs of any album on that chart. In 2008, Taylor Swift released her second studio album, "Fearless", which made her the second longest number-one charted on "Billboard" 200 and the second best-selling album (just behind Adele's "21") within the past 5 years. At the 2010 Grammys, Taylor Swift was 20 and won Album of the Year for "Fearless", which made her the youngest artist to win this award. Swift has received fourteen Grammys already.
Buoyed by her teen idol status among girls and a change in the methodology of compiling the "Billboard" charts to favor pop-crossover songs, Swift's 2012 single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" spent the most weeks at the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart and Hot Country Songs chart of any song in nearly five decades. The song's long run at the top of the chart was somewhat controversial, as the song is largely a pop song without much country influence and its success on the charts was driven by a change to the chart's criteria to include airplay on non-country radio stations, prompting disputes over what constitutes a country song; many of Swift's later releases, such as album "1989" (2014), "Reputation" (2017), and "Lover" (2019) were released solely to pop audiences. Swift returned to country music in her recent folk-inspired releases, "Folklore" (2020) and "Evermore" (2020), with songs like "Betty" and "No Body, No Crime". Modern variations. Influence of rock, pop and hip-hop. In the mid to late 2010s, country music began to increasingly sound more like the style of modern-day Pop music, with more simple and repetitive lyrics, more electronic-based instrumentation, and experimentation with "talk-singing" and rap, pop-country pulled farther away from the traditional sounds of country music and received criticisms from country music purists while gaining in popularity with mainstream audiences. The topics addressed have also changed, turning controversial such as acceptance of the LGBT community, safe sex, recreational marijuana use, and questioning religious sentiment. Influences also come from some pop artists' interest in the country genre, including Justin Timberlake with the album "Man of the Woods," Beyoncé's song "Daddy Lessons" from "Lemonade", Kelly Clarkson, Gwen Stefani with "Nobody but You", Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, and Pink.
The influence of rock music in country has become more overt during the late 2000s and early 2010s as artists like Eric Church, Jason Aldean, and Brantley Gilbert have had success; Aaron Lewis, former frontman for the rock group Staind, had a moderately successful entry into country music in 2011 and 2012, as did Dallas Smith, former frontman of the band Default. Maren Morris success collaboration "The Middle" with EDM producer Zedd is considered one of the representations of the fusion of electro-pop with country music. Lil Nas X song "Old Town Road" spent 19 weeks atop the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, becoming the longest-running number-one song since the chart debuted in 1958, winning Billboard Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and Grammy Award. Sam Hunt "Leave the Night On" peaked concurrently on the Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, making Hunt the first country artist in 22 years, since Billy Ray Cyrus, to reach the top of three country charts simultaneously in the Nielsen SoundScan-era. With the fusion genre of "country trap"—a fusion of country/western themes to a hip hop beat, but usually with fully sung lyrics—emerging in the late 2010s, line dancing country had a minor revival, examples of the phenomenon include "The Git Up" by Blanco Brown. Blanco Brown has gone on to make more traditional country soul songs such as "I Need Love" and a rendition of "Don't Take the Girl" with Tim McGraw, and collaborations like "Just the Way" with Parmalee. Another country trap artist known as Breland has seen success with "My Truck, "Throw It Back" with Keith Urban, and "Praise the Lord" featuring Thomas Rhett.
Emo rap musician Sueco, released a cowpunk song in collaboration is country musician Warren Zeiders titled "Ride It Hard". Bro country. In the early 2010s, "bro-country", a genre noted primarily for its themes on drinking and partying, girls, and pickup trucks became particularly popular. Notable artists associated with this genre are Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, Jake Owen and Florida Georgia Line whose song "Cruise" became the best-selling country song of all time. Research in the mid-2010s suggested that about 45 percent of country's best-selling songs could be considered bro-country, with the top two artists being Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line. Albums by bro-country singers also sold very well—in 2013, Luke Bryan's "Crash My Party" was the third best-selling of all albums in the United States, with Florida Georgia Line's "Here's to the Good Times" at sixth, and Blake Shelton's "Based on a True Story" at ninth. It is also thought that the popularity of bro-country helped country music to surpass classic rock as the most popular genre in the American country in 2012. The genre however is controversial as it has been criticized by other country musicians and commentators over its themes and depiction of women, opening up a divide between the older generation of country singers and the younger bro country singers that was described as "civil war" by musicians, critics, and journalists." In 2014, Maddie & Tae's "Girl in a Country Song", addressing many of the controversial bro-country themes, peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Country Airplay chart.
Bluegrass and Americana. Bluegrass is a genre that contain songs about going through hard times, country loving, and telling stories. Its history can be traced back to the 1600s. During this time, many people were coming to America from Ireland, Scotland and England. Those people brought the first version of Bluegrass to the Americas. After several years of bluegrass' development, Bill Monroe became the "father" of bluegrass. Other sources argue that The Monroe Brothers were the first stars of bluegrass. Newer artists like Billy Strings, the Grascals, Molly Tuttle, Tyler Childers and the Infamous Stringdusters have been increasing the popularity of this genre, alongside some of the genres more established stars who still remain popular including Rhonda Vincent, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Ricky Skaggs and Del McCoury. The genre has developed in the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati area. Other artists include New South (band), Doc Watson, Osborne Brothers, and many others. In an effort to combat the over-reliance of mainstream country music on pop-infused artists, the sister genre of Americana began to gain popularity and increase in prominence, receiving eight Grammy categories of its own in 2009. Though Americana music gained popularity in 2009, the first Americana singer was likely Hank Williams in the 1950s. Americana music incorporates elements of country music, bluegrass, folk, blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, roots rock and southern soul and is overseen by the Americana Music Association and the Americana Music Honors & Awards. As a result of an increasingly pop-leaning mainstream, many more traditional-sounding artists such as Tyler Childers, Zach Bryan and Old Crow Medicine Show began to associate themselves more with Americana and the alternative country scene where their sound was more celebrated. Similarly, many established country acts who no longer received commercial airplay, including Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett, began to flourish again.
Contemporary country and western revival. During the mid-1980s, a group of new artists began to emerge who rejected the more polished country-pop sound that had been prominent on radio and the charts, in favor of more, traditional, "back-to-basics" production. Many of the artists during the latter half of the 1980s drew on traditional honky-tonk, bluegrass, folk and western swing. Artists who typified this sound included Travis Tritt, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Keith Whitley, Alan Jackson, John Anderson, Patty Loveless, Kathy Mattea, Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, Clint Black, Ricky Skaggs, and the Judds. Beginning in 1989, a confluence of events brought an unprecedented commercial boom to country music. New marketing strategies were used to engage fans, powered by technology that more accurately tracked the popularity of country music, and boosted by a political and economic climate that focused attention on the genre. Garth Brooks ("Friends in Low Places") in particular attracted fans with his fusion of neotraditionalist country and stadium rock. Other artists such as Brooks and Dunn ("Boot Scootin' Boogie") also combined conventional country with slick, rock elements, while Lorrie Morgan, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Kathy Mattea updated neotraditionalist styles.
Roots of conservative country was Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA". The September 11 attacks of 2001 and the economic recession helped move country music back into the spotlight. Many country artists, such as Alan Jackson with his ballad on terrorist attacks, "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)", wrote songs that celebrated the military, highlighted the gospel, and emphasized home and family values over wealth. Alt-Country singer Ryan Adams song "New York, New York" pays tribute to New York City, and its popular music video (which was shot 4 days before the attacks) shows Adams playing in front of the Manhattan skyline, Along with several shots of the city. In contrast, more rock-oriented country singers took more direct aim at the attacks' perpetrators; Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" threatened to "a boot in" the posterior of the enemy, while Charlie Daniels's "This Ain't No Rag, It's a Flag" promised to "hunt" the perpetrators "down like a mad dog hound." These songs gained such recognition that it put country music back into popular culture. Darryl Worley recorded "Have You Forgotten" also. There have been numerous patriotic country songs throughout the years.
Some modern artists that primarily or entirely produce country pop music include Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini, Sam Hunt, Kane Brown, Chris Lane, and Dan + Shay. The singers who are part of this country movement are also defined as "Nashville's new generation of country". Although the changes made by the new generation, it has been recognized by major music awards associations and successes in Billboard and international charts. "Golden Hour" by Kacey Musgraves won album of the year at 61st Annual Grammy Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, Country Music Association Awards, although it has received criticism from some traditional country music fans. International. Australia. Australian country music has a long tradition. Influenced by US country music, it has developed a distinct style, shaped by British and Irish folk ballads and Australian bush balladeers like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. Country instruments, including the guitar, banjo, fiddle and harmonica, create the distinctive sound of country music in Australia and accompany songs with strong storyline and memorable chorus.
Folk songs sung in Australia between the 1780s and 1920s, based around such themes as the struggle against government tyranny, or the lives of bushrangers, swagmen, drovers, stockmen and shearers, continue to influence the genre. This strain of Australian country, with lyrics focusing on Australian subjects, is generally known as "bush music" or "bush band music". "Waltzing Matilda", often regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem, is a quintessential Australian country song, influenced more by British and Irish folk ballads than by US country and western music. The lyrics were composed by the poet Banjo Paterson in 1895. Other popular songs from this tradition include "The Wild Colonial Boy", "Click Go the Shears", "The Queensland Drover" and "The Dying Stockman". Later themes which endure to the present include the experiences of war, of droughts and flooding rains, of Aboriginality and of the railways and trucking routes which link Australia's vast distances. Pioneers of a more Americanised popular country music in Australia included Tex Morton (known as "The Father of Australian Country Music") in the 1930s. Author Andrew Smith delivers a through research and engaged view of Tex Morton's life and his impact on the country music scene in Australia in the 1930s and 1940s. Other early stars included Buddy Williams, Shirley Thoms and Smoky Dawson. Buddy Williams (1918–1986) was the first Australian-born to record country music in Australia in the late 1930s and was the pioneer of a distinctly Australian style of country music called the bush ballad that others such as Slim Dusty would make popular in later years. During the Second World War, many of Buddy Williams recording sessions were done whilst on leave from the Army. At the end of the war, Williams would go on to operate some of the largest travelling tent rodeo shows Australia has ever seen.
In 1952, Dawson began a radio show and went on to national stardom as a singing cowboy of radio, TV and film. Slim Dusty (1927–2003) was known as the "King of Australian Country Music" and helped to popularise the Australian bush ballad. His successful career spanned almost six decades, and his 1957 hit "A Pub with No Beer" was the biggest-selling record by an Australian to that time, and with over seven million record sales in Australia he is the most successful artist in Australian musical history. Dusty recorded and released his one-hundredth album in the year 2000 and was given the honour of singing "Waltzing Matilda" in the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Dusty's wife Joy McKean penned several of his most popular songs. Chad Morgan, who began recording in the 1950s, has represented a vaudeville style of comic Australian country; Frank Ifield achieved considerable success in the early 1960s, especially in the UK Singles Charts and Reg Lindsay was one of the first Australians to perform at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry in 1974. Eric Bogle's 1972 folk lament to the Gallipoli Campaign "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" recalled the British and Irish origins of Australian folk-country. Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly, whose music style straddles folk, rock and country, is often described as the poet laureate of Australian music.
By the 1990s, country music had attained crossover success in the pop charts, with artists like James Blundell and James Reyne singing "Way Out West", and country star Kasey Chambers winning the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist in three years (2000, 2002 and 2004), tying with pop stars Wendy Matthews and Sia for the most wins in that category. Furthermore, Chambers has gone on to win nine ARIA Awards for Best Country Album and, in 2018, became the youngest artist to ever be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. The crossover influence of Australian country is also evident in the music of successful contemporary bands the Waifs and the John Butler Trio. Nick Cave has been heavily influenced by the country artist Johnny Cash. In 2000, Cash, covered Cave's "The Mercy Seat" on the album ', seemingly repaying Cave for the compliment he paid by covering Cash's "The Singer" (originally "The Folk Singer") on his "Kicking Against the Pricks" album. Subsequently, Cave cut a duet with Cash on a version of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" for Cash's ' album (2002).
Popular contemporary performers of Australian country music include John Williamson (who wrote the iconic "True Blue"), Lee Kernaghan (whose hits include "Boys from the Bush" and "The Outback Club"), Gina Jeffreys, Forever Road and Sara Storer. In the U.S., Olivia Newton-John, Sherrié Austin and Keith Urban have attained great success. During her time as a country singer in the 1970s, Newton-John became the first (and to date only) non-US winner of the Country Music Association Award for Female Vocalist of the Year which many considered a controversial decision by the CMA; after starring in the rock-and-roll musical film "Grease" in 1978, Newton-John (mirroring the character she played in the film) shifted to pop music in the 1980s. Urban is arguably considered the most successful international Australian country star, winning nine CMA Awards, including three Male Vocalist of the Year wins and two wins of the CMA's top honour Entertainer of the Year. Pop star Kylie Minogue found success with her 2018 country pop album "Golden" which she recorded in Nashville reaching number one in Scotland, the UK and her native Australia.
Country music has been a particularly popular form of musical expression among Indigenous Australians. Troy Cassar-Daley is among Australia's successful contemporary indigenous performers, and Kev Carmody and Archie Roach employ a combination of folk-rock and country music to sing about Aboriginal rights issues. The Tamworth Country Music Festival began in 1973 and now attracts up to 100,000 visitors annually. Held in Tamworth, New South Wales (country music capital of Australia), it celebrates the culture and heritage of Australian country music. During the festival the CMAA holds the Country Music Awards of Australia ceremony awarding the Golden Guitar trophies. Other significant country music festivals include the Whittlesea Country Music Festival (near Melbourne) and the Mildura Country Music Festival for "independent" performers during October, and the Canberra Country Music Festival held in the national capital during November. "Country HQ" showcases new talent on the rise in the country music scene down under. CMC (the Country Music Channel), a 24‑hour music channel dedicated to non-stop country music, can be viewed on pay TV and features once a year the Golden Guitar Awards, CMAs and CCMAs alongside international shows such as "The Wilkinsons", "The Road Hammers", and "Country Music Across America".
Canada. Outside of the United States, Canada has the largest country music fan and artist base, something that is to be expected given the two countries' proximity and cultural parallels. Mainstream country music is culturally ingrained in the prairie provinces, the British Columbia Interior, Northern Ontario, and in Atlantic Canada. Celtic traditional music developed in Atlantic Canada in the form of Scottish, Acadian and Irish folk music popular amongst Irish, French and Scottish immigrants to Canada's Atlantic Provinces (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island). Like the southern United States and Appalachia, all four regions are of heavy British Isles stock and rural; as such, the development of traditional music in the Maritimes somewhat mirrored the development of country music in the US South and Appalachia. Country and western music never really developed separately in Canada; however, after its introduction to Canada, following the spread of radio, it developed quite quickly out of the Atlantic Canadian traditional scene. While true Atlantic Canadian traditional music is very Celtic or "sea shanty" in nature, even today, the lines have often been blurred. Certain areas often are viewed as embracing one strain or the other more openly. For example, in Newfoundland the traditional music remains unique and Irish in nature, whereas traditional musicians in other parts of the region may play both genres interchangeably.
"Don Messer's Jubilee" was a Halifax, Nova Scotia-based country/folk variety television show that was broadcast nationally from 1957 to 1969. In Canada it out-performed "The Ed Sullivan Show" broadcast from the United States and became the top-rated television show throughout much of the 1960s. "Don Messer's Jubilee" followed a consistent format throughout its years, beginning with a tune named "Goin' to the Barndance Tonight", followed by fiddle tunes by Messer, songs from some of his "Islanders" including singers Marg Osburne and Charlie Chamberlain, the featured guest performance, and a closing hymn. It ended with "Till We Meet Again". The guest performance slot gave national exposure to numerous Canadian folk musicians, including Stompin' Tom Connors and Catherine McKinnon. Some Maritime country performers went on to further fame beyond Canada. Hank Snow, Wilf Carter (also known as Montana Slim), and Anne Murray are the three most notable. The cancellation of the show by the public broadcaster in 1969 caused a nationwide protest, including the raising of questions in the Parliament of Canada.
The Prairie provinces, due to their western cowboy and agrarian nature, are the true heartland of Canadian country music. While the Prairies never developed a traditional music culture anything like the Maritimes, the folk music of the Prairies often reflected the cultural origins of the settlers, who were a mix of Scottish, Ukrainian, German and others. For these reasons polkas and western music were always popular in the region, and with the introduction of the radio, mainstream country music flourished. As the culture of the region is western and frontier in nature, the specific genre of country and western is more popular today in the Prairies than in any other part of the country. No other area of the country embraces all aspects of the culture, from two-step dancing, to the cowboy dress, to rodeos, to the music itself, like the Prairies do. The Atlantic Provinces, on the other hand, produce far more traditional musicians, but they are not usually specifically country in nature, usually bordering more on the folk or Celtic genres.
Canadian country pop star Shania Twain is the best-selling female country artist of all time and one of the best-selling artists of all time in any genre. Furthermore, she is the only woman to have three consecutive albums be certified Diamond. Mexico and Latin America. Country music artists from the U.S. have seen crossover with Latin American audiences, particularly in Mexico. Country music artists from throughout the U.S. have recorded renditions of Mexican folk songs, including "El Rey" which was performed on George Strait's "Twang" album and during Al Hurricane's tribute concert. American Latin pop crossover musicians, like Lorenzo Antonio's "Ranchera Jam" have also combined Mexican songs with country songs in a New Mexico music style. While Tejano and New Mexico music is typically thought of as being Spanish language, the genres have also had charting musicians focused on English language music. During the 1970s, singer-songwriter Freddy Fender had two #1 country music singles, that were popular throughout North America, with "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" and "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights". Notable songs which have been influenced by Hispanic and Latin culture as performed by US country music artists include Marty Robbins' "El Paso" trilogy, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covering the Townes Van Zandt song "Pancho and Lefty", "Toes" by Zac Brown Band, and "Sangria" by Blake Shelton.
Regional Mexican is a radio format featuring many of Mexico's versions of country music. It includes a number of different styles, usually named after their region of origin. One specific song style, the Canción Ranchera, or simply Ranchera, literally meaning "ranch song", found its origins in the Mexican countryside and was first popularized with Mariachi. It has since also become popular with Grupero, Banda, Norteño, Tierra Caliente, Duranguense and other regional Mexican styles. The Corrido, a different song style with a similar history, is also performed in many other regional styles, and is most related to the western style of the United States and Canada. Other song styles performed in regional Mexican music include Ballads, Cumbias, Boleros, among others. Country en Español (Country in Spanish) is also popular in Mexico. Some Mexican artists began performing country songs in Spanish during the 1970s, and the genre became prominent mainly in the northern regions of the country during the 1980s. A Country en Español popularity boom also reached the central regions of Mexico during the 1990s. For most of its history, Country en Español mainly resembled Neotraditional country. However, in more modern times, some artists have incorporated influences from other country music subgenres.
In Argentina, on the last weekend of September, the yearly San Pedro Country Music Festival takes place in the town of San Pedro, Buenos Aires. The festival features bands from different places in Argentina, as well as international artists from Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Peru and the U.S. United Kingdom. Country music is popular in the United Kingdom, although somewhat less so than in other English-speaking countries. There are some British country music acts and publications. Although radio stations devoted to country are among the most popular in other Anglophone nations, none of the top ten most-listened-to stations in the UK are country stations, and national broadcaster BBC Radio does not offer a full-time country station (BBC Radio 2 Country, a "pop-up" station, operated four days each year between 2015 and 2017). The BBC does offer a country show on BBC Radio 2 each week hosted by Bob Harris. The most successful British country music act of the 21st century are Ward Thomas and the Shires. In 2015, the Shires' album "Brave", became the first UK country act ever to chart in the Top 10 of the UK Albums Chart and they became the first UK country act to receive an award from the American Country Music Association. In 2016, Ward Thomas then became the first UK country act to hit number 1 in the UK Albums Chart with their album "Cartwheels".

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