Country music, having learned that it can be directed simultaneously (and highly profitably) toward both youth and tradition, debuts another wave of new faces this autumn while presenting more established stars via national TV and preserving history with books and recording reissues.
The field`s fall profile on the Chicago-area concert scene will be high, with shows scheduled by such legendary performers as George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Bill Monroe, more recent arrivals Randy Travis and Baillie & The Boys and new hopefuls the Texas Tornados and Shelby Lynne.
Most widely visible (or, in one case, audible) will be performers featured in a string of major media network specials. These include:
– The two-hour annual Country Music Association Awards Show Oct. 8 (8 p.m. Chicago time, CBS-Ch. 2, CTV in Canada), which promises a parade of new nominees such as the Kentucky HeadHunters, Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt, Alan Jackson and Lorrie Morgan, with expectations of big things from second-year nominee Clint Black.
– An appearance Oct. 23 by Randy Travis and George Jones on NBC-TV`s
”David Letterman Show.” The decidedly un-Lettermanesque figures will sing their duet, ”A Few Old Country Boys.”
– A Dolly Parton ABC-TV special, ”Home For Christmas,” loosely scheduled for early December, being videotaped in Parton`s hometown, Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
– A one-hour radio show, Home For Christmas with Dolly Parton, to be broadcast virtually around the world between Dec. 7 and 9. Reported to consist of the cuts of a new Parton Christmas album and a personal memoir done without a script, it will be carried not only by United States radio stations but by the Armed Forces Network (which reaches 65 million listeners around the world) and the Voice of America (130 million).
A flood of new country albums will hit the streets this fall. The most important will include the latest from white-hot Clint Black (as yet untitled, on RCA, to be released Nov. 6), The Judds (”Love Can Build a Bridge,” RCA, coming this week) and Dwight Yoakam (”If There Was A Way,” Reprise, Oct. 30); long-awaited new collections from Rosanne Cash (”Interiors,” Columbia, Oct. 23) and Brenda Lee (title unknown, Warner Bros., Nov. 13); and the much- noted duet albums of Randy Travis (”Heroes & Friends,” Warner Bros., also this week) and Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler (”Neck & Neck,” Columbia, Oct. 9).
The most significant collector-aimed recordings scheduled for issue before year`s end include two different collections of the work of Hank Williams.
PolyGram has a three-volume, 86-song set (Hank Williams: The Original Singles Collection Plus. . . on Nov. 20), which contains a previously unissued demonstration recording made by Williams in 1942, ”I`m Not Coming Home Any More.” The other Williams collection is a 24-song CD (Hank Williams: The Rare Demos, First To Last (Nov. 1), to be released by the Country Music Foundation, bringing into one package the 1985 CMF albums ”Hank Williams: Just Me And My Guitar” and ”Hank Williams, The First Recordings.”
The CMF also is releasing, on Oct. 1, Mark O`Connor: The Championship Years, an unusual 40-selection set of live and previously unissued
performances by perhaps the foremost string virtuoso among Nashville`s studio players. The recording gathers the onetime child prodigy`s many winning performances in fiddle, etc., competitions before he reached adulthood and took up residence in Nashville.
Two books entering the market are widely different autobiographies:
Barbara Mandrell`s ”Get to the Heart: My Story,” a Bantam hardback being released this week, is the story of one of Nashville`s most dedicatedly positive figures.
Jett Williams` ”Ain`t Nothin` As Sweet As My Baby” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Sept. 17) purports to be the story of an illegitimate daughter of Hank Williams and examines the country industry`s darker sides.
Chicago-area residents have a full fall-to-Christmas schedule of concerts by a variety of country music`s strongest performers.
The most notable concerts begin with Bill Monroe Sept. 15 at the Old Town School of Folk Music, 909 W. Armitage Ave.; George Jones Sept. 21 at the Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet; Randy Travis and Shelby Lynne, Sept. 21-23, Star Plaza Theatre, Merrillville, Ind.; the Texas Tornados Sept. 22 at Fitzgerald`s, 6615 Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn; and Dan Seals, Sept. 30 at the Sabre Room in Hickory Hills.
Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn will be at Star Plaza Oct. 7; Ricky Skaggs and Highway 101 at Star Plaza Oct. 14; Ray Stevens and Chicago`s familiar Joel Daly at the Paramount Arts Centre in Aurora, also Oct. 14; Ray Price at the Rialto in Joliet Nov. 2; Barbara Mandrell at the Rialto Nov. 4; Carl Perkins and Baillie & The Boys at the Rialto Nov. 24; Louise Mandrell`s Christmas Show at Star Plaza Dec. 9; and the ”Christmas and country” show of Larry Gatlin and The Gatlin Brothers at Star Plaza Dec. 16.
Chicago area residents as well as viewers across the nation also will have considerable country fare to watch on TV, in addition to the shows previously mentioned. Young traditionalist heartthrob Alan Jackson will grace a CBS-TV pilot, ”Preview,” tentatively scheduled for middle or late October. And three varied one-hour specials on The Nashville Network should be of eclectic interest: The Hitchhiker Music Hour, a program featuring such contemporary-oriented country artists as Mary-Chapin Carpenter and the O`Kanes, Oct. 3; The Grand Ole Opry`s 65th Birthday Celebration, an Oct. 13 tribute to the 65th anniversary of history`s longest-running live radio production; and Happy Trails, Oct. 17, a Randy Travis special in which Travis visits an authentic Montana cattle drive with Roy Rogers, Michael Martin Murphey and Holly Dunn.
Indicative of the Nashville scene`s economic health is the number of record releases scheduled to take advantage of the gift-buying season, especially the debut productions by brand-new artists.
There are at least 10 albums by these alone. They include CBS Records`
Joe Diffie (whose just-released first single, ”Home,” appears to be a runaway hit), Sept. 25, and Billy and Terry Smith, Oct. 23; MCA`s McBride and The Ride, Sept. 18, and Mark Chesnutt, Oct. 16; Warner Bros.` Beth Nielsen Chapman, Sept. 25; RCA`s Matraca Berg, Oct. 9, and Capitol`s Billy Dean and The Goldens, both this week, and Paul David Wells, Sept. 24, and Verlon Thompson, Nov. 5. A debut single is scheduled for Arista`s Rob Crosby sometime in October, and Oct. 15 Mercury will offer what will be a debut duet single for up-and-comers Daniele Alexander and Butch Baker.
A lot of more familiar names will have new albums on the market. CBS will offer new ones by Tammy Wynette, Sept. 25, and Willie Nelson, Oct. 9; Warner Bros., Kenny Rogers, this week, and Emmylou Harris, Oct. 16; Capitol, Barbara Mandrell and Suzy Bogguss, both this week, and Gary Morris and Wild Rose, both Sept. 24; RCA, Don Williams, Oct. 9, and K.T. Oslin, Nov. 6; and MCA, Conway Twitty and James House, both Sept. 18, and Joe Ely, Oct. 16.
Warner Bros. will offer a Highway 101 ”Greatest Hits” this week, while CBS has scheduled a Merle Haggard: Greatest Hits of the `80s for Oct. 23.
Some of the most telling evidence of country music`s reintegration into the American mainstream is random. It includes George Strait`s upcoming stint at the Las Vegas Hilton, Dec. 4-8, the Desert Rose Band`s Oct. 3 date at the Bottom Line in New York and Alan Jackson`s Sept. 23d stop at the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles.
