Gaddammit! It's called "Hillbilly Music," and that's that!

Seriously, as the author of "The Old-Timey Banjo Book," I use the term as has been mentioned above, to mean "like unto the traditional hillbilly style, but produced by younger folks who don't live in the mountains." It means "old-time-ish" or "hillbilly-like" or something like that. In some contexts, it could be tweedy, (i.e., twee-like), but if it refers to music in the hillbilly/old-time style, played by or created by people who didn't record it in 1938, then it's a legitimate term.

And bluegrassers had to go through a period, back in the 1950s, when Bill Monroe was actively complaining about use of the term, because to him, it meant that his band's music was being copied. He eventually came to terms with the fact that his band's name had been adopted to describe a whole genre of music, but at first he saw it as a problem.

Next, let's try figuring out what "roots music" means! Now there's a term for all you "No Depression" readers!


Bob