ORLANDO GILI / THE GUARDIAN

‘Inspired by the national outpouring after the death of country music legend Dolly Parton, I felt compelled to delve into the UK's fastest-growing country music festival. It takes place on the estate of a Grade II-listed, 18th-century English country house, somewhere between Northampton, Leicester and Coventry — approximately 4,000 miles due east of Nashville. Festival-goers came kitted out in star-spangled dungarees, Stetsons, cowboy boots and hats, and plenty of plaid. The outfits were heavily accessorised, often as tributes to Dolly Parton: blue butterfly hair clips were spotted, along with Dolly-inspired pins and earrings.

It was a very English take on a country music festival: intermittent rain gave way to a brief thunderstorm in the late afternoon. Festival-goers took shelter under oak trees, patiently waiting for the music to resume. The grand old oaks probably weren't expecting to look down on a crowd kitted out in full country regalia. Eventually, organisers urged everyone into their tents as lightning closed in. The dungaree-clad crowd stayed good-spirited throughout, and the amps were back on shortly after. Looking on at the Front Porch Stage as a blast of warm evening sun broke through, for a few seconds it felt like you'd been transported across the Atlantic to a summer fair in the Deep South.

The August bank holiday celebration of "Country, Americana and Roots" is a sign of a genre that's quietly become one of the fastest-growing in the UK. Country music's share of the UK singles market more than doubled in two years, rising from 1.6% in 2022 to a century-high 3.3% in 2024. According to the BBC, digital streams for the genre have surged by 80–154% compared with prior baseline years, with totals now exceeding 1 billion streams per quarter.’ Orlando Gili