Word: rocke
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...wondrous songwriter whose major problem is letting his head get in the way of his heart. "If I can keep my brain out of my music, everything will be great," he says. "But whenever anybody asks, I say 'I play country music, and I play a little rock 'n' roll.' When I'm finally pinned down, I have to say I'm country...
...struggle to pin down Steve Earle, however. "Stylistically, I'm a country singer, and I will always be a country singer because I talk like this," he says in a striking Panhandle rasp. "What I'm doing is country and rock, and I don't think they are mutually exclusive terms." It is no easy matter to convince everyone, though. Guitar Town, his seminal 1986 MCA album, was full of great tunes -- Springsteen on a two-lane blacktop -- and should have settled all conflicts of style. But, he reports, "I'm at war with the record company on the West...
...People our generation and younger have grown up with a rock music attitude surrounding us," O'Hara says. "That means we share a rebelliousness and a willingness to take some chances." Those chances, even when they are as respectful as Travis' or as roughhouse as Steve Earle's, are already paying handsome dividends. There's new times in country at last. And good times...
MUSIC: Randy Travis leads a stampede to the crossroads of country, pop and rock...
...What makes country hot at the moment is something that can't be graphed or computed. But it can be heard, sometimes on radio stations that play rock or even -- shudder -- easy listening. There is a bumper crop of new talent around, making personal, adventurous, uncompromised music for a wider audience that is not bound by country's strict conventions. It could be that things haven't been so fertile since the '50s, with the coming of Johnny Cash and the brash flush of rockabilly. For sure, the pickings haven't been so rich since Waylon and Willie and Merle...