“We got both kinds of music—country and western”
“Country” music used to be called “country and western” music. The movie The Blues Brothers (1980) popularized the joke:
Elwood: What kind of music do you usually have here?
Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western.
The joke probably existed before the movie, but printed citations haven’t been located.
IMDb.com (The Internet Movie Database)
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Quotes
Elwood: What kind of music do you usually have here?
Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western.
14 September 1980, Greensboro (NC) Daily News/Record, “He Built Tar Heel Filmland,” pg. G7, col. 1:
“People ask me what kind of music I like, I tell ‘em I like both kinds, country—and western.”
(Spoken by Earl Owensby.—ed.)
14 August 1981, Detroit (MI) Free Press, “Home of the lonesome cowpokes” by stool pigeon, pg. 9C, col. 5:
Real AMericans, it should not have to be pointed out, buy real American pickups trucks and listen to real AMerican music. Both Kinds. County and Western.
YouTube
Classic Movie Line #5
Tom DiNapoli
Uploaded on Feb 7, 2008
We got both kinds of music here, Country & Western.
Google Books
Rock Guitar For Dummies
By Jon Chappell
New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons
2011
Pg. ?:
Country music (also known by the more archaic term “country and western” as in the old joke, “I play both kinds of music: country and western”) can be described as folk music on electricity.
Twitter
A Funny Joke
@AFunnyJoke247
#FunnyJoke You might be a redneck if… You think country and western are the two kinds of music. http://ow.ly/3bgS3u
2:45 AM - 13 Feb 2016
Twitter
Jessica
@desika_claire
“There’s only two kinds of music, country and western. The rest is just noise.”
-Grandpa
10:02 PM - 9 Aug 2016
Wyoming Public Radio
Country And Western: One Label, Two Kinds Of Music
By MICAH SCHWEIZER • AUG 12, 2016
There’s an old joke from the movie The Blues Brothers: “What kind of music do you usually have here?” asks Elwood. “Oh, we got both kinds,” answers the bartender. “We got Country and Western!”
As it turns out, there is a difference between Country and Western. Musicologist Ariel Downing is giving a lecture and live performance on cowboy music on August 25 at the Brinton Museum in Big Horn. As Downing explained to Wyoming Public Radio’s Micah Schweizer, the ‘country’ side of the term has its roots with southern Appalachian hillbillies.