I don't think there's any question about the blues influence on the Carter Family. As key progenitors of commerical country music, both the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers relied heavily on blues rhythms, themes, progressions and vocal treatment.

One really interesting excersise is to listen to the Carter Family's cover of Bessie Smith's famous tune Jealous Hearted Blues. If you heard the Carter Family's version first, you might not realize it was a hugely popular blues originally recorded with a full orchestra in that slow low-down-and-dirty tempo that Bessie did so well.

When we think of the influence of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon immigrants on American traditional music, I think we're really talking about the haunting, unaccompanied singing—or perhaps with a drone fiddle accompaniment—that folklorists discovered in isolated Appalachian communities when the first modern roads were built into those regions. It was in those communities that the original songs were preserved and performed. I've read that, when the first roads were built, people in some remote regions still spoke in the manner of the original English settlers because their isolation had prevented any corrupting influences. Interestingly, the Brittish completely changed their way of speaking after those settlers had emmigrated. The original English accent was evidently something closer to that of the Gomer Pyle character on the old Andy Grifith television program.

Recording artists from Eck Robertson—the first person to record a commercial country music record—to Rhonda Vincent have always focused on record sales and producing a musical product that—in addition to satisfying their own artistry—people will buy. They've consciously relied heavily on African American influences because because African influenced music of all kinds has consistantly outsold other forms in the US.

JMHO

      - Mark