这个名字是20世纪20年代在美国出现的，它的源流很广。那时歌曲的内容，除了表现劳动生活之外，厌恶孤寂的流浪生活，向往温暖、安宁的家园，歌唱甜蜜的爱情以及失恋的痛苦等都有。
1925年，美国田纳西州纳什维尔[1] 建立了一家广播电台。他们开办了一个“往昔的歌剧--老乡音”的专栏节目。邀请了一位名叫杰米·汤普森的81岁的民间歌手演唱，节目受到听众们的热烈欢迎。
从此，人们统称这种音乐为"乡村音乐"。乡村音乐成为美国劳动人民最喜爱的音乐形式之一。在美国，"蓝领"指的是下层人，故这种音乐又称"蓝领音乐"。
In its earliest form,country music was a derivation of centuries-old folk tunes that came to America from the british Isles(Seliger et al.1996).At the beginning of the 20th century,"country music"was a version of folk music.With field recordings of the late 1920s,it became categorized as "hillbilly" music,and then after World War Ⅱ ,entrepreneurs renamed it "country and westen," a designation used throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s.With the rise of Nashville as the recording center,however,the "western" was dropped,and by the time it became an important radio format,the name "country" was widely accepted.Whatever the name,until the 1960s country music tended to be songs of poor white folk that were passed down generation to generation as the South and then the West were settled.
——引用自《西方文化概论》（《大学英语选修课/学科课程系列教材》项目组 编）
纳西维尔电台自开办"往昔的歌剧--老乡音"节目之后，延续数十年，成为该台传统名牌节目。而纳西维尔市也被公认为"美国乡村音乐的白宫"，所有乡村歌手都视之为"乡村音乐的圣地"。