Whenever Nashville music executives want to overcome a slowdown in country-music sales, all they have to do is put more country in the music, veteran observers have long noted.
The latest such observation comes from no less than a Nashville academic: Vanderbilt University sociology professor Richard Peterson, who is said to have studied the country field for two decades.
Peterson was quoted the other day as saying that whenever Nashville’s executives foresee a sales slump they return to songs that lean toward the first love of Nashville’s core audience-“hard” country music exhibiting the traditional nasal twang as well as the traditional-style lyrics that graphically reflect real life.
The problem, unfortunately, is that observers such as Peterson seem to be better versed on the cycle than are music executives.
When Urban Cowboy got bucked off the national popularity machine in the early ’80s, for instance, Nashville’s executive corps took three or four years to realize they needed to turn back to traditionalism by finding a Randy Travis-although they had a couple of widely-differing and powerful examples of that need in the careers of cowboy George Strait and ex-bluegrasser Ricky Skaggs, both of whom had begun enjoying hot popularity around 1980.
When the executives did finally turn to Travis, it was more by accident than design. They then were quickly rewarded with multi-million-selling albums that dwarfed previous sales marks for a traditional country performer.
On the record: The final song of Wynonna’s forthcoming second album, “Tell Me Why,” is “That Was Yesterday,” written by Wynonna’s mother, Naomi Judd. Other songs by famous singers in the May 11 package include Karla Bonoff’s “Tell Me Why,” Jesse Winchester’s “Let’s Make a Baby King” and “Just Like New,” and Mary-Chapin Carpenter’s “Girls With Guitars.” . . . With retrospective collections by George Jones, Merle Haggard and David Allan Coe, Sony/Epic’s Nashville division is introducing a so-called superhits series, designed to “feature some of the best music by some of our contemporary legends, with an emphasis on some of the later material,” which, because it hasn’t been around as long, tends not to get chosen “for the historic boxed sets,” a spokesman explains.
Song title of the week: “A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action,” by K. Hinton and J. Stewart.
Rosanne Cash, who has had 11 No. 1 country singles in her 14-year career, indicates that her pop-directed new collection, “The Wheel,” concerns the changed person she became as the result of her 1992 divorce from singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, whom she married in 1979.
” `The Wheel’ is about transformation,” she says. “If we integrate our pain, it seems that it transforms into growth and passion and a resurgence of desire and commitment.”
On the road: Doug Stone, having recently seen his debut album, “Doug Stone,” certified as a million-seller, performs at the University Plaza Convention Center in Springfield, Mo., April 3, the Executive Inn in Paducah, Ky., April 10, and El Dorado High School in El Dorado, Ill., April 17. . . . Performers who journeyed to “Fiesta Texas” in San Antonio to sing on The Nashville Network’s “Texas Connection” series include Riders in the Sky and the Dixie Chicks, who appear April 5; the Texas Tornados and Tish Hinojosa, April 12; Little Feat, April 19; and Joe Diffie and Ray Price, April 26.
Before she went onstage in Denver recently, Patty Loveless received a note from a fan asking her to help him with one of the more stressful jobs faced by males: proposing.
Loveless rendered much aid, stopping halfway through her show to call the unwitting young intended out of the audience and onto the stage. After first asking her if she was having a good time, Loveless said: “I’ve got to ask you something real special. Do you know Rod? Well, he wants you to marry him.”
The already-nervous young woman dissolved into tears-and greatly pleased the crowd with her affirmative answer to the thus-popped question.
Et cetera: Hank Williams Jr.’s recent one-night hosting of TNN’s “Nashville Now” show was his debut in that role, but it wasn’t the show’s only debut that evening. It was also the first time Williams’ daughter Katie had appeared on TV. High time, too; Katie was all of 5 months old. . . . Roy Clark, aided by writer Marc Eliot, is readying his autobiography, which is to be published by Simon & Schuster.
