If you scan far enough down on Radio & Records’ Country airplay chart for July 10, 1987, you find two of the format’s keystone records. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Fishing in the Dark,” the most enduring of ‘80s Country hits, is beginning its ascent at No. 39. Randy Travis’ “Forever and Ever, Amen,” the song considered a turning point, is on its way off the chart at No. 40.
But also listen to the No. 1 song that week. Holly Dunn’s “Love Someone Like Me” was one of a series of folky, acoustic, and often female-led singles in the top 10 that week, including songs from K.T. Oslin, the “Trio” of Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris, and Reba McEntire’s “One Promise Too Late.” Four of the top 10 singles were by female acts, and because of Trio, six female acts were represented, with Highway 101, the Judds, and Baillie & the Boys just below the top 10.
Dunn’s single was on an independent label, MTM, that had an undeniable influence on Country music during its brief mid-‘80s tenure — the Sub-Pop of Country music, if grunge’s cornerstone label had managed to have hits of its own, not merely incubate acts. MTM’s other hit that week was Judy Rodman covering Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.” (The Trio single was co-written by folk-rocker Linda Thompson, which was the same combination of bold and entirely logical.)
The co-writer of Dunn’s hit was Radney Foster, whose own duo, Foster & Lloyd, was debuting on the charts that week, next to the second single from the Desert Rose Band, led by the Byrds’ Chris Hillman. A little further up was the lead single from Steve Earle’s second album. Earle’s next album would go to Rock radio, but for now he and Lyle Lovett were both climbing the charts.
During Country’s post-“Urban Cowboy,” mid-1980s doldrums, the format was upstaged by a resurgent CHR that went from relying heavily on Country crossovers to playing almost none. Amidst Country’s overall AC feel, you waited to her those one or two songs at a time that really rocked. By summer ’87, there were several of those at any time, led by Hank Williams Jr.’s “Born to Boogie,” but also Earle, Foster & Lloyd, Ricky Van Shelton’s “Crime of Passion,” Kathy Mattea’s “Train Of Memories,” and Dan Seals’ “Three Time Loser.”
During the doldrums, the New York Times published a now-infamous article on “Country Music In Decline.” Inevitably, one of the songs considered a turning point, Randy Travis’ “On the Other Hand,” was already out, although it wasn’t yet a hit. A few months later, Travis broke through with “1982,” then “On the Other Hand” was reissued. The article does mention George Strait and Ricky Skaggs. Both are represented on the July ’87 chart; Strait with “All My Ex’s Live in Texas,” his boldest and most successful nod to Western swing to date. (He wasn’t alone. Besides Lovett, Asleep at the Wheel were also on the charts with a swing cover of the jump blues “House of Blue Lights.”)
Country’s late ‘80s turnaround is usually credited to the “new traditionalists” and the names that follow are often Randy Travis, George Strait, and Reba McEntire. But now please consider the influene of MTM and much of Tony Brown’s MCA Nashville. Also please give credit to Emmylou Harris, a steady chart presence through the doldrums, and a new traditionalist a decade before the industry had a term for it. Let’s also include the Judds, sometimes mentioned alongside the preceding three acts, and the less-credited Rosanne Cash, already responsible for one of Tom Petty’s several trips to the Country chart as a songwriter. By 1987, their sounds were converging.
Two years earlier, Cash had shaken up the Country charts with a series of quietly intense rock-flavored singles that were certainly different from anything else at the format. This week, she was back on the charts with “The Way We Make a Broken Heart,” rooted in early ‘60s Country, but written with John Hiatt. Her forthcoming album, King’s Record Shop, would be hard to classify — a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” another polite-but-firm rocker in John Stewart’s “Runaway Train.” Because Cash and Earle didn’t stay in the format, their influence is less easily or often acknowledged than it should be.
When Country radio is in a down cycle, its program directors and A&R people usually find themselves mired in the ongoing discussion about “pop country” vs. “traditional country.” When the music is cycling up again, it’s usually led by songs that are hard to place neatly, and that certainly describes July ’87 and its folk/rock influence. Many songs aren’t “Forever and Ever, Amen”-type traditional. Then again, what’s more traditional than bringing folk music back to Country? And during an up period for the music, the pop vs. traditional discussion isn’t only more complicated, it’s less necessary.
In July ’87, there were certainly mainstream Country hits that could have come out at any time in the previous four years. As with the yacht-rock holdovers during Top 40’s 1983-84 resurgence, those songs were sounded better for being part of a more balanced diet. And some of the veterans were getting a new infusion of energy.
It’s also worth noting that in July ’87, that CHR was in its own state of transition. The dance/pop that had made KPWR (Power 106) Los Angeles so dominant the year before was only one flavor on most Mainstream CHRs. What came in between Jody Watley, Madonna, and Lisa-Lisa & Cult Jam was sometimes polarizing (Motley Crue, Poison), sometimes polite (Heart, “Alone”; Atlantic Starr, ”Always”), sometimes pensive (U2’s toned-down leap to superstardom). Bruce Hornsby and Crowded House’s own folk-rock elements were more polished versions of what was happening at Country anyway. Even on a Country project, Earle included a Hornsby-esque song, “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied,” worked to Rock radio.
I loved Power, as well as the burgeoning Hip-Hop presence on R&B radio in 1987. But I was also excited to hear what was happening at Country radio — certainly more so than Mainstream CHR. I looked forward to the drive from Hollywood to my weekend radio job in Oxnard/Ventura, Calif., because when I crossed into the San Fernando Valley, I could hear KUZZ Bakersfield, Calif., then still an AM, but already established as one of Country’s all-time great stations. KUZZ was as high-energy as any CHR, especially when its p.m. driver, the late Chris Conner, was on. (Ironically, KUZZ is playing “Fishing In The Dark” as I write.)
The music that propelled Country to its period of early-‘90s dominance wasn’t quite the same. I’ve often felt that Country radio rallied around more mainstream successors to the Class of ’87 — Travis Tritt for Steve Earle; Brooks & Dunn for Foster & Lloyd; Trisha Yearwood for Mary Chapin Carpenter; Diamond Rio for Desert Rose Band; Martina McBride for Rosanne Cash. Then, as the ‘90s progressed, many of those acts would go on to make some of the decade’s adventurous records themselves; Tritt would eventually cover Steve Earle. (Only Garth Brooks has too many influences to neatly fit the pattern, which is undoubtedly part of his superstardom. But one of the franchises he usurped was the late ’80s/early ’90s pro-social affirmations of Paul Overstreet, an artist who was in an MTM group around this time.)
By the early-‘90s boom, MTM was gone. MCA Nashville was certainly successful and influential, but the label that most set the tone for the era was Arista Nashville. Arista Nashville wasn’t Sub Pop, it was the Motown of Country — cranking out hit-after-hit, much of it glossy (even when it was Alan Jackson), much of it reliably good. I enjoyed the early ‘90s too, but it was certainly an important programmer’s reminder of the gap between what I found intriguing and what the audience found compelling. But by the late ‘90s doldrums, it was possible to say that most of the format was neither. And it’s telling and encouraging for Country that we seem to be coming out of a similar drought now.
Here’s a Spotify playlist featuring most of the July 10, 1987 chart.
