I think it’s a suspended 2nd or suspended 4th, isn’t it?
I think more than anything else it’s the Teles that bring that characteristic sound to country (though surely many different electric guitars are used in country music).
I love the sound of a well-played Telecaster. Not in any modern pop-country crap, though, because that shit is irredeemable (like most “pop-anything”).
In Austin they have some great bands featuring Teles. Sometimes I feel like on any given weekend there you can sample like 10 different areas of the continuum of blues/bluegrass/country/rock/ and more, all in one night.
I bet Memphis and Nashville must be a bit like that too.
Agreed!. ;). (Tho, technically, I believe that is an Esquire.)
And to go the other way, Rock Diva Dolly Parton recently nominated for the Rock Hall of Fame!
And we haven’t even gotten to my favorites - cowpony and psychobilly! 
Fun HOF fact: yes to Dolly, no to Chubby Checker.
So it autocorrects cowpunk, but not psychobilly!?
So maybe one could answer the OP tersly with—
Rock n roll – Stratocaster
Country – Telecaster
Don’t tell that to Jimi…
If you looked at the image - Bruce Springsteen has consistently played Tele.
Rock & Roll has songs where the singer contemplates suicide.
Country has songs where the singer can’t decide whether to kill themselves or go bowling.
To be fair, Dolly kicks ass. And Chubby, well he’ll always have that cover of The Twist. And who could forget the follow up “Let’s Twist Again”.
I thought that was blues.
-Weird Al Yankovic, “Generic Blues”
Sure. of course. It was just a tongue in cheek oversimplification.
didn’t he play strats?
Isn’t it an esquire?
Yes - as I observed above.
Shania Twain’s album Up! was released as a multiple CD package. Each CD had exactly the same songs in the same order, but in a different style. A red disc had the songs in pop style; a green disc had the same songs in country style.
At the beginning, yes, but he changed to the Tele sometimes in 1969 or so. Note that he played his famous “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock on a Telecaster:
That’s a strat
Ok Yeah. An esquire looks like a tele but isn’t the same thing.
I was going from memory and somehow got the impression that Hendrix often played the telecaster in his later career, but I somehow think now that’s a false memory, so please ditch it.