Decades ago when the UK country music scene centred around taking line dancing classes to the music of ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’ by Rednex and ‘Five Six Seven Eight’ the debut single by Steps, the scene was judged as comedic novelty.

On the serious side of the country music scene, artists like Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, and Kelly Clarkson enhanced the scene’s international popularity away from its centre in Nashville. Faith Hill’s ‘There You’ll Be’ still a huge hit today. Some may argue Shania Twain contributed to this – a sort of link between serious country music and the cheese of the UK scene.

Present day artists, Kacey Musgraves, and Carrie Underwood are album chart regulars. Both are headlining this year’s Country to Country (C2C) music festival – 11/3 – 13/3 performing across the simultaneous venues in London – 02, Dublin – 3Arena, and Glasgow – Clyde Auditorium.

Carrie Underwood promotes C2C Via the BBC saying:

“Country has always been really great at telling stories and talking about life,” she says, “but I do think it’s become a little more broad in its influence.

“Music right now – music of any genre – it’s all just so accessible. I don’t really think anybody really listens to just one genre of music any more.

“So we have country music artists that are a bit influenced by rock music, or R&B music – which I think is really cool, because that means there’s something for everybody.”

The popularity of country music in the UK continues. On the C2C Facebook page they have recently announced:

‪#‎C2C2016 hasn’t even kicked off yet and we’ve just announced another HUGE show! The Nashville tour will be coming over to the UK in June.

Ticket will be going on sale 9am on Friday 18th March

Gone have the days of the cheesy line dance numbers – in these modern times country music is evidently booming and strongly competing against other popular musical genres.