Honk if you love country

[musicradio77]

New York gets the twang of it, as Nashville stampedes city

By JIM FARBER

Perception: New Yorkers take to country music about as well as bagels go with grits.

Reality: New Yorkers are the second-biggest buyers of country CDs in the nation, according to Nielsen/SoundScan (after Los Angeles, itself no Nashville).

Such are the facts the Country Music Association of America plans to drive home to the media, advertisers and just about anyone who'll listen during its hype-y "Country Takes New York" campaign, which will overtake the city for the next week and a half. The campaign will culminate in the CMA Awards next Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, the first time in its 39-year history the awards will be held outside Nashville.

In the meantime, you won't be able to get 10 feet in this town without encoutering some reference to banjos, beer and cheating hearts.


Like an inverted version of TV's old "Green Acres," rural folks, from Kenny Chesney to Gretchen Wilson, will be coming to glamour central, eager to deflate stereotypes, and court favors.

"New York is the No. 1 media market in the world," explains Ed Benson, executive director of the Country Music Association. "We need to be here."

Besides the CMA Awards, the next two weeks will bring:


A "Broadway Meets Country" concert this Saturday at "Jazz at Lincoln Center." The show mingles performances by Music Row stars such as Trisha Yearwood, Trace Adkins and Glen Campbell with those of the Great White Way, like Idina Menzel, Ben Vereen and Brian Stokes Mitchell.

An 80th anniversary, all-star "Grand Ol' Opry at Carnegie Hall" concert, arriving Monday, Nov. 14. The event boasts 10-gallon names like Vince Gill, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss.

A rash of club showcases for country stars who normally play far bigger venues. They include Brooks & Dunn (Irving Plaza, Thursday), Keith Urban (Irving Plaza, Sunday) and Lee Ann Womack (Bowery Ballroom, Nov. 14).

A tribute concert to Johnny Cash airing on CBS Nov. 16, featuring U2, Norah Jones and Sheryl Crow. Two days later will see the opening of "I Walk the Line," the feature film about the man in black, starring Joaquin Phoenix.
"It's time for country music to go back up there and make a splash," says Wade Jessen, a country writer for Billboard.

Part of that splash includes lobbying for more tour sponsorship and advertising tie-ins for country stars. "New York is home to more Fortune 500 companies and media buyers than anyplace else," says Benson.

Nashville advocates also will bang on the doors of local broadcast companies to ask why New York is the only major city in America, other than San Francisco, that doesn't have a country radio station. We haven't had a full-time twangy outlet since WYNY switched to dance music (as KTU) nearly a decade ago.

Getting programmers to change, observers say, won't be easy. "I don't see anybody bringing the city a country station at this point," says Sean Ross of Edison Research, which studies radio trends.

"There are too many other formats they can make profitable, quicker," Jessen adds.

Other observers blame the city's ongoing prejudices about country music. "When I go to New York, they still call country music 'Country & Western,'" says songwriter and CMA board member Bob DiPiero. "That's not quite as bad as calling R&B 'race music,' but it's as wrong."

DiPiero underscores the point by stressing how much more contemporary country has become over the years. "If you turn on CMT [Country Music Television]," he explains, "you'll see guys wearing stuff from Urban Outfitters and Gucci. You will not see red-and-white-checked tablecloths and gingham."

Of course, country has gone mainstream many times before. In the wake of the '80s "Urban Cowboy" phenomenon, the music boomed (and blanded out) with stars like Kenny Rogers, Anne Murray and Johnny Lee. In the early '90s, it exploded again with Garth Brooks, followed by the Shania-sization of the style.

Lately, though, country stars have spent more time returning to their roots. Ironically, right when Nashville is trying to woo Madison Avenue, its stars have veered from Shania's slickness to reclaim their rural pride. The hottest star today is Wilson, who pushes her trailer-park heritage. Faith Hill recently de-glamorized her work to embrace the country gal within. And, at this year's CMA's, the two most nominated stars are both traditionally minded: Womack and Paisley.

"The roots of country music never go away," says Benson.

That's what fans come to the music for to begin with.

"When closet country fans are attracted to this music, they're drawn to its authenticity," explains ­DiPiero, "its ability to tell real stories."

The songwriter argues that those stories have broader demographic appeal than tales told in any other genre. "This a cradle-to-the-grave format," says DiPiero. "You can grow up listening to it — and die listening to it."

Now, its practitioners just have to convince the powers-that-be of its potency for the time in between.

The biggest stars have always been city folk

Though some in the South may still see it as the heart of darkness, New York City has hosted some key events in country music history. To name a few:

July 1922: Eck Robertson and Henry Gilliland record "Sallie Gooden" in the city. It's considered to be the first country single.

July 1924: Vernon Dalhart records "The Wreck of the Old '97," the first million-selling country single.

May 1933: Country pioneer Jimmie Rodgers makes the final recordings of his life here. He dies of tuberculosis in his New York hotel room.

August 1935: Patsy Montana records "I Wanna Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart," the first major hit by a female solo country artist.

September 1947: Grand Ol' Opry stars, including Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl and Ernest Tubb, play Carnegie Hall.
November 1961: Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves and Bill Monroe take over Carnegie Hall.

1985: "Big River," the Roger Miller musical based on "Huckleberry Finn," hits Broadway and wins seven Tony Awards.

August 1997: Garth Brooks draws the largest crowd ever assembled in Central Park for his HBO special.

January 2001: Reba McEntire stars in a critically acclaimed production of "Annie Get Your Gun."