'Old Time' might have been a marketing term and as such was an "artificial construct", but the music marketed as Old Time in the early 20th century was anything but a creation of the recording industry. When recording companies realized there was money to be made in selling the music of the American South, they actively sought out and recorded the string band music of musicians such as Fiddlin' John Carson, Eck Robertson, Charlie Poole and loads of others. These individuals had been playing for years in fiddling contests, vaudeville & minstrel shows, living rooms and back porches, etc. The sound of Old Time and hillbilly music was an amalgamation of British-Irish folk music,minstrelsy, parlor songs, and African-American music and more, all worked over by the the performing tradition (for an audience) and domestic tradition (for friends and family).

Old Time and hillbilly drew from the oral tradition and in turn contributed songs and tunes back to traditional musicians. Just as can seen in broadside balladry, there was a symbiotic relationship between commercial sources and traditional sources. The idea that the recording industry foisted this music upon a gullible public is ahistorical and ignores the degree to which culture is fluid, moving in and out of the realms of commerce and tradition, between old forms and innovations.