I`m not sure when it started with me; but whenever I check into a hotel room in a strange city these days, and I turn the radio dial, I find myself looking for country music stations.
This is relatively new. For my entire life I have been listening to rock stations; my routine on the road always consisted of turning on the radio and trying to find the hardest rock sound that I could come up with.
Lately, though, all I want to hear is country–and the funny thing is, when I talk to other people of my generation, a surprisingly large proportion of them confess to the same thing. They say that they don`t go around bragging about it–but that the only music that currently satisfies them is country music.
So here I was in San Francisco, and I twisted the dial, and I found a sweet-sounding country outlet. My great surprise came after the first song ended, and the disc jockey announced the station`s call letters: KSAN.
Now, for longtime students of rock and roll, the call letters KSAN mean something. KSAN was a legendary rock station in San Francisco–one of the first and most influential of the progressive rock outlets. In the late `60s and early `70s Rolling Stone magazine, which originally was published in San Francisco, would regularly report on programming developments at KSAN. KSAN was a force in shaping the formats of dozens, if not hundreds, of other rock stations around the United States.
And now KSAN was a country station. If even KSAN was favoring country, this movement might be even more widespread than I had thought. I called the station and asked to speak with the boss.
Steve Edwards, vice president and general manager of KSAN, said, ”We have been a country station since 1980. The old KSAN was one of the true rock success stories; it probably got more press than any other rock station in the United States. KSAN was the station where new albums were introduced, where Bill Graham would announce his events. . . . It was a very, very important rock station.”
Since its switch to country, though, KSAN has gained a bigger audience than it ever had as a rock station, according to Edwards. ”Our numbers
(ratings) are much larger than they ever were when KSAN was a rock station,” he said.
I asked Edwards why he thought this had happened; I told him about my own change in listening habits, and he reversed the question on me. He asked me why I had started listening to country.
I told him that a lot of factors were involved. First and foremost were the lyrics to the songs; they seemed to address themselves–with wit and dignity–to real problems that real people were having. The music itself was eminently listenable, too; it wasn`t the fiddle-picking of country music stereotypes, but good, solid, guitar-and-drums stuff that seemed to have a lot in common with the best early rock.
”Think about what you just said,” Edwards said. ”What you`re really saying is that you listen to country music because it speaks to adults. That`s the secret. It`s not considered to be `hillbilly` music anymore; it`s music for people who have grown up.
”The only musicians making music for adults today are country musicians. Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and Peggy Lee used to serve that audience, but they aren`t really releasing too many singles these days.
”If you turn on a rock station, you`re going to get Twisted Sister or Iron Maiden. Either that, or you`re going to get flukes like Prince or Madonna. There is a huge audience that has outgrown that kind of music, and that is discovering that country music is sung by grown-up people, for grown- up people.”
I said that the thing that appeals to me about country music is that every song tells a story; there is a narrative tale in each song, and although most of those tales are necessarily simple, many are memorable and fun.
”Everyone says that when they begin to like country,” Edwards said.
”The songs are like short stories. People love the lyrics. Rock songs have lyrics, too, but who can hear them, much less remember them?”
He said that the stereotype of the country-music fan driving an old pickup truck with a shotgun mounted in back is obsolete. ”Let me give you a partial list of our advertisers on KSAN,” he said. ”IBM. Xerox. General Electric. United Airlines. TWA. BMW. Mercedes-Benz. Cadillac. Do those sound like companies who want an unsophisticated audience?”
I asked him if he thought it was generally realized that so many rock fans were switching to country.
”No, the new country listeners often keep it a secret,” he said. ”The stigma`s still there. They`re afraid that if they say they love country music, people will think of them as rednecks belching beer.
”But this switch makes perfect sense. Where does the 35-year-old go for his music when he`s sick of heavy rock? The so-called `beautiful music`
stations lull people to sleep. Country music makes grownups pay attention and smile and tap their toes.”
I thanked Edwards for his time. Then I listened to ”She`s Acting Single, I`m Drinking Doubles” on the radio, and went out to conduct my business of the day.
