Is country/American folk music actually popular in Britain? If so, why?
Posted by pooteenn@reddit | AskABrit | View on Reddit | 28 comments
I’m asking this because I’ve been seeing this thing on the internet of this country music festival in England, where people listen to country music and cowboy hats and boots. I’ve also read this post on Quora about these country music festivals and of some of the musicians and attendees are wearing American Civil Wars era outfits. Even more so, there is a small British band on Instagram, that plays American folk music.
So is it really that big?
caiaphas8@reddit
I’ve never really heard it in Britain, don’t know anyone that likes it. BUT the Irish love American country music for some reason
OK_LK@reddit
And the Irish have their own country music, just look at Nathan Carter and Derek Ryan
I can assure you though, country is very big in the UK, you just don't hear it in the mainstream
herefromthere@reddit
It's an odd thing, I think people go to Ireland and want to hear folk music with fiddles and penny whistles, and turn up and it's a traditional music. i.e. the blue rinse brigade shuffling round the room to guys in shiny blazers and combovers.
AppearanceAwkward364@reddit
The Celtic/Gaelic diaspora moving to the Appalachians and beyond in the 18th and 19th centuries were one of the building blocks of American folk and Country.
mrshakeshaft@reddit
A lot of old-time and bluegrass fiddle tunes are based or exactly the same as Celtic tunes bought over by Scottish and Irish settlers in Appalachia so the music is fairly similar and both are based around session culture. If you played old time fiddle you could probably sit in on an Irish session and find a couple of tunes you could get into and vice versa without too many problems
dread1961@reddit
We like both kinds of music here, Country AND Western.
mmesuggia@reddit
My late father had a bumper sticker saying exactly that. On his old Rolls Royce. In Derbyshire.🤠
The_Gene_Genie@reddit
That ain't no Hank Williams song
RickJLeanPaw@reddit
Last time I can recall a big country hit was ‘Achey-breakey heart’ (sp) by Billie-Ray Cyrus. Line dancing was a fad around the same time, then crickets as far as the country as a whole was concerned.
Now it’s mainly (as you intimate) seen as a subset of ‘folk’, but mainly for bluegrass/traditional folk music; the ‘pick-up truck, daisy dukes’ bobbins doesn’t trouble the nations’ consciousness/airwaves.
geekroick@reddit
Dance The Night Away by the Mavericks was a huge song, about 7 or 8 years after Achy Breaky Heart. Then you had that faux country stuff like 5678 by Steps, and the Woolpackers, and so on. Definitely a surge in the late 90s.
I remember there being a TV special of the Mavericks at the Royal Albert Hall round about the same time, which isn't exactly a tiny venue...
Bunister@reddit
'Austin' has been on heavy rotation on just about every UK radio station for the last 6 months.
flippertyflip@reddit
My Dad likes country a bit. But I'd say the average person knows next to nothing of it.
I like a bit of folk. Csn&y etc....
some_kinda_wack_job@reddit
My grandad (born 1933) used to like it, he was big into Western movies and books as well. I've never met anyone else who's into it though.
elementarydrw@reddit
American Country music? That's that one track that keeps getting covered by different artists, right?
Princes_Slayer@reddit
I’m not a fan of the modern country but I’ll happily listen to a bit of Jonny Cash, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers era. I recently started getting into modern bluegrass (The Dead South got me into it), and there is the Maverick Festival been going for years over Norfolk direction each summer. I’m NW England and have seen small folk festivals crop up during summer periods when our driving. It might not be a big thing still but they are a nice atmosphere
mrshakeshaft@reddit
There is a small but pretty dedicated bluegrass and old time scene in the UK developed by a bunch of people who were into it in the 60’s / 70’s during the big second wave in the states and a lot of younger players now as well. It’s predominately made up of amateur musicians too so there’s about 5 or 6 festivals a year where most of the people go as much for the jamming as the actual bands and there is a school of bluegrass music which runs week long courses in the spring featuring established American musicians as teachers. It’s not a huge scene but it’s obsessive. Not Japan level but still good. Running parallel to this, country music is a bit trendy in the UK right now so summer festivals are full of girls wearing sun dresses and cowboy boots and listening to pop country
mellonians@reddit
It's popular enough but not mainstream. At least one of the approx 68 national radio stations is dedicated to country music. https://hellorayo.co.uk/absolute-radio-country/
Country and western music festivals are a thing and I'm sure most larger towns have a guy who drives around in a classic Cadillac and wears cowboy boots
chapmandan@reddit
Nope. Farm emo, is definitely a niche genre aside from the really big artists that cross over to mainstream.
Maximum_Scientist_85@reddit
“Farm emo” is such a good term
Ok_Chipmunk_7066@reddit
It is moderately popular. I like it, simple, sing along music about beer and women.
Dixie Chicks did a sold out arena tour last year.
Saw Zac Brown Band a few years back, only did a couple nights in London but was rammed.
Eric Church did a mid sized venue tour.
We have Country2Country a music festival 2025 has Dierks Bentley and 49 Winchester.
So we do get some of the bigger artists coming over, but by and large the blue jeans, pick up truck nature or a lot of country doesn't really resonate her.
As for people dressing as confederate solidiers, I've never seen that. But we are detached from your politics. It isn't really any different to us as dressing up as Roundheads or Cavaliers (English civil war). That said, I do actively try to stay away from the more right wing artists/songs. And that's not to call them a nazi, it's more the "true red white and blue" type songs.
nannyplum@reddit
I live in Wales, and every morning I used to use an app called Garden Radio or something like that, that would let you listen to stations all over the world. I loved tuning in to local US stations - the more obscure the better - and a lot of them were country music stations. I couldn't tell you who half the artists were, but I loved getting ready for work listening to them. It would lift my mood.
The app got pulled I believe for copyright reasons. I miss listening to local radio from places like Murfeesboro (?). It used to make me wonder what the locals there were doing if they were listening at the same time as me. It would have been middle of the night there. If I was off work, I'd end up down a wiki rabbithole about the town I was listening to.
sarahc13289@reddit
I listen to country radio in the UK. It plays what would probably be referred to as ‘country pop’ and I sometimes hear the songs on mainstream radio, e.g Dasha’s Austin and a few others. You’ve also got artists like Kacey Musgraves and Maren Morris on mainstream radio and working with other artists as well.
There are a few dedicated country radio stations, thought most as offshoots of bigger stations, for example I listen to Smooth County, Smooth Radio being the main station and having different offshoots like a 70s station and and 80s station as well as a country station, it’s the same as Absolute radio.
Country is getting more popular than it was and some of it is trickling into mainstream, but it is still more niche.
MINKIN2@reddit
Not big, but we do know of it and a few of your major country artists are very popular over here. Everyone knows Dolly, Shania, Kenny Rogers and Johnny Cash.
OK_LK@reddit
Everyone knows Taylor Swift
SnoopyLupus@reddit
Yeah. There was a period where MOR stuff worked here.
OK_LK@reddit
It is popular, just not as main stream as a lot of other music
Every year there's a 3 day country music festival that takes place simultaneously at London's O2, Glasgow's Hydro and Belfast's Arena.
That's approximately 42k tickets and the weekend tickets are £300+
The festival is now branching out and also has events in Berlin and Rotterdam
There's always a country music gig on somewhere in Scotland, but it's also a very broad genre
Taylor Swift started out playing country, her music still does have a bit of country in it, but you'd be hard pushed to recognise it if you didn't know her roots
Captainsamvimes1@reddit
It's very popular amongst the Royal Marines for some reason. A lot of them go out to America to train and get into it
TheToyGirl@reddit
I've loved country music since when it was definitely not cool in early 1990's. I love the history of it, the women in country, the story telling, the instruments, and also the loud shouting part too. I don't want to be American..I just appreciate the history and story telling but with cool instrumentation and kick ass boots