I recently got roped into (temporarily) playing bass for my father-in-law's country band. My first exposure to country music was in the post-Urban Cowboy era, and I didn't care for it then (and don't now). But they claim to play "Old time Country." Many of the songs they play predate 1975, and most of the set list I'm hearing for the first time. (I figured if I'm gonna play I better know the songs, so located recordings of the original artists to listen to.) I'm finding that much of what is classified as "Country" I think more of as "Cowboy", e.g. Hank Williams Sr. or Wilf Carter, which in my mind is Folk. Some of the other songs are straight ahead 12 bar blues complete with flatted seventh walking bass lines.

Did Country evolve out of the cowboy music, or did it come about separately and the two genres got lumped together? How does the blues figure into it?