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As the genre slowly returns to basics, three classic country stars will provide a taste of an era before Garth Brooks.
By MICHAEL CANNING
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 24, 2001
It's not that Leroy Van Dyke doesn't respect contemporary country music, but the classic country great still calls it what it is: "It's rock music flavored with a steel guitar and a fiddle."
If Van Dyke's description isn't enough, then what is meant by contemporary country, or "new country," is the majority of what you see on CMT (arena productions, sexy divas, hunky dudes) or hear on WQYK-FM 99.5 or WRBQ-FM Q105 (thundering backbeats, electric guitars and synthesizers, glistening production). A lot of the same things you'd expect from MTV or rock radio.
It's here that we'll kindly refer you back to Mr. Van Dyke's quote.
Unless you only needed to read it once. In that case, you're likely a fan of "real" country music. You know, music that was out before the Garth Brooks explosion at the dawn of the '90s (an event that birthed new country as we know it). Music that's twangy and proud of it. Music that was presented without arena rock pretensions or rock formula production values. An idiom that could still be legitimately identified as folk music.
For those of you pining for the good old days, and those of you suspecting that country ain't exactly what Faith Hill has been pedaling recently, Saturday's Gold Country Music Show at the West Tampa Convention Center will present a triple dose of "real" country. Leroy Van Dyke, Bobby Bare and Rex Allen Jr. will perform the hits that made them stars of the genre in the '60s and '70s.
If Van Dyke, 71, sounded a little severe a moment ago, realize that he constantly speaks in the tone of a classic country gentleman and is unfailingly quick to follow his bolder assertions with humble if-I-do-say-so-myselfs and in-my-own-opinions. He affectionately calls backing musicians of his past bands "boys" and "girls," and his home state is Mizz-UR-uh.
He's also the sort of musical authority you'd expect an ensconced member of country music's old guard to be. After working on his father's farm and doing a stint as an agricultural journalist, Van Dyke scored his first hit with the self-penned Auctioneer in 1957. The novelty hit would endure as his most identifiable song, and it won him a regular slot on Red Foley's ABC show Ozark Jubilee for three years.
In 1961 he moved to Nashville and released his biggest charting hit, Walk On By, which stayed at the top of the country charts a record 19 weeks and was touted by Billboard Magazine as the biggest country record in history. Other crossover hits followed in the form of If a Woman Answers (Hang Up the Phone) and Black Cloud, and by 1962 he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
His success also made him popular with the country music industry, which chose him as its main ambassador as it tried to expand its market share in the '60s. Van Dyke found himself at the head of an innovative, highly polished, multisegmented country revue show that played in alien territory such as swank hotels in big cities, as well as dates in Asia and Europe. He later served on the Country Music Association's board of directors.
Speaking on the phone during, appropriately enough, a function for the new Country Music Hall of Fame opening in Nashville, Van Dyke pulled few punches about the current state of country music. "First of all," he said, "there is a lot of great, great talent in the new wave of country music performers. But I think they're the victim of poor management by the managers and the recording companies. If you analyze what they're doing, they all sound alike. Most of today's male singers sound as though you took Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Merle Haggard, put them in a blender, and that's what you get. And it's not (the singers') fault. I blame it on management, and I blame it on the producers. It's not conducive to longevity. The records go up like a rocket, and down like a rock."
The massive early '90s success of Garth Brooks expanded the country music audience to unprecedented levels, but Van Dyke agrees with the conventional belief that classic country fans did not jump on the bandwagon. "It was a new market," Van Dyke flatly stated. "The trifocaled, blue-haired, bingo express did not go along with the new wave of country music."
As proof, Van Dyke cites his still-hectic touring schedule, which includes up to 60 state and county fairs a year (including February's Florida State Fair). His wife, Gladys, puts together Country Gold showcases of "people like myself," Van Dyke said, "who have had million-selling records, but we're not currently at the top of the charts. She's had them in about 10 states and two or three foreign countries. After these shows, and this is not a hype, the people come down to get autographs with tears in their eyes, like an altar call at a Billy Graham crusade. They say, 'I never thought I'd get to see Hank Thompson in person. I never thought I'd get to see Rex Allen Jr., or Dave Dudley.' "
Van Dyke thinks the pendulum is starting to swing away from new country, "but very slowly. I've seen a lot of changes, but it always comes back to basics. I'm noticing more and more a lot of the radio stations are including more standards in their lineup. It won't come back like it was before, but I think it'll come back to where it'll be less homogenized, where they put the traditional along with the new."
WQYK disc jockey Hank Shaw also senses country becoming a little more country again, citing the traditionalist tendencies of modern stars such as Tim McGraw, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart. "It is starting to swing the other way a little bit for the very simple reason that music is very cyclical," said Shaw. "They have homogenized it, pasteurized it, bastardized it, synthesized it and done everything in the world they can to it. So where are they going to go? It's got to go back to basics."
Though Shaw hosts the Overnight Classic Cafe show from 2 to 3 a.m. -- where you'll hear the likes of Van Dyke, Alabama, Barbara Mandrell and Conway Twitty, not Brooks and Dunn, the Dixie Chicks or Shania Twain -- he admits that the majority of what his station and most country stations play is "a mix of country and pop. But I think country artists are being very, very smart in that they're not just going after the country listeners. They also want the younger kids, which is what rock 'n' roll did early on."
And does Shaw think those wooed by new country artists' pop-flavored overtures know what true country music is? "To a point," he said. "It all depends on how it's handled. The only reason they don't know real country is because nobody's ever exposed them to it."
Undoubtedly, classic country fans will be out in force Saturday night at the West Tampa Convention Center, singing along to The Auctioneer, and Bare's 500 Miles, and Allen's Lonely Street. But Van Dyke thinks it would be worth new country music fans' while to come so they can "expose themselves to country music as most of the traditionalists think it should be. A lot of people think they don't like country music, but once they sit down in that audience, they're certainly not going to leave."
Michael Canning can be reached at (813) 226-3408.
The Gold Country Music Show with Leroy Van Dyke, Bobby Bare, Rex Allen Jr.
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday Where: West Tampa Convention Center, 3005 W Columbus Drive.
Cost: $20 advance, $25 at the door.
Information: (813) 854-4196.