After Lean Years, Nashville’s Strumming a New Tune

Country music has not had much to sing about lately.

After an unprecedented boom in the ‘90s, Nashville has watched record sales steadily decline, media outlets disappear, labels close, radio stations dwindle and listeners flee. Country record sales virtually doubled in the early ‘90s, going from a 9.6% share of the overall music market in 1990 to 18.7% in 1993, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America. Since that peak, though, country sales have sagged, dropping to a 10.8% market share in 1999.

Even the Nashville Network (TNN), the granddaddy of country cable outlets, began dropping country music programs over the past couple of years in favor of “outdoor and sports” programming (a term that apparently means professional wrestling and “Dukes of Hazzard” reruns).

And last month TNN dealt Nashville, home to the network since its launch in 1981, a symbolically staggering blow. Like a too-big-for-its-britches teen desperate to get off the farm, TNN shook the dust of its namesake off its boots, lit out for (Lord have mercy) New York City and, as the final kiss-off, changed its name to the National Network.

Yet in the face of such adversity, country music executives are surprisingly upbeat.

They point to the promising signs: labels introducing more distinctive talents and fewer sound-alike “hat acts.” Radio making a few cautious overtures toward edgier artists. A slight ebb in the tide of country Britney Spears cousins trying to cash in on the teen market. More risk-taking songs such as the Dixie Chicks’ darkly comic “Goodbye Earl” and John Michael Montgomery’s overtly religious “The Little Girl.”

They point to the success stories: media darlings the Dixie Chicks--honest-to-gosh musicians, country as grits yet turbocharged for today’s market. And this year’s coronation of traditionalist Lee Ann Womack as a bona fide A-list star with a career record, “I Hope You Dance.”

“I think we’re at a better place now than we have been for some time,” says Barry Coburn, president and CEO of Atlantic Records Nashville.

“We went through a period two or three years ago where all the acts looked and sounded the same. There were about 10 guys with hats. That was what put us in the toilet.

“But now there are some unique new artists who are getting great reaction.”

To find out which of these newcomers has the best shot at following in the footsteps of Womack and the Chicks, Pop Eye talked to insiders on Nashville’s Music Row and compiled this guide to acts to watch:

* Brad Paisley, 27. Music Row has fairly run out of superlatives for the soft-spoken Paisley, the unanimous choice for Most Likely to Succeed. His traditional vocal style and understated stage presence have been compared to George Strait; his witty way with a lyric to Roger Miller. And he picks a mean Telecaster.

Paisley’s debut album on RCA, “Who Needs Pictures,” and its runaway hit single, “He Didn’t Have to Be,” earned him six Country Music Assn. Award nominations this year--a number equaled only by Faith Hill--and won him the CMA’s Horizon Award.

“We call Brad the anointed one,” says Tony Brown, president of rival label MCA Nashville. “He’s like Strait and Alan Jackson, very charismatic. He can walk into a room, speak softly and be heard. When he sings, he doesn’t need a lot of flash--it’s just great songs. This guy’s going to be huge.”

“Artists who have a strong sense of self are the ones who seem to prevail,” says Jay Orr, senior music editor for country.com., a leading country music Web site. “And every step along the way, Brad seems to know exactly how he wants his career to unfold.

“It’s almost easy to take him for granted, even at this early stage, because everybody loves him. But I’ll hear him and it reminds me that, yeah, he is good and deserves the success.”

* Keith Urban, 33. Another Telecaster master, Urban picked up the guitar at age 6 and has been playing clubs since he was 14. The Australian singer-songwriter charted hits Down Under before moving to Nashville, where in the mid-’90s he scored minor success with his high-powered band the Ranch, and scored big with critics for his impressive guitar skills.

Though he released his self-titled solo debut for Capitol in 1999, Urban is now generating his biggest commercial buzz yet with the single “Your Everything.”

“Keith’s incredibly talented in the same ways Brad is, but with a different style,” says Atlantic’s Coburn. “He’s a great musician, has his own attitude, doesn’t appear to be manufactured. He’s played a lot, earned his chops, and that goes a long way with me.”

* Sara Evans, 29. Evans made her mark with critics in 1997 with her distinctive pure-country voice on “Three Chords and the Truth,” a stellar traditional album on RCA produced by Pete Anderson, Dwight Yoakam’s longtime creative partner.

She attracted commercial attention with her sophomore release when the title track, “No Place That Far,” went to No. 1. But with her current effort, “Born to Fly,” Evans makes her most unabashed bid for commercial success with a sound inspired by a certain trio of Chicks and a sunnier, sexier image that’s generating considerable interest. The album debuted at No. 8 on Billboard’s country chart last week.

“I’m glad to see Sara happening,” says MCA’s Brown. “I think she and Lee Ann Womack are the heirs apparent to Patty Loveless.”

* Eric Heatherly, 30. With his retro-influenced look and brash rockabilly style, Heatherly is an instant standout among country’s crop of newcomers. He had a Top 10 hit for Mercury earlier this year with an update of the Statler Brothers’ “Flowers on the Wall” from his debut album, “Swimming in Champagne.” But fans say the best measure of his potential lies in his live show.

“I’ve seen this guy perform, and I’ve seen how young people react to his show,” says Ed Benson, executive director of the CMA. “It hearkens back to the early days of country and rock. He’s someone who could really break through.”

* Darryl Worley, 35. “The more I hear him, the more I’m liking him,” says Orr of Worley. “As a writer, he’s got great song sense.”

The neo-traditionalist’s blue-collar pedigree is evident in his DreamWorks debut, “Hard Rain Don’t Last,” which spawned a Top 10 single, “When You Need My Love.” And his rugged good looks are causing a stir among female fans.

The list seems to indicate at least one trend: a male comeback.

Critics observed in the late ‘90s that female artists such as Shania Twain and the Chicks were taking more chances and creating more original music than their male counterparts. But the flood of estrogen and female-focused songs on the airwaves has been blamed for driving male fans away from the format.

If these newcomers are any indication, there could be a place for men in country music after all.

Still, predicting where the next big thing might pop up in today’s changing country climate is as scientific as a game of Whack-a-Mole.

“There was a time when, if a certain artist came out with a record it was going to sell. That’s not necessarily the case anymore,” says Nashville-based music marketing analyst John Hart.

“Now even people who are getting big radio play don’t necessarily sell records. Trisha Yearwood--her catalog is all over the radio, but she’s selling nothing. Chad Brock is having No. 1 hits but not selling product--Anne Murray, who hardly gets any play on the radio, is outselling him. And yet John Michael Montgomery just came back from the dead with a huge record.”

How much does country need its newcomers to flourish? The top-selling country album of 1998 and 1999 was Twain’s “Come On Over,” a 1997 release. So there’s a lot riding on Nashville’s new wave of talent.

Says Brown, “You never know when the next Dixie Chicks is going to blast out of the pack and blow everyone away.”