I was excited to see that this was one of the topics I could look up because of my passion and love for country music and how it has changed over the decades. I used google books for my research and came across a book called “Categorizing Sound: Genre and Twentieth-Century Popular Music” written by David Brackett. In chapter 4 of his book he brings in the knowledge of southern music and “hillbilly” music. Brackett explains that hillbilly music came about from a small band located in Virginia who made a recording in January 1925. They were asked for a name for the group and Hopkins who was the leader of the group did not know how to reply. Eventually he replied and said “call the band anything you want. We are nothing but a bunch of hillbillies from North Carolina and Virginia anyway.” The release of the record with their six recordings was credited to “Hill Billies” and that is how hillbilly music was born. The term hillbilly did eventually get its acceptance in the music world but it was very short lived with the occurrence of country music increasing its professional songwriters and new songs coming out that were seen to be apart of folk music. “Hillbilly did eventually gain acceptance, however, as a music industry term, but only after the flurry of attention that occasioned its emergence had subsided.” Hillbilly, folk, and country music have all changed and evolved over the years, but ever since country first began there has always been some form of country music in the world.

Sarah White

https://books.google.com/books?id=3lAlDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA197&dq=when+was+hillbilly+music+originated&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjE6aLq6o_aAhVEmVkKHcLRDf0Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=when%20was%20hillbilly%20music%20originated&f=false