Georgia's musical history is diverse and substantial; the state's musicians include Southern rap groups such as Outkast and Goodie Mob, as well as a wide variety of rock, pop, blues, and country artists such as Ray Charles, Otis Redding, James Brown, The Allman Brothers Band, Ray Stevens, Bill Anderson, Thomas Rhett, Jason Aldean, Wet Willie, Chuck Leavell, Cole Swindell, Little Richard, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood (Lady A) and Buddy Greene, Alan Jackson, Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush (Sugarland) and many others.

The music of Athens, Georgia is associated with college rock including bands such as R.E.M., The B-52's, and Pylon.

Music institutions The state's official music museum is the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, located in Macon, Georgia from 1996 until it closed in 2011. Colleges such as the University of Georgia and Columbus State University have extensive music departments.

Indigenous music

Funk music Georgia's folk musical traditions include important contributions to the Piedmont blues, shape note singing, and African-American music.

African American funk music The "ring shout" is an African American musical and dance tradition that is among the oldest surviving African American performance styles in North America. The ring shout tradition is rare in the modern Southern United States, but it still found in McIntosh County, Georgia, where black communities have kept the style alive. The McIntosh County ring shout is a counterclockwise ring dance featuring clapping and stick-beating percussion with call-and-response vocals. The ring shout tradition is strongest in Boldon, Georgia (also known as Briar Patch), where it is traditionally performed on New Year's Eve.New Georgia Encyclopedia: McIntosh County Shouters

The Georgia Sea Island Singers are an important group in modern African American folk music in Georgia. They perform worldwide the Gullah/Geechee music of the Georgia coast and Sea Islands, and have been touring since the early 1900s; the folklorist and musicologist Alan Lomax discovered the Singers on a 1959-60 collecting trip and helped to bring their music to new audiences. The Georgia Sea Island Singers have included Bessie Jones, Emma Ramsey, John Davis, Mayble Hillery, and Peter Davis.New Georgia Encyclopedia: Georgia Sea Island Singers

Fife and drum blues has been documented in west central Georgia.

The Freedom Singers are a group that formed in 1962 in Albany to educate communities about issues related to the Civil Rights Movement through song.

Multi-instrumentalist Abner Jay, born in Fitzgerald, performed eccentric blues-infused folk music as a one-man band.

Shape-note The Sacred Harp, first published in 1844, was compiled and produced by Georgians Benjamin Franklin White and Elisha J. King. They helped establish a singing tradition also known as Sacred Harp, fasola, or shape note singing. The Sacred Harp system uses notes represented by different shapes according to scale degree, intended to make it easy for people to learn to sight-read music and perform complex pieces without a lot of training.New Georgia Encyclopedia: The Sacred Harp Established in 1933,Buell Cobb, The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989), 7. the Sacred Harp Publishing Company, located in Carrollton, Georgia, publishes the most widely used 1991 edition of The Sacred Harp. Hugh McGraw of Bremen, Georgia, served as the company's executive secretary from 1958 to 2002 and helped encourage Sacred Harp's recent resurgence in popularity.John Bealle, Public Worship, Private Faith: Sacred Harp and American Folksong (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 194–196. A Georgia-based music label, Bibletone Records, has reissued a 28-cut CD of Sacred Harp music originally released as LPs by the publishing company.Bealle, Public Worship, Private Faith, 278.

American funk music revival Folksinger/songwriter Hedy West, active in the American folk music revival and famous for her song "500 Miles", was born in Cartersville.

Popular music

Country

In Atlanta, on June 14, 1923, the country music recording industry was launched when Fiddlin' John Carson made his first phonograph record for Okeh Records Company representative Polk C. Brockman. Carson's recordings of "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" and "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow" sold over 500,000 copies and opened the eyes of record company executives to the market for "old-time" country music. Along with Carson, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers and Georgia Yellow Hammers made Atlanta and North Georgia an early center of old-time string band music.

In the 1960s, guitarist Chet Atkins, born in Luttrell, Tennessee but raised in Hamilton, Georgia, drew on jazz and pop music to help create the smoother country music style known as the Nashville Sound, expanding country music's appeal to adult pop fans. Country music superstars Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, and Travis Tritt are natives of Georgia. Other successful country music acts from Georgia include Norman Blake, Jerry Reed, Brenda Lee (who had two #1 Hot 100 hits with "I'm Sorry" in 1960 and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"), Billy Currington, Cyndi Thomson, Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland, Daryle Singletary, Doug Stone, John Berry, Rhett Akins, Mark Wills, the Zac Brown Band, and Lady Antebellum, as well as up and coming stars Jason Aldean, Daniel Antopolsky, Brantley Gilbert, Luke Bryan, Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell (attended Georgia Southern University), Kip Moore, Lauren Alaina, and Jessie James. Other notable country musicians from Georgia include Corey Smith (graduated from UGA) and Tabby Crabb from Sumter Co., who worked with the original Urban Cowboy Band, Randy Howard, Hank Cochran, Keith Urban, and many others in the Nashville style. Georgia country music superstars with a #1 album on the Billboard 200 chart include Atlanta-area musicians Alan Jackson with 3 #1 albums like Drive in 2002, and Zac Brown Band with 3 like You Get What You Give in 2010 (Zac Brown attended the University of West Georgia); Jason Aldean with 4 consecutive #1 albums on the Billboard 200 like the country rock Night Train in 2012 to 2018 (Aldean also had a #1 Hot 100 song "Try That in a Small Town" in 2023, Luke Bryan (from south Georgia, he attended Georgia Southern University) with 3 like Crash My Party in 2013, Thomas Rhett with 2 like Life Changes in 2017, and Sugarland with 2 #1 albums like The Incredible Machine in 2010.

Blues

Ma Rainey, from Columbus, was among the earliest professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. Piedmont blues artist Blind Willie McTell was born in Thomson. Country blues singer and guitarist Peg Leg Howell was born in Eatonton. Singer Ida Cox was from Toccoa. Singer and guitarist Kokomo Arnold was born in Lovejoy's Station. Singer Lucille Hegamin was born in Macon. Singer Trixie Smith was born in Atlanta. Blues pianists from Georgia include Thomas A. Dorsey, born in Villa Rica, Big Maceo Merriweather, born in Atlanta, and Piano Red, born near Hampton. Barbeque Bob was from Walnut Grove. Singer and guitarist Curley Weaver was born in Covington. Charley Lincoln was born in Lithonia. Harmonicist Eddie Mapp was born in Social Circle. Harmonicist Sonny Terry was born in Greesboro. Buddy Moss was born in Jewell. Singer and guitarist Blind Simmie Dooley was born in Hartwell. Songwriter and one-man band Jesse Fuller was born in Jonesboro. Bumble Bee Slim was born in Brunswick. Country blues artist Precious Bryant was born in Talbot County. Jump blues singer and musician Billy Wright was born in Atlanta. Singer and guitarist Robert Cray was born in Columbus. Singer and guitarist Cecil Barfield was born in Bronwood. Macon, Georgia street performer Pearly Brown was born in Wilcox County, Georgia.

Jazz Big band swing bandleader and pianist Fletcher Henderson and his younger brother arranger Horace Henderson were born in Cuthbert. Stride pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, avant-garde jazz alto saxophonist Marion Brown, and singer Jean Carne were born in Atlanta. Big band bandleader and trumpet player Harry James was born in Albany. Bebop saxophonist James Moody, hard bop saxophonist Sahib Shihab, and singer Irene Reid were born in Savannah. Trombonist J.C. Higginbotham was born in Social Circle. Tenor saxophonist and arranger Teddy McRae was born in Waycross. George Adams was born in Covington. Singer Joe Williams was born in Cordele. Bebop saxophonist for Miles Davis and The Jazz Messengers, Hank Mobley was born in Eastman. Jazz bassist Jimmy Garrison who performed with John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman was born in Americus. The jazz fusion group Aquarium Rescue Unit founded by Bruce Hampton was started in Atlanta.

Rhythm and blues Augusta native James Brown (d.2006) and Macon native Little Richard (d.2020) "The Architect of Rock and Roll" started performing in Georgia clubs on the Chitlin' Circuit, fused gospel with blues and boogie-woogie to lay the foundations for rock & roll and soul music, and rank among the most iconic musicians of the 20th century. Ray Charles was also born in Georgia; Charles helped to invent the soul genre by borrowing elements of rhythm and blues, country, jazz, gospel, and blues. Ray Charles (d. 2004) had 3 #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including "Georgia on My Mind" in 1960 (which is the official state song of Georgia). Ray Charles won another Grammy for Album of the Year for his 2004 Genius Loves Company. Atlanta native Chuck Willis was a blues, R&B, and rock and roll singer and songwriter active from 1950 to 1958. In the 1960s, Atlanta native Gladys Knight proved one of the most popular Motown recording artists, while Otis Redding, born in the small town of Dawson but raised in Macon, defined the grittier Southern soul sound of Memphis-based Stax Records. Gladys Knight "The Empress of Soul" had a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Midnight Train to Georgia" in 1973. Otis Redding (d. 1967, buried near Macon) had a #1 hit on the Hot 100 with "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" in 1968. Motown producer and disco artist Hamilton Bohannon was born in Newnan, Georgia. Dave Prater of the soul duo Sam & Dave was born in Ocilla, Georgia.

Rock

The earliest Atlanta-based music maven, Bill Lowery, started the careers of Ray Stevens, Joe South, Jerry Reed, and countless others, and created the first Georgia-based springboard for such talent, National Recording Corporation, sporting not only a record label, but a recording studio and pressing plant. Lowery would later work with the likes of Billy Joe Royal, Mac Davis, Dennis Yost & The Classics IV, and The Atlanta Rhythm Section, giving Atlanta national relevance with his Lowery Music group of publishing companies, one of the world's biggest music publishers. Noted session and touring drummer, Michael Huey, started his career at Bill Lowery studios.

Tommy Roe, from Atlanta, had 2 #1 Hot 100 hits, including "Dizzy" in 1969.