Pop Artists Softly Change Rooted Country Sounds
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 career 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 singing 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 an-other pop or rock musician switch and steal all the glory. Miss Newton-John is only the latest in a long line.
New Group
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, 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 some body out of another field coming in and taking away what we’ve worked so hard for all year.” said 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 A.C.E., worries about what he calls “the outside influences” now in country music. He added: “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.
Co-Operation Pledged
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.
“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 C.M.A. 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.
The people who formed the new association are also members of the C.M.A. Some have flirted with modern sounds but most tend to be traditionalists.
Many were out paying their musical dues in rowdy honky-tonks and at dusty state fairs when country was still being put down by the masses as “hillbilly.” all nasal and scratchy, and Olivia Newton-John was just another child growing up in a foreign land.
Friendly Folksiness
The blow up resulting from this clash of musical wills is embarrassing to both sides. Unlike other segments of the song industry, where bad-mouthing is a way of life, country musicians pride themselves not only on the friendly folksiness of their tunes but also on their own friendly folksiness.
“We don’t want to fight with our friends like a bunch of children. We just want to be a positive force,” said Bill Anderson. a singer who is the official spokesman of the new association.
Some folks on music row maintain that the blow up was inevitable. that is has been building right along with the growing popularity of country music. These people say the lines were drawn that night four or five years ago when Kris Kristofferson, Rhodes Scholar drop-out whose tell-it-like-it-is-to-day lyrics have done as much as anything to make country modern shuffled onto the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, all hirsute and layered in leather, and rasped acceptance for a “Song of the Year” award for Sunday Morning Coming Down.”
Before that. Sunday morning had always dawned. And Hank Snow, clean-shaven and sequined in Western wear, was the epitome of country couture to many. Now Kristofferson’s musical kin-albeit some distant-are everywhere.
Rockies Preferred
John Denver eschews Nashville for the Rockies, a sort of geographical heresy. But he is at the top of the country charts with: “Back Home Again.”
Tom T. Hall eschews the Opry, the ultimate heresy. because the Opry eschews the fancy instruments he likes for a backdrop. He too is at the top of the charts.
Then there is Waylon Jennings, who sometimes eschews this world but more often can be found putting it on with a macho beat, brought over from the rock planet he once inhabited. “If I’m not country and I’m not a Mongolian aviator I guess I’m just singing Waylon’s music,” he said.
The charts show that they love Waylon’s music out there in the country.
And what of Charlie Rich, the silver-maned old rock-‘n-roller who was named “Top Male Vocalist of 1974 by the same people who honored Miss Newton-John.
Some insist his country is now so “soft” that he is really a crossover to pop. Yet his current hit. “She Calls Me Baby.” is right eat the top, fighting it out with John Denver’s “Back Home Again.”
“You just can’t argue with success,” said Bill-board’s Bill Williams. He added:
“You have to keep in mind that half of this country’s 6,500 radio stations now play country music a good part of the day. It used to be that fewer than a hundred were country.”
“Most of the disc jockeys out there grew up on rock and pop. They’re not comfortable with that traditional nasal country sound, so they tend to play country that has some sounds they recognize.”
“The jocks are the people who really make the record sales, and they don’t all have bad ears. So most artists are going to give them what they want.
“Call it show biz if you must. It’s still country.”
Or as Tom T. Hall sings in his latest hit. “Country Is”: “Country is what you make it, country is all in your mind.”