re: Nashville claims Chris Stapleton the way that the South claims Texas.

Country music use to be called hill music in the early years back when the Carter family started recording in the late 20s. It had quite a bit of Irish folk music influence. Then in the 30s Jimmie Rodgers started getting big and he was the most famous country and blues artist of his time. He was a big influence on many genres of music. He is in many hall of fames and so are the Carter family which are the first family of country music.

Then the Hawaiian pedal steel guitar and was later implemented to give it the distinct sound.

Nashville embraced the cowboy image in the 30s/40s and then westerns took off in Hollywood.

Hank Williams Sr. was the first modern country artist and the genre began to gain even more popularity in the United States and even influenced some members of the Beatles.

Then in the 50s it was no longer called hill music but country and western music.

The genre survived the wave of rock music in the mid 50s and then exploded in the 60s with what was called the Nashville sound.

But in the early 80s with the success of the movie urban cowboy, Nashville started pushing more pop sounding country music and many songs dropped the pedal steel guitar and the fiddle.

So traditional country music artists of that time were ignored until listeners began to protest of the direction of the genre. Then traditionalists such as George strait and Randy Travis gave it new life in the middle and late 80s. The 90s were a big explosion of country bands that use to be only solo artists.

Now it has no folk or blues influence and it is all garbage because they left the foundation of what started it all and the message it was trying to relay.