Country music has changed tremendously, so what now is considered country was not considered country at that time. We were doing stuff that probably could have been called country music today, but would certainly have not have fit in at that time.
Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different... to think out of the box.
I still think of my mum as being kind of a dork - a cooler one, but still a dork.