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The Carter Family exemplify the racial presumptions implicit in American popular music. The Carters were classified as "hillbilly" musicians at the time and were soon canonized among the founders of country music. Black musicians who recorded similar music were "race" musicians or "blues" artists. As the title of "Worried Man Blues" affirms, this is a blues song of a sort, and this idea is supported by Woody Guthrie's comments (see 1939). Aside from the racial composition of the group, this song is "country" not "blues" due the instrumentation and vocal timbre.
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