Counterculture.

Country music, with its inherent appeal for the rural heartland, had always existed apart from more sophisticated (and more fickle) musical trends of urban America. Part of this difference was purely regional, but it was also the result of Nashville's established traditions. Country records were generally low-budget efforts, promoted to a small number of radio stations. Live venues (the Grand Ole Opry, country fairs and festivals, small taverns) existed completely apart from the stadium-scale theatrics of rock 'n' roll. Thus the counterculture of the late 1960s — pot smoking, peace marches, the black and women's movements, explosive artistic experimentation — had barely caused a ripple in the country music scene. Nashville was seen by most of U.S. youth as part of the establishment, and though country music had traditionally maintained something of a rebel (i.e., Confederate) image, that...