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". Gibson, D. , atvaudeville shows, "montbilly" sheet music copies (playing and singing at home were still popular) and in theaters that showed singing cowboy films, such as those starring GeneAutry, against the iconic visual backdrop: desert landscapes. From the 1930s to the 1950s, these styles of music—bluegrass, hillbilly music, cowboy songs, and folk—began to be more widely marketed using new technologies—recording studios, electric instruments—and at a time when the production and transmission infrastructure was centralized. Special events are certainly not limited to music, with writers' festivals (such as Byron Bay, NSW), gourmet wine and food festivals (such as Mudgee, NSW and Mornington Peninsula, Victoria) and specialty festivals (such as the Jacaranda Festival, Grafton) . In stories about the American frontier (Whiteoak, 2003) had clear parallels and several local adaptations rasi: performers like Tex Morton, Australian Yodelling. Davidson / Journal of Rural Studies 20 (200
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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 . metropolitan and international media (Peterson, 1997; Jensen, 1998). in Nashville, Tennessee. 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.