Of all the terms coined to distinguish and market Nashville music, surely none is quite as offensive to the intellect as “positive country.” For sheer, vaporous smugness, the phrase ranks right up there with “family values” and “our kind.” Still, record labels persist in making this designation, and radio stations continue to tout it as their programming specialty. As best I can determine, positive country music is essentially contemporary Christian music with the spittle wiped from the corners of its mouth. Sort of like stealth evangelism.

The genre prides itself in celebrating things that are simple, pleasant, uplifting and enduring. Clearly, there’s nothing wrong with that. Such qualities deserve their share of our attention. But there is a great deal wrong with the implication that all the subjects and attitudes that fall outside this format’s prim strictures are somehow negative or destructive to the human personality. What’s lacking is an energizing balance of realism and the trust that human beings are smart enough to judge and use all sorts of imagery and information—even that which might be disturbing and unpleasant. The nature of art is to take chances; the nature of positive country is to be sure there is nothing mentally provocative in the message.

Positive country is a concept that parallels the late-’60s campus cry for courses that were “relevant.” Back then, the prevailing thesis was that a class had to focus specifically on a current condition to shed any light on it. A message’s relevance, or its positiveness, is determined by the mind that receives it. These qualities are not built-in and fool-proof elements of the message itself.

Maybe if the music in question made an honest presentation of excess—or sin—it might actually discourage rather than incite imitation. But that would entail a risk. It is conceivable, I suppose, that one could be moved closer to a virtuous life by listening to an endless litany of songs about happy families, hot biscuits for breakfast and the lion week-ending with the lamb. But I suspect that, for most of us, such merciless blandness would more likely be a nudge toward binge drinking and serial adultery. Anything for relief.

Currents

♦ Advertising Age magazine and the Country Music Association (CMA) will stage their Marketing With Country Music seminar May 8-10 at Opryland Hotel. The panels are “The Country Music Audience: Who They Are,” “Corporate Success With Country Music,” “Driving Sales And Traffic With Country Music,” “Matchmaking: Marrying The Artist To The Product” and “How To Tap Country Music Marketing Resources.”

Panelists include Bill Lardie, Anderson Merchandisers; Melody Justice, Coca-Cola; Roger Blankstein, Fruit Of The Loom; Rich Reider, Miller Brewing; Brian Goldberg, Wrangler; Ken Kragen, Kragen & Assoc.; Stephen Dessau and Lee Heiman, Track Marketing; Brian Murphy, Warner Custom Music; Walt Wilson, Capitol/Nashville; Melony Hand, Interep Radio Store; John Davidoff and Ray Gillette, DDB Needham Worldwide; Marc Oswald, Avalon Entertainment Group; Steve Knill, GMR; Tony Conway, Buddy Lee Attractions; Gary Borman, Gary Borman Management; John Huie, Creative Artists Agency; Randy Goodman, RCA Label Group; and Stan Moress, Moress, Nanas Entertainment.

Additional details are available from the CMA.

♦ Country Music Television will debut its hour-long special, Alan Jackson Big Ticket, in Europe April 27 and in the U. S. May 4. A combination of interviews and music videos, the program chronicles Jackson’s route to becoming one of the best-selling and most-awarded acts in contemporary country music.

In the United Kingdom, the show will be tied into a “Big Ticket To The States” sweepstakes. The winner will be awarded an all-expense paid trip for two to the U. S., where they’ll see Jackson when he performs at the Fruit Of The Loom All-Star CountryFest in Atlanta.

♦ Nashville’s busiest fiddler, Mark O’Connor, will perform with the Boston Pops orchestra when it opens its season May 8. Then, on May 25, he’ll premiere his Fiddle Concerto No. 2 with the Nashville Symphony as part of the Tennessee Bicentennial Arts & Entertainment Festival. The event will be recorded for National Public Radio’s Performance Today series.

♦ You may not learn much about love if you tune into Soulmates when it airs on TNN April 30, but you will be treated to a wealth of delightful trivia. With Karlen Evins doing the Barbara Walters, the show peers into the marriages of Ronnie Dunn, Johnny Cash and Alan Jackson through the eyes of their wives—Janine Dunn, June Carter and Denise Jackson. Dunn tells how Carter provided her and her husband a palatial log house to ease their move from Oklahoma to Nashville. Carter reveals that her mother, Maybelle, once hired future publishing mogul Buddy Killen as a bass player—not because the Carters needed one, but because Killen so desperately needed the job. Jackson recalls the woman label executive who not only turned her husband down for a record deal but also twisted the knife by assuring him he lacked star quality. Soulmates was produced by Donna Hilley and Patsy Bruce.

♦ Almo Sounds’ first country artist out the chute, Paul Jefferson, makes a mighty impressive debut with his new music video, Check Please. Jefferson (who looks more like a young Abraham Lincoln) shows a real gift for comedy—both in the lyrics, which he co-wrote—and in the manic ways he brings them to life.

♦ Although it never gets nearly as much press as her show-business side does, Naomi Judd is increasingly active in researching with physicians and other scientists the ways in which the mind affects the body and vice versa. The former nurse and five-time Grammy winner has lately been consulting with best-selling author Dr. Deepak Chopra.

♦ Sounds Good: Tommy Hannum, the long-time steel guitarist for Ricky Van Shelton, has just released Not Rocket Science, an instrumental album, on his own Clam Records label. Although there are occasional touches of country music in the collection of mostly Hannum-composed pieces, it is really a showcase of the steel’s boundless versatility, with lots of jazz, swing and blues flourishes. Backed by a tight ensemble, Hannum sparkles on pedal steel, lap steel, cable steel and dobro.

Another fine independent album is Benita Hill’s Fan The Flame on Watermark Records. Hill used to sing as Bonnie Gallie and briefly recorded under that name in the late ’80s for Smash/Mercury. By whatever name, Hill is an irresistibly smooth and immensely involving vocalist. Released late last year, Fan The Flame is a collection of 14 pop and jazz pieces, with the emphasis on jazz. Hill co-wrote 11 of the songs, in league with such co-writers as Fred Koller, Sandy Mason, Pam Wolfe, Bobby Borchers and Tommy Smith.

♦ Coming Up: Chevrolet/Geo is sponsoring two concerts at the Ryman Auditorium next month as part of Tennessee’s bicentennial celebration. They are Guitar Town Comes Alive, May 14, with Steve Wariner, Chet Atkins, Larry Carlton and Leo Kottke; and Rock And Country Collide, May 21, with Jerry Lee Lewis and Mandy Barnett. Wariner, by the way, is the newest addition to the Grand Ole Opry. He’ll be formally inducted May 11 on Grand Ole Opry Live, the segment televised on TNN.