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Notes -
Supposedly the American English dialects most similar to Shakespeare are Appalachian (so rural, but hillbilly rather than redneck). Of course these reconstructions are always questionable. For instance, just because a rhyme wouldn't work unless you pronounced a word a certain way doesn't mean it was pronounced that way; Shakespeare may have used an obsolete or novel pronunciation to get his rhyme to work.
I always understood that "redneck" was a general term referring to poor(er) rural, white, mostly southern Americans, including Appalachians south of Pennsylvania, which would generally (though not totally) encompass "hillbilly" -- a person living in rural Appalachia or the Ozarks -- rather than excluding it. ("Hillbilly" is also generally more derogatory -- or at least some people seem to think so; I definitely recall people trying to make a distinction between "rednecks" (themselves) who were, well, definitely Appalachian rednecks and probably hillbillies by most people's estimation, and the "hillbillies" who lived way out in the boonies.)
Is it common to interpret the terms as mutually exclusive, or am I misreading your sense here?
"Redneck" comes from the sunburn a farmer would get working in the fields, "hillbilly" refers to living in the hills (the Appalachians and the Ozarks, mainly).
As to whether they're exclusive, I always considered them such (if you were a hillbilly you weren't a redneck). I don't know whether the people referred to think so, though there's a scene in Ozark which indicates at least one writer does.
Both terms are generally derogatory, though they've sometimes been adopted by the referents.
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