Geez, if you don't listen to any country music from 10 or 15 years ago,
you're missing George Strait, Ricky Skaggs, Merle Haggard, Don Williams,
Ricky Van Shelton, Conway Twitty, the Judds, John Anderson, Keith Whitley,
Clint Black, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis, and a whole lot more.
As far as the general Americana discussion goes, an issue that hasn't yet
been addressed is this: what's going to happen when - ok, make that "if" -
the core of mainstream country radio decides that its commercially viable
path is to concentrate on retaining or winning back the core of the country
music audience? If the format's defined only in contrast or opposition to
the commercial mainstream, and the mainstream changes, where does that leave
Americana? From my perspective, there's no inherent reason why a fair
number of presently-excluded country artists like Heather Myles, or Dwight
Yoakam, or Connie Smith, or a bunch of others who are charting or have
charted on Americana couldn't be part of a more hardcore, yet still
commercially viable country format that didn't include all, or very much at
all of the rock-based stuff, and some good reasons (like musical similarity)
why they could be. If that happens, what's the point of an Americana chart?
Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
