Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory and so is usually offensive to those Americans of Appalachian heritage.
In 1922, a radio station based in Georgia (WSM) was the first to broadcast folk songs to its audience. A little later, a radio station from Fort Worth, in Texas (WBAP), launched the first barn dance show. In june 1923, 55-year old Georgia's fiddler John Carson recorded (in Atlanta) two hillbilly (i.e., southern rural) songs, an event that is often considered the official founding of country music (although Texas fiddler Eck Roberton had already recorded the year before). The recording industry started dividing popular music into two categories: race music (that was only black) and hillbilly music (that was only white).
The term hillbilly was actually introduced by Uncle" Dave Macon's Hill Billie Blues (1924). In 1924, Chicago's radio station WLS (originally World's Largest Store) began broadcasting a barn dance that could be heard throughout the Midwest.
The hillbilly format (led by the guitar and a bit more cosmopolitan) was more popular in the plains, while the mountain format of the Appalachians (dominated by fiddle and banjo) remained relatively sheltered from urban and African-American influences.
