Soon talent from other southern states, including West Virginia, Virginia (the Carter Family) and North Carolina (Jimmie Rodgers) was recorded by Peer. These early recording sessions, called the "Bristol Sessions," would mark the birth of country music.

These processes of exchange and mixing were fuelled by shared experiences in the Second World War, and by the spread of radio, and records. Several records of this period have been most frequently cited by different authorities as "the first rock’n’roll record".

Country music has produced two of the top selling solo artists of all time. Elvis Presley, who was known early on as “The Hillbilly Cat” and was a regular on the radio program Louisiana Hayride, went on to become a defining figure in the emerging genre of rock 'n roll. Garth Brooks is one of the top-selling country artists of all time, and except for a short foray into non-country in the late 1990s, has remained in that genre.

Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family are widely considered to be the founders of country music, and their songs were first captured at a historic recording session in Bristol, Tennessee/Bristol, Virginia on August 1, 1927, where Ralph Peer was the talent scout and sound recordist.

Gospel music in general is characterized by dominant vocals (often with strong use of harmony) referencing lyrics of a religious nature, particularly Christian. Subgenres include contemporary Gospel, urban contemporary Gospel (sometimes referred to as "black Gospel"), Southern Gospel, and modern Gospel music (now more commonly known as praise and worship music or Contemporary Christian music).

In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European-American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized such music internationally,

The musical forms and styles that are now considered the "blues" as well as modern "country music" arose in the same regions during the nineteenth century in the southern United States.

Pop is an amalgam of successive fashions, of elements of many differing styles that have been successful over the years and have ended up incorporated into the genre.

It appeared as sheet music with the African American entertainer Ernest Hogan's hit songs in 1895, and two years later Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo "Rag Time Medley"

Many musicians performed and recorded songs in any number of styles. Moon Mullican played Western Swing, but also recorded songs that can be called rockabilly. Bill Haley sang cowboy songs, and was at one time a cowboy yodeler.