The Rub (Beginnings–1933) (E01)

After centuries of percolating in America’s immigrant and racial mix, particularly in the American South, what was first called “hillbilly music” begins reaching more people through the new technologies of phonographs and radio. The Carter Family, with their ballads and old hymns, and Jimmie Rodgers, with his combination of blues and yodeling, become its first big stars. Rodgers’s career ends when he dies young from tuberculosis. (PBS)