from https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n19/alex-abramovich/even-when-it-s-a-big-fat-lie

Country music is full of songs about little old log cabins that people had never lived in, the old country church that people have never attended. But it spoke for a lot of people who were being forgotten – or felt they were being forgotten. Country music's staple, above all, is nostalgia. Just a harkening back to the old way of life, either real or imagined.

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...country music is about as politically charged as an American cultural subject could be because, in a sense, it's the Lost Cause set to a I-IV-V chord progression: the broken heart longing for simpler times, mother and home, and some sense of stability (stand-ins for the old Southern manse, where the log cabins were also slave shacks); the lip-service paid to Christian values (coupled with belligerence, blood-lust, knee-jerk patriotism, and a native distrust of authority); the lingering persistence of minstrel-show stereotypes, melodies and songs.

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'Truth-telling,' Ketch Secor says in the first episode, 'which country music at its best is. Truth-telling, even when it's a big fat lie.' 

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...it was Northern industry that caused Southern music to be segregated to such an extent in the first place. The process started in 1923, when Northern scouts such as Ralph Peer (who found Fiddlin' John Carson) turned their gaze to Southern cities in search of raw talent. 'Country' at the time was just string-band music: songs played on violins, guitars and banjos. It didn't have a name yet and, even in the South's most segregated pockets, it didn't always respect racial boundaries. It was a steam valve; a bit of grease in the stiffest gears. But record companies needed to market the music, and the paradigm they had to work with was ethnic. 'We put out German records, Swedish records and what have you,' Peer said. 'And when the hillbilly came along and I quickly saw the analogy ... I gave that a separate number series almost immediately.' The companies auditioned several names for their new series: 'Old Southern Tunes', 'Old Familiar Tunes', 'Old Time Tunes' – like Benjamin Button, the music was old in its infancy – before they settled on 'Hillbilly Music', which eventually morphed into 'Country' and 'Country and Western'.

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'If one would preserve the rural musical styles,' Bill Malone said in 1970, 'he must also preserve the culture that gave rise to them, a society characterised by cultural isolation, racism, poverty, ignorance and religious fundamentalism. It is doubtful whether anyone would seriously suggest a return to such a society, despite the simplicity and sentimental attraction which such a society might hold.'