Decline in Popularity
By the 1960s, Western music was in decline. Relegated to the Country and Western genre by marketing agencies, popular Western recording stars released albums to only moderate success. Rock and Roll dominated music sales and Hollywood recording studios dropped most of their Western artists. Furthermore, the Nashville sound (based in the Appalachian city of Nashville, Tennessee, but based more on pop ballads than on folk) came to dominate the "country and western" commercial sales; except for the label, much of the music was indistinguishable from Rock and Roll or popular classes of music. However, the associated backlash from country-western purists led to the development of country music styles with significantly greater influence from Western music, including the Bakersfield sound and outlaw country.
Read more about this topic: Western Music (North America)
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