20th Century Folk Music

By the early decades of the twentieth century, folk music from the backwoods of the Appalachian Mountains and the delta region of the South had found their way to the surface by way of the recording and radio industry. The early efforts of hillbilly singers had evolved by the late 1920s into country music. The field hollers and blues songs of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas workers had been recorded by Robert Johnson and arranged into respectability by W.C. Handy. Spirituals were incorporated into gospel recordings made by religious groups.