ALABAMA SALUTES REAGAN

As the band Alabama accepted entertainer of the year honors for the fifth straight year, the group’s guitarist, Mark Herndon, took time out during Monday’s 21st Academy of Country Music Awards ceremonies to salute the United States military strike on Libya: “Godspeed, President Reagan, I think you done the right thing.”

Otherwise, there were few references to the action that delayed the start of NBC-TV’s live broadcast to the East Coast for almost an hour. The program, held at Knott’s Berry Farm’s 2,100-seat Good Time Theatre in Buena Park, aired as scheduled on the West Coast.

Most musicians talked about the continuing resurgence of traditional country music as evidenced by the academy’s Hat Awards to Reba McEntire and George Strait as top female and top male vocalists, respectively.

The academy’s Pioneer Award, which in the past has been given to such country greats as Hank Williams, Bob Wills and the Sons of the Pioneers, was presented to Kitty Wells, whose more than two dozen Top 10 country singles during the ‘50s and ‘60s included “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” Wells, 66, was the third woman to get the Pioneer Award in the 18 years it has been presented.