I think maybe because it means different things in different parts of the world.

In England, my Dad would have called himself a country music fan - but I doubt he had ever heard of the The Carter family or Gid Tanner.
the 78 rpms in his little collection that he put together in the 1940's contained Jimmy Rogers, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry. So I think the 'singing cowboy' pictures at the cinema must have alerted a few peoples attention.

Personally it meant very little to me until I started work in Birmingham in the 1970's. the showband scene was coming apart in Ireland when discos took over - and suddenly there loads of really fabulous Irish musicians gigging the English country clubs.

They were so much more professional than us. They really blew us away. The scene was fairly strong up until the miners strike. A lot of the country scene was based round the miners welfares. Within a couple of years the scene dwindled to nothing. It wasn't music you could produce on rubbish instruments. Most bands had guitarists playing telecasters through Fender Twin amps fitted with JBL speakers. you need to be at least turning over money to pay for that kind of gear.

I haven't really kept up with the scene. They put some of my songs on a line dancing album, but I don't know anything about it - I couldn't tell the difference between a grapevine and a tush push or Texas two-step and a red neck girls dance.

The songwriters like Joe Ely and Guy Clark who made a breakthrough in the 1970's are still around. But I never really felt these were the people who excited the punters - they excited the musicians more than the hardcore country fans.

Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, Hank Snow - these were the guys whose songs went down best. For a few short years they had a devout following in the UK, and they were brilliantly represented by a great set of musicians.