Public Appearances
by Edward Morris
Given that their predecessors were routinely consigned to the back of the show-biz bus, it is heartening to witness the broad acceptance being accorded today’s country music acts. Acceptance means exposure; exposure means conversions in taste; and conversions mean increased opportunities to sell more albums, concert tickets and merchandise. In the best of cases, sustained exposure can also lead to the branching out of an artist’s career, as has been the case lately with Jeff Foxworthy, Lorrie Morgan, George Strait and Reba McEntire, among others.
Although last week was by no means a high-water mark in the acceptance process, it is significant that country acts were popping up all over the airwaves. Emmylou Harris and Emilio both had extensive features about their new albums on National Public RadAll Things Considered. Harris commented on songs from Wrecking Ball and talked about working with producer Daniel Lanois. In Washington for a White House dinner honoring the president of Mexico, Emilio stopped by the NPR studios to discuss his expansion from Tejano music into country via his Life Is Good album.
Country music made several high-profile television appearances last week as well. Always the surpriser, Tim McGraw weighed in on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show with a formally dressed 12-piece string section to help him debut “Can’t Be Really Gone,” his second single from All I Have. Naomi Judd guested on Tom Snyder’s The Late, Late Show. The biggest surprise, though, was seeing the usually laconic Mark Chesnutt on the glibfest appraising O. J. Simpson’s acquittal. After this, I am prepared to believe there are no boundaries.
Currents
♦ It has come to the band with glacial and unjust slowness, but Sawyer Brown is finally getting some of the respect it warrants. Headed by Mark Miller, the group has been pumping out country hits since 1984. But because it gained recognition initially as a talent contest winner, because it based its early identity on breezy, disposable singles, and because it conducted itself more like a rock band onstage, Sawyer Brown was pretty much dismissed as fluff—except by the fans it steadily accumulated through incessant touring. As early as “Used to Blue” in 1985, the group showed it could do justice to sober and serious music. This side didn’t really flower, however, until 1987, with “This Missin’ You Heart of Mine.” “The Walk”—a moving, ages-of-man ballad—came along four years later, and the ratio of serious to silly songs has been improving ever since.
Even so, Sawyer Brown has forfeited none of Miller’s Dionysian stage antics in exchange for critical acclaim. A lot of the credit for the band’s artistic breakthrough goes to Mac McAnally, both in his capacity as a producer and as a writer. But Miller has developed into an exemplary songwriter as well, and he has the best visual sense in the business. Currently, the band is rocking the house with a jaunty morality tale called “(This Thing Called) Wantin’ and Havin’ It All.” But to appreciate how good Sawyer Brown really is, you’ve got to go back and listen to its 1992 cut of McAnally’s “All These Years.” The song is weariness, pain and resignation raised to the level of redemption—not at all the fare of lightweights. Perhaps the band has been around too long to expect many high-profile industry awards, but it can draw some comfort in knowing that it has already created a catalog of classics.
♦ Tower Records’ Nashville store reports that its 10 best-selling country albums during the week following the Country Music Association’s awards show were, in descending order: 1. Emmylou Harris; 2. Music for All Occasions, The Mavericks; 3. Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection, Alison Krauss; 4. Wild Angels, Martina McBride; 5. Reba McEntire; 6. Strait Out of the Box, George Strait; 7. All I Want, Tim McGraw; 9. Faith Hill; 10. The Woman in Me, Shania Twain.
♦ Video views: Epic Records has an appealing new voice and face in James Bonamy, whose first single/music video is “Dog on a Toolbox”—surely the most arresting image Epic has perplexed us with since Joe Diffie’s “If the Devil Danced in Empty Pockets” and “Third Rock From the Sun.” In instances such as these, a video really helps.... Rounder Records, which issued several clips on Alison Krauss to assist her in becoming a household name, has a new video out on Riders in the Sky. It is endearingly entitled “The Trail Tip Song (Always Drink Upstream From the Herd)....” Watching BlackHawk videos is something like attending a painless survey course in the liberal arts. With “Just About Right,” the group introduced country music audiences to the folk-art painting and sculptures of the Rev. Howard Finster. The newest BlackHawk video, “I’m Not Strong Enough to Say No,” is backgrounded with scenes from what appears to be a stage production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
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