One region of the world is responsible for contributing more music than any other. The American South - from the Mason/Dixon line to the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean, the South saw the birth of Jazz, Blues, Country and Rock 'n' Roll. How did it happen?

There were three main players:

1) Africans brought over as slaves.

2) Irish and Scots who were trying to escape the British Empire's poor houses or debtor's prisons.

3) The British aristocratic class who set the tone and standards for the region.

The relationship between these three groups impacted much of American history and would have a deep impact on the South's social, political and artistic development - and that included music.

The Civil War brought an end to slavery. But with the end of Reconstruction, the pre-war power structure re-emerged. Soon there were "Jim Crow" laws designed to keep African-Americans in their place- below and separate from whites. "Jim Crow Blues" and "Strange Fruit" are songs illuminating the social injustices.

During the Depression of the 1930s just about everyone was poor. African-Americans had developed the Blues as an expression of their pain and suffering; to give voice to their hopes and dreams. Performers like Sonny Boy Williamson, Blind Lemon Jefferson wrote and recorded songs. Typically, they received very little in exchange.

Equally poor whites began transforming their Scotch-Irish folk songs into something that reflected their current life. Jimmy Rogers, the Carter Family and others led this musical movement. Movies, the greatest mass entertainment at the time, began making westerns and cowboy stars like Gene Autry and later Roy Rogers sang in their movies. This was known as Country & Western.

World War II uprooted rural America. People who'd spent their lives on the farm or in a small town were getting their draft notices. Following the Second World War many African Americans, who'd served in segregated units, saw no point, or future, in returning to the South. They left for factory jobs in Chicago, Detroit and other major cities. Those who stayed behind had to deal with segregation.

By the late 1940s Country music had become centered in Nashville, Tennessee, and the man given credit for popularizing, if not totally inventing modern Country music, was Hank Williams. Williams was born in Alabama, the son of a sharecropper. A combination of a guitar, talent and ambition took Williams further than other hillbilly singers could possibly imagine. Williams was also a truly gifted and original songwriter who set the standards. His reckless life and early death solidified an incredible myth that was a forerunner of Rock's all too pervasive "live fast, die young" ethic.