Olivia joins the stampede to the Nashville Sound
By B. Drummond Ayres JR
New York Times News Service
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Olivia Newton-John is a pretty Australian vocalist who has spent most of her musical ca-reer singing English pop tunes.
But five weeks ago, having “crossed over” and joined the stampede to the Nashville sound with a country-style gold record called “Let Me Be There,” she was voted “top female vocalist of the year” by the Country Music Association, the major trade organization of pickin’ and singin.’
Most artists and technicians working here on Music Row said, well, that’s show biz. No matter that Miss Newton-John is basically a pop singer in a long white gown who goes around saying things like, “I enjoy country music but I don’t know much about it.”
A few artists and technicians decided, however, that they would rather fight than see another pop or rock musi-cian switch and steal all the glory. Miss Newton-John is only the latest in a long line.
So after several weeks of brooding, these concerned pickers and singers have boldly cracked country music’s one-big-happy-family facade and formed the Association of Country Entertainers (ACE), an organization whose purpose is “to preserve the identity of country music as a separate and distinct form of entertainment” and whose membership is limited “exclusively to those persons who make their living as country music entertainers and who identify themselves primarily as such.”
“We don’t want somebody out of another field coming in and taking away what we’ve worked so hard for all year,” says Johnny Paycheck, a singer who helped form the new group and one of a handful of members willing to talk openly about its grievances.
Billy Walker, another singer who helped set up ACE, worries about what he calls “the outside influences” now in country music. He adds: “We’re mainly the people who made country music what it is today, trying to protect our business because we see it flaking off in thousands of directions. We’re trying to keep it at home.”
Sour grapes? Perhaps a few.
But an association whose membership includes not only Paycheck and Walker but also Roy Acuff, Porter Wagoner, Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and 40 others of like fame, is not exactly a collection of also-rans. Sensing this, the old trade association has vowed to work closely with the new group. There is even talk of a new “standard” for future awards.
Those musicians and technicians who saw Miss Newton-John’s award as show biz reasoned that the choice had to be correct since it was made by the rank and file of the Country Music Association (CMA).
“That’s democracy,” said Jo Walker, the association’s executive director.
“It is also the wave of the future and a sure sign that country music is alive and growing and unwilling to stagnate,” added Bill Williams, the highly respected Nashville editor of Billboard, the news weekly of music. The CMA membership is made up of that burgeoning band of people who pick, sing, record, sell and broadcast country tunes. Collectively, they have made the country sound the hottest thing in the song industry, moving it to the profitable musical middle with the addition of mod lyrics and pop instruments such as harps, drums and trumpets.