Cow has a lot to do with hillbilly. My father was a hillbilly from the KY hills and he grew up on cowboy songs not the other types of country. We had a neighbor that loved country but my father never listened to that stuff, it was cowboy songs. The first record he ever heard was in the late 20s on a wind-up Victrola, it was "Jesse James" and I think that was the Harry McClintock version. It was at his uncle's and I think that was the only record the guy had. Whenever I heard my dad sing a song from his boyhood it was always a cowboy number.

Also regarding black musicians--yes they were hillbillies too. Out in the rural South, whites and blacks played the same stuff. Grand Ole Opry on WSM was huge among blacks. Chuck Berry and Ray Charles will tell you that's what they grew up listening to. I just recently met Billy Davis--a guy that played with Hank Ballard after Cal Green left and he played in the studio with a lot of country artists because he played good country guitar. It wasn't unusual at one time to see black musicians playing at a white dance party back in the day. White and black traveling musicians crossed paths and borrowed material from each other--sometimes teaching each other songs the other heard and liked. I imagine that's where Eck Robertson learned "There's a Brown-Skinned Girl Down the Road Somewhere."

All the bluegrass stuff isn't from Ireland and all that crap--oldest falsehood in the book. Bluegrass descended from minstrelsy as most of your early bluegrass musicians were veteran blackface minstrel performers. I think Uncle Dave Macon was in fact. He was certainly a bluegrass forerunner. Any one who doubts this, please provide an example of Celtic music that sounds even remotely like bluegrass. While banjos are occasionally found in Celtic bands today, it is not a European instrument. The very word "banjo" tells you where it came from. Blacks have played a far more important role in country and folk than most people realize. Whites take the credit and blacks have really not lifted a finger to reclaim their heritage. Most of them would rather forget it, it seems.