Their Nashville Roots Unify the Sublime and the Wacky

The story in this year’s country nominees is twofold: the surprisingly solid selections in a couple of key categories and the wildly inconsistent choices in others.

Though the four nominations for the Dixie Chicks’ “Fly” album reflected the collection’s perfect Grammy blend of commercial punch and critical acclaim, one nice surprise was strong showings by some artists who didn’t score huge hits during the year. Two nods went to George Jones, the Zeus of country singers, who put out one of the finest albums of his career, and an impressive six were generated by “Ride With Bob,” Asleep at the Wheel’s spirited all-star tribute to the king of western swing, Bob Wills.

For once artistry took precedence over sales in the country album category, with nominations to Asleep, Jones, Dixie Chicks, Alison Krauss and the Emmylou Harris-Linda Ronstadt-Dolly Parton “Trio II” project.

Yet the hit-single mentality is clearly at work in the always-revealing country song category. What else could explain the presence of Shania Twain’s “Come on Over,” a compendium of banal catch phrases, alongside the infinitely more emotionally revealing Mike Curtis-Billy Yates ballad “Choices” from Jones’ standout album.

The nominees for male vocal--Jones, Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam and Tim McGraw--more closely represented the peaks of ’99 country music than nominations in the female vocal field--hit-makers Twain and Faith Hill next to strong performances by Harris, Krauss and Martina McBride.

Of course, most anything that originated outside Nashville’s sphere of influence--alt-country or indie-label releases--was relegated to the folk categories, if it was noticed at all.