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Hint of Rock. Not much danger of that. Country-music fans can be found everywhere in the U.S. today. After half a century of condescension, neglect and even ridicule, country in all its guises—bluegrass, heart songs, western ballads, rural blues, delta white soul, Memphis honky-tonk and of course the familiar pop hybrid known as the Nashville Sound—is in the midst of an astronomic growth and gives no signs of stopping. In the record industry, it accounts for roughly one-fifth of the $2 billion in yearly sales. In Nashville last week, camera crews were at work on a movie about country music— W. W. and the Dixie Dancekings, starring Burt Reynolds, and Robert Altman is planning another.
With durable syndicated programs like Hee Haw (208 stations) and The Porter Wagoner Show (100), as well as several annual specials, network television is hardly ignoring the trend. But the most dramatic illustration of all lies in pop radio. In 1961, the number of stations playing nothing but country stood at a mere 80; now there are more than 1,000. New York City's 50,000-watt WHN, in the ratings cellar 14 months ago, went to an all-country format; it has since doubled its audience and is now the No. 1 country station in the U.S., with 1.2 million listeners.
The country boom, of course, has reverberated far beyond its historic home in Nashville. Bakersfield, Calif., which is known for a scruffier, less polished sound, has long been the base of Haggard and such other stars as Buck Owens, Susan Raye, Freddie Hart and Buddy Alan. Now there is another Nashville satellite, Austin, Texas, where Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Michael Murphey are exponents of what might be called progressive country, which has a strong hint of rock.
Nashville, however, remains the capital. There are 57 major recording studios going full time, and an untallyable number of "garage" (private) studios where a country hopeful can make a "demo" (demonstration record). The Grand Ole Opry has just moved into an opulent, $15 million new auditorium at the Disneyesque Opryland, U.S.A., where President Nixon visited in March and declared, "Only one thing is stronger than country moonshine—and that is country music." In Nashville, an industrious studio musician can make close to $100,000 a year.
What is the fuss all about? Glen George, manager of Kansas City's country radio KCKN, says: "Anything that Grandma can hum, whistle or sing is country." Its traditional message is one of despair, hope, loss, death, the land and, often with cloying sentimentality, love. Country lyrics have always been the cry of the common man. They can, and do give comfort to everyone from sharecroppers and truck-stop waitresses to University of Texas Football Coach Darrell Royal, former Energy Czar John Love, Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Operatic Tenor Richard Tucker. Says Moon Mullins, program director of the all-country WINN in Louisville: "If you listen to our station long enough, one of our songs will tell your story."