Awards Confirm Strength of Country Roots : Down-Home Folk Win Most Honors in Pop Shutout

To the voters who decide the annual Academy of Country Music Awards, country’s back-to-roots movement is no longer the coming thing. It is the thing.

When the envelope tearing was over Monday evening in the Good Time Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm, performers steeped in country tradition had captured almost all the major awards for 1987 releases, and nominees known for a slicker alloy of country and pop styles had been virtually shut out.

The 2,500-member academy, made up of music industry professionals, underscored the verdict it delivered last year when it finally ended Alabama’s run of five consecutive entertainer of the year and top vocal group awards. Alabama, which has rung up impressive sales with its pop-country hybrid, was nominated again this year in both categories but lost its bid to reclaim a silver “Hat” trophy to performers with rawer, rootsier styles.

Hank Williams Jr., who co-hosted the nationally telecast awards show with Reba McEntire, won entertainer of the year honors for the second consecutive year, while newcomer Highway 101, a band of rocking traditionalists, was named the top vocal group over a field heavy with pop-oriented acts.

Randy Travis led the continued ascendancy of back-to-basics acts with three awards (top male vocalist, single of the year and song of the year--both for “Forever and Ever, Amen”). “Trio,” the superstar harmony collaboration of Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, was named album of the year. McEntire repeated for the fourth straight year as top female vocalist; the Judds matched her by winning their fourth consecutive award for top vocal duet, and Ricky Van Shelton and K.T. Oslin were named top new male and female vocalists. Oslin also won an award for her video “80’s Ladies.”

Among the winners, only Oslin, who couches distinctive country-twang vocals and a personal songwriting style in smooth pop-ballad production, is not part of the roots-oriented crop. “They had to open up the fences a bit for me,” said Oslin, who emerged at age 45 as a country newcomer after years spent pursuing an acting career in New York.

While the two-hour awards show, broadcast by NBC, proceeded without hitches inside the theme park’s theater, participants were popping out a side door to answer reporters’ questions and to pose for photographers under the canopy of a snack bar called “The Hollywood Beanery.” Several award winners were not inclined to view their victories as a broader triumph for country traditionalism.

“Gosh, we just play songs that we like,” said Scott (Cactus) Moser, Highway 101’s drummer. “I don’t know if you can say that this is a victory for traditional music because (all styles) have room in country music.”

“Nobody likes to draw any lines,” added the band’s guitarist, Jack Daniels. McEntire--whose busy evening as television hostess included costume changes from a western fringed dress to the pink gown in which she sang “A Sunday Kind of Love” to the all-black, all-leather outfit in which she met the press--also expounded an ecumenical line.

“When people say, ‘You’re a traditionalist,’ I just tell ‘em, ‘This is Reba McEntire. I’m singing it for everybody.’ ”

It was left to a boisterous, champagne-hefting Hank Williams Jr., who has country tradition imprinted on his birth certificate, to draw some distinctions and applaud the new direction taken by the ACM awards.

“I wasn’t very happy for many years with the way things went down” as pop-hybrids dominated country awards, Williams told reporters after the show. “Then finally we got past it. They started giving it to the people who should have won it--and they did that tonight.”

Williams and Travis both had been nominated in all six categories for which they were eligible. During the first half of the ceremony, the politely laconic Travis won three awards in quick succession and looked as if he might sweep five musical performance categories. But in the last two awards announced, “Trio” beat Travis’ “Always and Forever” in the best album category, and Williams, after five misses, connected for the home run of awards, entertainer of the year.

While Travis may have slipped a notch from last year, when he won four awards, his three-way “Hat” trick doesn’t figure to hurt the momentum he has rolling with his million-selling 1986 debut album and a follow-up that has sold more than 2 million copies.

Travis said his third album, tentatively titled “8x10” (as in photograph), is nearly finished and is due out June 24. He said he is not concerned by pressure to top past sales figures and accolades. “I guess that’s something that will (happen) every time you have a success. I hope (sales escalate) for a while to come, but I know things can’t continue from now on. When that happens, I guess I’ll accept it the way I’ve accepted the rest of it.”

The most surprised winner of the evening was Roger Miller, who received the Pioneer Award for “outstanding and unprecedented” career achievement.

Miller, 52, known for such humorous standards as “Dang Me” and as the author of the Tony award-winning musical “Big River,” shot back in his chair when his name was called. Then he got up and improvised an acceptance speech that led with humor but ended with a summation of country music as something that exists to reflect the lives and concerns of real people. Miller told the black-tie audience that he sees country as the kind of music that can “make ‘em understand what it’s about . . . how to milk a cow . . . how hot the bombs are if they fall.”

Questioned afterward, Miller said that last reference wasn’t intended as a call for more social consciousness in country songs. “I was surprised that I made that kind of statement,” he said. “I’m just saying that this music is from the heart of the country, and sometimes it can repeat what’s going on in the heart of the country. I didn’t mean to be that heavy about it. It never occurred to me (that he might win the career award). I just didn’t think I’d been around long enough. From now, on I’ll be prepared.”

Awards in several categories, including top country instrumentalists, had been announced before Monday. Emory Gordy, Jr. and David Hungate tied for best bassist, John Hobbs and Ronnie Milsap tied for top keyboardist, and Jerry Douglas (dobro) and Ricky Skaggs (mandolin) shared the award for best specialty instrument. Other musician awards went to Johnny Gimble (fiddle), Archie Francis (drums), Chet Atkins (guitar), J.D. Maness (steel guitar), Nashville Now (best non-touring band) and Merle Haggard’s backing group, the Strangers (best touring band).

The Crazy Horse Steak House & Saloon in Santa Ana was named country nightclub of the year for the second time in a row; Jim Tabor of WMC in Memphis was disc jockey of the year, and KNIX in Phoenix repeated as radio station of the year.

It was the 23rd annual award ceremony presented by the Los Angeles-based Academy of Country Music, which ranks second in prestige to the Country Music Assn., a larger, Nashville-based organization that televises its awards program each October.