<P> Country music gained national television exposure through Ozark Jubilee on ABC - TV and radio from 1955 to 1960 from Springfield, Missouri . The program showcased top stars including several rockabilly artists, some from the Ozarks . As Webb Pierce put it in 1956, "Once upon a time, it was almost impossible to sell country music in a place like New York City . Nowadays, television takes us everywhere, and country music records and sheet music sell as well in large cities as anywhere else ." The late 1950s saw the emergence of Buddy Holly, but by the end of the decade, backlash as well as traditional artists such as Ray Price, Marty Robbins, and Johnny Horton began to shift the industry away from the rock n' roll influences of the mid-1950s . </P> <P> Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the Nashville sound turned country music into a multimillion - dollar industry centered in Nashville, Tennessee . Under the direction of producers such as Chet Atkins, Paul Cohen, Owen Bradley, Bob Ferguson, and later Billy Sherrill, the sound brought country music to a diverse audience and helped revive country as it emerged from a commercially fallow period . This subgenre was notable for borrowing from 1950s pop stylings: a prominent and smooth vocal, backed by a string section (violins and other orchestral strings) and vocal chorus . Instrumental soloing was de-emphasized in favor of trademark "licks". Leading artists in this genre included Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, The Browns, Patsy Cline, and Eddy Arnold . The "slip note" piano style of session musician Floyd Cramer was an important component of this style . The Nashville Sound collapsed in mainstream popularity in 1964, a victim of both the British Invasion and the deaths of Reeves and Cline in separate airplane crashes . By the mid-1960s, the genre had developed into countrypolitan . Countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets, and it sold well throughout the later 1960s into the early 1970s . Top artists included Tammy Wynette, Lynn Anderson and Charlie Rich, as well as such former "hard country" artists as Ray Price and Marty Robbins . Despite the appeal of the Nashville sound, many traditional country artists emerged during this period and dominated the genre: Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Porter Wagoner, George Jones, and Sonny James among them . </P> <P> In 1962, Ray Charles surprised the pop world by turning his attention to country and western music, topping the charts and rating number three for the year on Billboard's pop chart with the "I Can't Stop Loving You" single, and recording the landmark album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music . </P> <P> Another subgenre of country music grew out of hardcore honky tonk with elements of Western swing and originated 112 miles (180 km) north - northwest of Los Angeles in Bakersfield, California . Influenced by one - time West Coast residents Bob Wills and Lefty Frizzell, by 1966 it was known as the Bakersfield sound . It relied on electric instruments and amplification, in particular the Telecaster electric guitar, more than other subgenres of country of the era, and can be described as having a sharp, hard, driving, no - frills, edgy flavor--hard guitars and honky - tonk harmonies . Leading practitioners of this style were Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tommy Collins, Gary Allan, and Wynn Stewart, each of whom had his own style . </P>

Blues soul and country and western refer to what