Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and southeastern American folk music. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjoes, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas.

The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. In 2009 Country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute.

Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years. They brought some of their most important valuables with them, and to most of them this was an instrument: “Early Scottish settlers enjoyed the fiddle because it could be played to sound sad and mournful or bright and bouncy” The fiddle, the German derived dulcimer, the Italian mandolin, the Spanish guitar, and the West African banjo were the most common musical instruments. The interactions among musicians from different ethnic groups produced music unique to this region of North America. Appalachian string bands of the early 20th century primarily consisted of the fiddle, guitar, and banjo. This early country music along with early recorded country music is often referred to as old-time music.

Freddy Quinn (born Franz Eugen Helmut Manfred Nidl, 27 September 1931, Niederfladnitz, Austria) is an Austrian singer and actor whose popularity within the German-speaking world soared in the late 1950s and 1960s. Similar to Hans Albers two generations before him, Quinn adopted the persona of the rootless wanderer who goes to sea but longs for a home, family and friends. Quinn's Irish-sounding name comes from his Irish born salesman father, Johann Quinn. His mother, Edith Henriette Nidl, was an Austrian journalist. He is often associated with the Schlager scene.

Quinn was born in Lower Austria and grew up in Vienna. As a child he lived in Morgantown, West Virginia (USA) with his father but moved back to live with his mother in Europe. Through his mother's second marriage to Rudolf Anatol Freiherr von Petz, Quinn adopted the name Nidl-Petz. However, having left the landlocked country of Austria for Germany, he was "discovered" in St. Pauli, Hamburg, and was offered his first recording contract in 1954. He represented Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland with the atypical song, "So geht das jede Nacht", about an unfaithful girlfriend who dates lots of men and he finished 3rd . His other songs are mostly about the endless sea and the solitary life in faraway lands. His first hit record was "Heimweh" ("Homesickness", aka "Brennend heißer Wüstensand", "Dort wo die Blumen blüh'n" and "Schön war die Zeit", (1956), a German version of Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This". It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records. He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums. While with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only true genius in show business.”

The influences upon his music were mainly jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and country artists of the day such as Art Tatum, Nat King Cole, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Louis Armstrong. His playing reflected influences from country blues and barrelhouse, and stride piano styles.

Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004, and number two on their November 2008 list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In honoring Charles, Billy Joel noted: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don't know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things . . . Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work?"