Tag: country music

12/9/1994

“I’m just laid up here in a Country state of mind.”

So, when did Country music get to be so popular? It’s a question I’ve been asked more than a couple of times in the past few years. I usually follow that question with a question of my own: Where the hell have you been?

Of course, because I grew up in Mississippi on a steady diet of Hank Williams (that’s Hank Sr. I could only listen to Bocefus when my daddy wasn’t in the house.), country music has always been my music of choice. The again, if you were growing up in Mississippi in the 1960s, you didn’t have a lot of choices. The Deep South has always raised an eyebrow (and an occasional axe handle) at anything that didn’t have a fiddle in the mix. So it wasn’t until I left and got educated that I became aware that there was indeed some other music out there.

As a young’un, I did get a peek or two at the Beatles and the Rolling Stones when they were on the Ed Sullivan Show. If I was real lucky and my daddy went to the bathroom after Topo Gigio or that Russian Circus old Ed was so fond of, I could almost witness the entire appearance before he told me to stop listening to that “crap.” To my everlasting credit, I finally did get my old man to admit that “Act Naturally” wasn’t a bad song, but only because I told him it was written by John D. Loudermilk who, in his opinion, was the “greatest damn writer of all time…next to Hank.” I never could get him to embrace the Stones, even towards the end when he was heavily medicated.

A lot of those who have jumped on the bandwagon recently say Country music finally grew up. With all due respect, maybe it’s the audiences who have grown up.

There are others who say that Country music is well on the way to becoming the Mainstream music of tomorrow. Don’t look now, but with over 5,000 radio stations playing Country music across the country, it’s getting pretty close to Mainstream right now.

Why?

A case could be made for the fact that many of us can’t dance to most of the other music. I just don’t do the “Drop” or the “Slide,” make signs with my hands or jump in a mosh pit. I ain’t no Fred Astaire, but I can two-step. Then again, who can’t? And Country bars are easier to hang in. Oh, a good fight will break out occasionally, but that’s usually what it is…a fight. Very seldom are knives or guns pulled. I mean, you might get your ass kicked, but you probably won’t get killed. I’m no genius. It’s obvious I don’t have the definitive answers. But a couple do stand out.

The music has gotten better. Don’t get me wrong. Country writers were penning standards long before Rock & Roll was named, and Chet Atkins was picking and doubling harmonies before 24-tracks were used. But with the technological boom came a bunch of talented producers who made it possible for Country production to compete with the best of them. In the good ole days, the good ole boys would get a few pickers, rent a studio and cut an album in 12 hours…and that included mixing. The only that that mattered was the song and the beat.

The song is still king in Country, but production and arranging have made the music more acceptable to the fringe consumers. It didn’t hurt when Mainstream began fragmenting into a thousand different definitions. There was a time when you could hear Elton John, Freddie Fender, Al Green and Jimi Hendrix back-to-back on a good Top 40 station. No more. Formats have become too restricted.

And that brings me to the second point: Country radio has gotten better. No format has improved in overall sound, marketing and promotion more than Country. Some of the best radio stations in the country are Country…if you get my drift.

Country programmers are spending more and more time making sure the production of the station is perfect. It’s still the sound that counts to the listeners and Country radio , in many cases, sound best.

Country music, by definition, is much broader than much of the music today. Radio stations and record companies are sometimes too quick to define a song. Not so the audience. They just know if they like it. Country radio allows more of the pieces of the pie onto the plate and it ultimately means more dessert for the listeners.

Country stations are like good Top 40s used to be. You can hear Vince Gill’s “When Love Finds You,” the Tractors’ “Baby Like To Rock It” and George Strait’s “The Big One” and you’ve got Mainstream, Rock & Roll and Country back-to-back. Throw in “Third Rock From The Sun” and you could make a case for psychedelic, but maybe that’s a stretch.

Country music does a great job of pushing the envelope. If someone did a focus group on Mars, most of the aliens would be hard-pressed to make a distinction between half of the songs on Country stations and those claiming to be Mainstream

Of course, there is a dark side to this otherwise bright cloud. The large gains made by Country stations are due in no small part to the success of many new artists. There is so much good music available that PDs are spending time and money determining which records are the best. And they should. However, the danger of over-researching, narrow-casting call-outs and restrictive playlists are real. One only needs to look at what happened to Mainstream Top 40 in the late 1980s to find the end result.

Programmers who have the tendency to put too much emphasis on in-house research can quickly find themselves in the outhouse. The true test of any record is the response of the listeners when they hear it on the radio. Research shows that listeners in all formats…but especially Country…do not tune out new music…even if they don’t like it. They want to hear the latest releases and decide for themselves. It’s only when you continue to play inferior songs does the audience take a hike. So our job as programmers is to expose the right product, test the response and act accordingly.

 

If we’re right…we prosper. If we’re wrong…nobody dies. In the words of Hank Jr., “If the sun don’t come up tomorrow, people I have had a good time. I’m just laid up here in a Country state of mind.”