Hill country blues

Hill country blues
Stylistic origins	Blues, country blues
Cultural origins	Mississippi
Typical instruments	Guitar

Hill country blues (also known as North Mississippi hill country blues or North Mississippi blues) is a regional style of country blues. It is characterized by a strong emphasis on rhythm and percussion, steady guitar riffs, few chord changes, unconventional song structures, and heavy emphasis on the "groove" - more affectionately known as "the hypnotic boogie."

The hill country is a region of northern Mississippi bordering Tennessee. It lies in the counties of Marshall, Panola, Tate and Lafayette and straddles the ecoregions of the North Hilly Plain (Red Clay Hills or North Central Hills), the Loess Plains, and Bluff Hills. The hills have poor agricultural soil and wide forested areas, which led to the development of a lumber industry but only small farms.Holly Springs and Oxford, Mississippi, are often cited as centers of hill country music. The style is regarded as distinct from the blues of the Mississippi Delta, which lies west of the hill country. An annual picnic is held to celebrate the region and its music.

Musical scholars have traced the style's affinity for percussion to influences from West Africa, brought to the American colonies by African slaves. Before the American Civil War, planters restricted slaves' access to drums and other percussion instruments, fearing the use of drums in arousing rebellion. The music writer Robert Palmer believed that after the Civil War, African Americans quickly renewed their long-suppressed percussion traditions: “the passage of the Black Codes, which in most states actually predated the Revolutionary War, did not automatically stamp out all slave drumming”. Palmer also noted:

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