Western music is a form of American folk music composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the Western United States and Western Canada. Directly related musically to old English, Scottish, and Irish folk ballads, Western music celebrates the life of the cowboy on the open ranges and prairies of Western North America. The Mexican folk music of the American Southwest also influenced the development of this genre. Western music shares similar roots with Appalachian music (also called hillbilly music), which developed in Appalachia separately from, but parallel to, the Western music genre. The music industry of the mid-20th century grouped the two genres together under the banner of country and western music, later amalgamated into the modern name, country music.