{ "slug": "country", "name": "Country", "aliases": [ "country and western", "hillbilly", "honky-tonk", "nashville sound" ], "description": "The commercial music of the white rural South, from the 1927 Bristol sessions onward: Scots-Irish ballad structure, blues phrasing and a lyric convention that prizes the plain statement over the clever one.", "origin": { "place": "Bristol, Tennessee", "year": 1927 }, "lineage": [ { "genre": "celtic-traditional", "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/celtic-traditional/", "inherited": "The tunes and the stories, carried by Scots-Irish settlers into Appalachia and kept there. The modal melodies, the ballad form and the fiddle are all still recognisably the ones that left Ulster." }, { "genre": "blues", "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/blues/", "inherited": "The other half, and rarely admitted at the time. Jimmie Rodgers yodels over twelve bars, Hank Williams learned from a Black street musician in Montgomery, and the bent note is not a Scottish inheritance." } ], "bpm": { "min": 80, "max": 140 }, "updated": "2026-08-30", "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/country/", "trackCount": 9, "curatedBy": [], "playlists": {}, "tracks": [ { "rank": 1, "trackKey": "hank-williams--im-so-lonesome-i-could-cry", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/hank-williams--im-so-lonesome-i-could-cry/", "title": "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", "artist": "Hank Williams", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/hank-williams/", "year": 1949, "label": "MGM", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "A whippoorwill, a falling star and a man who cannot say the thing directly. The most imitated lyric in American songwriting, and nobody has bettered it.", "alsoOn": [ { "kind": "curator", "slug": "sung-to-someone", "name": "Sung to Someone", "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/sung-to-someone/" } ], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Hank%20Williams%20I'm%20So%20Lonesome%20I%20Could%20Cry", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4WXYjm74WFI", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 2, "trackKey": "johnny-cash--ring-of-fire", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/johnny-cash--ring-of-fire/", "title": "Ring of Fire", "artist": "Johnny Cash", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/johnny-cash/", "year": 1963, "label": "Columbia", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "Mariachi trumpets on a country record, which was June Carter's song about falling for a man who was bad news. Cash sang it for forty years and never explained.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Johnny%20Cash%20Ring%20of%20Fire", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=GCMz70Fm5pA", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 3, "trackKey": "dolly-parton--jolene", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/dolly-parton--jolene/", "title": "Jolene", "artist": "Dolly Parton", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/dolly-parton/", "year": 1973, "label": "RCA", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "Two chords, a plea to another woman, and not a wasted syllable. Parton wrote it in one evening alongside I Will Always Love You, which is an unreasonable evening.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Dolly%20Parton%20Jolene", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixrje2rXLMA", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 4, "trackKey": "the-carter-family--wildwood-flower", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/the-carter-family--wildwood-flower/", "title": "Wildwood Flower", "artist": "The Carter Family", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/the-carter-family/", "year": 1928, "label": "Victor", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "Maybelle Carter's thumb-and-fingers guitar style, invented on this record and copied by everyone since. The Bristol sessions in one performance.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/The%20Carter%20Family%20Wildwood%20Flower", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=l0DMhqlH20k", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 5, "trackKey": "jimmie-rodgers--blue-yodel-no-1-t-for-texas", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/jimmie-rodgers--blue-yodel-no-1-t-for-texas/", "title": "Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)", "artist": "Jimmie Rodgers", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/jimmie-rodgers/", "year": 1927, "label": "Victor", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "The Singing Brakeman doing blues verses with a Swiss yodel on top, which should not work. The other half of Bristol, and the more musically promiscuous half.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Jimmie%20Rodgers%20Blue%20Yodel%20No.%201%20(T%20for%20Texas)", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=hEtKCURES4o", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 6, "trackKey": "patsy-cline--crazy", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/patsy-cline--crazy/", "title": "Crazy", "artist": "Patsy Cline", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/patsy-cline/", "year": 1961, "label": "Decca", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "Willie Nelson wrote it as a talking blues and Cline sang it as a torch song over his objections. She was right, and it is the finest vocal in the genre.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Patsy%20Cline%20Crazy", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=YWKeuYcDAoo", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 7, "trackKey": "george-jones--he-stopped-loving-her-today", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/george-jones--he-stopped-loving-her-today/", "title": "He Stopped Loving Her Today", "artist": "George Jones", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/george-jones/", "year": 1980, "label": "Epic", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "A man loves a woman until he dies, and the song waits until the last verse to tell you that is the joke. Jones thought it was too morbid to release.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/George%20Jones%20He%20Stopped%20Loving%20Her%20Today", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=VExw77xJsBQ", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 8, "trackKey": "loretta-lynn--coal-miners-daughter", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/loretta-lynn--coal-miners-daughter/", "title": "Coal Miner's Daughter", "artist": "Loretta Lynn", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/loretta-lynn/", "year": 1970, "label": "Decca", "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "Autobiography with the specifics left in — the washboard, the Bible, the shoes. Country's habit of plain reporting, at its most disciplined.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Loretta%20Lynn%20Coal%20Miner's%20Daughter", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=5VhOPHR47qE", "exact": true } } }, { "rank": 9, "trackKey": "townes-van-zandt--pancho-and-lefty", "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/townes-van-zandt--pancho-and-lefty/", "title": "Pancho and Lefty", "artist": "Townes Van Zandt", "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/townes-van-zandt/", "year": 1972, "label": null, "isrc": null, "whyItMatters": "The outlaw song as elegy, by a writer too difficult for Nashville to handle directly. Willie and Merle later had the hit; this is the version with the grain in it.", "alsoOn": [], "links": { "spotify": { "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Townes%20Van%20Zandt%20Pancho%20and%20Lefty", "exact": false }, "youtubeMusic": { "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=cOctHMWoYyc", "exact": true } } } ] }