Such estimates of music venues reflect, to some extent, the accumulation of production infrastructures, the raw number of active musicians, and the continuous recording of a relatively dense cast; in other cases, such associations are created as part of media campaigns and local marketing strategies, "invented traditions" (Hobsbawm, 1983) that have become central to the tourism industry and the music economy (Atkinson, 1997; Cohen, 1997; Gibson and Connell 200
) . The term "country" did not come into use until later, when some styles originally associated with rural areas developed. Alternatively, places and their meanings are contested in and through music, whether it is the multiple and contradictory representation of Los Angeles and New York in rap music, or the celebration or exoticization of ethnicity in "world music. Davidson / Journal of Rural Studies 20 (200
) 387–
0
391
Country music was an arena in which stories about rural life and national identity were constructed not only in America but also in other countries where the genre gained public support . However, music festivals have become by far the most common, from the annual East CoastBlues and Sweden Festival of Byron Bay to the Elvis Revival Festival in Parkes, NSW; From the Port Fairy Folk Festival (Victoria) to many country music festivals in Gympie (Queensland), Mildura (New South Wales), Port Pirie (South Australia) and Tamworth (see Aldskogius, 1993; Derrett et al. in those places or songs that mythologize specific cities in the lyrics (McLeay, 199
; Kong, 1995; Smith, 1997; Connell and Gibson, 2003). , wagon tracks, tough men, hats. suggests that it is seen as country music "defined in opposition to metropolitan norms" (Smith, 199
, p. This music could be more accurately described as folk music, as it was originally a series of non-commercial styles spread among white farmers by word of mouth, but as "folk music" became normalized, the term "folk music" was "discarded". Country music has also been closely tied to American national identity, seen as "our peculiar art, [whose] inspiration comes from the heart of the nation" (Peterson, 1997, p.