Country Music Trivia Quiz Questions And Answers

Trivia quiz questions and answers about country music.

Country Music Trivia Quiz Questions And Answers

What is country music?
A: Country music, also known as country and western (or simply country), and hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s.

It takes its roots from genres such as what?
A: Folk music (especially Appalachian folk and Western music) and blues.

According to Lindsey Starnes, the term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to what earlier term?
A: Hillbilly music; it came to encompass Western music, which evolved parallel to hillbilly music from similar roots, in the mid-20th century.

In 2009 in the United States, country music was the most listened to what?
A: Rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute.

The origins of country music are found in the folk music of working class Americans, who blended what?
A: Popular songs, Irish and Celtic fiddle tunes, traditional English ballads, cowboy songs, and the musical traditions of various groups of European immigrants.

Immigrants to the southern Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America brought the music and instruments of Europe along with them for how long?
A: Nearly 300 years.

The U.S. Congress has formally recognized Bristol, Tennessee as what?
A: The "Birthplace of Country Music", based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927.

Since 2014, the city has been home to what?
A: The Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

Historians have also noted the influence of the less-known what?
A: 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 do what?
A: To inspire modern country music.

The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlanta's music scene doing what?
A: Playing a major role in launching country's earliest recording artists.

When did New York City record label Okeh Records begin issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin' John Carson?
A: As early as 1923.

Many "hillbilly" musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded what throughout the 1920s?
A: Blues songs.

During the second generation (1930s–1940s), what became a popular source of entertainment?
A: Radio.

What type of shows featuring country music were started all over the South, as far north as Chicago, and as far west as California?
A: "Barn dance".

Which was the most important?
A: The Grand Ole Opry, which aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville and continues to the present day.

During the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by what?
A: Films made in Hollywood.

Bob Wills was country musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a "hot string band," and who also did what?
A: Appeared in Hollywood westerns.

His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, would become known as what?
A: Western swing.

Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added what to his band, in 1938?
A: An electric guitar.

When did country musicians begin recording boogie?
A: 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 what?
A: Bluegrass, which emerged when Bill Monroe, along with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were introduced by Roy Acuff at the Grand Ole Opry.

Where did honky tonk, have its roots?
A: In Western swing and the ranchera music of Mexico and the border states.

By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, and honky tonk was played by whom?
A: By most country bands.

When was rockabilly the most popular with country fans?
A: In the 1950s.

1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music, with whom emerging as one of the most popular and enduring representatives of the rockabilly genre?
A: Johnny Cash.

Rockabilly was also a starting point for what eventual rock-and-roll superstar?
A: Elvis Presley, who would return to his country roots near the end of his life.

Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the Nashville sound turned country music into a what?
A: A multimillion-dollar industry centered in Nashville, Tennessee.

Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves were two of the most broadly popular Nashville sound artists who both died how?
A: In separate plane crashes in the early 1960s.

The late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of what?
A: Traditionalist backlash within separate genres.

In the aftermath of the British Invasion, many desired a return to what?
A: The "old values" of rock n' roll.

At the same time there was a lack of enthusiasm in the country sector for what?
A: For Nashville-produced music.

What resulted was a crossbred genre known as what?
A: Country rock.

Fourth generation (1970s–1980s) music included outlaw country with roots in what?
A: 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 what?
A: A series of hugely successful songs blending country and folk-rock musical styles.

During the early 1980s where did country artists continue to see their records perform well?
A: On the pop charts.

When was a style of "neocountry disco music" popularized?
A: In 1980.

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 what?
A: More traditional "back-to-basics" production.

This neotraditional movement would dominate country music through the late 1980s and was typified by the likes of whom?
A: George Strait.

Attempts to combine punk and country were pioneered by whom?
A: Jason and the Scorchers, and in the 1980s Southern Californian cowpunk scene with bands like the Long Ryders and Mojo Nixon.

During the fifth generation (1990s), country music became what?
A: A worldwide phenomenon.

What two types of artists enjoyed mainstream popularity?
A: Neotraditionalists such as Alan Jackson, and the more broadly popular stadium country acts, in particular Garth Brooks.

When did the Dixie Chicks become one of the most popular country bands?
A: In the 1990s and early 2000s.

The sixth generation (2000s–present) has seen a certain amount of diversification in regard to what?
A: Country music styles.

Hip-hop also made its mark on country music with the emergence of what?
A: Country rap.

Most of the best-selling country songs of this era were in what genre?
A: The country pop genre, such as those by Lady Antebellum, Florida Georgia Line, Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift.

Vernon Dalhart was the first country star to have what?
A: A major hit record.

Jimmie Rodgers, country singer, yodeler and pioneer, was country's first what?
A: Major star.

The first commercial recording of what is widely considered to be the first country song featuring vocals and lyrics was what?
A: Fiddlin' John Carson with "Little Log Cabin in the Lane" for Okeh Records in June 14, 1923.



Vernon Dalhart was the first country singer to have what?
A: A nationwide hit in May 1924 with "Wreck of the Old 97".

What was the flip side of the record?
A: It was "Lonesome Road Blues", which also became very popular.

In April 1924, "Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis became the first female musicians to do what?
A: To record and release country songs.