Roots Rule in Academy of Country Music’s Awards : Hank Williams Jr., Randy Travis Win With Traditional Sound; ‘Trio’ Album of the Year

Country music’s back-to-roots movement is no longer the coming thing to the voters who decide the annual Academy of Country Music Awards. 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 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, was named Entertainer of the Year 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 by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, was judged album of the year. McEntire repeated for the fourth straight year as top female vocalist; Naomi and Wynonna Judd 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 group that dominated the awards.

“They had to open up the fences a bit for me,” said Oslin, who emerged at age 45 as a country newcomer after spending years pursuing an acting career in New York.

The two-hour awards show, broadcast by NBC, proceeded without hitches inside the theater. Meanwhile, participants popped out of a side door to answer questions and to pose for photographers under the canopy of a snack bar called “The Hollywood Beanery.” Several award winners declined to view their victories as a broader triumph for country traditionalism.

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

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 awards.

“I wasn’t very happy for many years with the way things went down,” 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.”

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 more than 1 million-selling 1986 debut album and a follow-up that has sold more than 2 million copies.

Travis said his third album, tentatively titled “8 x 10,” is due out June 24. He said he was 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,” the laconic singer said. “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 career achievement.

Miller, 52, known for such humorous standards as “Dang Me,” and “King of the Road,” 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 began 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 his reference to nuclear dangers 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.”

Awards in several categories had been announced before Monday. Among the winners as top country instrumentalists were Johnny Gimble (fiddle), Chet Atkins (guitar) and the Desert Rose Band’s J.D. Maness (steel guitar), while Merle Haggard’s backing group, the Strangers, was named best touring band. And for the second time, the Crazy Horse Steak House & Saloon in Santa Ana was named country nightclub of the year.