Shooting stars

By PAMELA DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000

Fans with cameras line up - and line up, and line up - to score photos of country music's stars at Fan Fair in Nashville.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- You'd have to be nuts about country music to spend three hours outdoors standing in line, at a temperature hot enough to boil sweat, just to get Tim McGraw's autograph.

And here they are, hundreds of fans, wearing Tim McGraw T-shirts and carrying Tim McGraw CDs, dabbing their brows and panting like dogs, all for a chance to get a snapshot with a crooner they've never met but nonetheless consider family.

It's quite a sight, all this sweating and longing, but in Nashville it's an annual event. Each June more than 20,000 country music devotees, many of them willing to wait all day for a moment with their favorites, descend upon the city for the four-day International Country Music Fan Fair, held last week.

Here at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds, country music listeners can get close -- but not too close -- to the men and women they hear every day belting out tunes on the CD player or radio. Some save their money all year just to come.

If you're not into LeAnn Rimes, there's Loretta Lynn. If you're not into Sawyer Brown, there's Alabama.

If you're not into autographs, there's live music. Record labels trot out their mix of established acts and newbies to sing four or five songs each. Fan Fair has been around since 1972 and continues to attract die-hard country music lovers who pay $90 for four days of worship.

When you consider the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, the sunburn and the $2.50 bottles of water, the reward for Fan Fairgoers seems minuscule. About all they'll get, if they're lucky, is some eye contact, a handshake and the scribbled John Hancock of a singer in a cowboy hat.

So why do they come? Because fame is alluring, even when it doesn't look as young or handsome as it did on the cover of the CD. Because country is a friendly, just-folks genre whose fans like to get together. Because, in their enthusiasm, fans may tend to confuse knowing an artist's songs with actually knowing the artist.

But mostly, they come to Fan Fair because they can. The event is a hat-tipping, bow-giving "Thanks, y'all" from the country artists to the regular folks who spend money buying CDs and attending concerts.

No other music format offers it, or would want to. Can you imagine Whitney Houston signing autographs for hours inside a hot, stinky building?

On the road again

For this year's Fan Fair, her third in a row, Frances Lanier took a week off from her job as territory manager for Royal Office Products in Tampa and drove to Savannah, Ga., to meet her friend JeriLyn Taylor, 33. The two single women headed to Nashville together in Taylor's Ford F-150, a country fan's truck if ever there was one.

Lanier, also 33, has been listening to country music for about seven years, after years of listening to Top 40.

"The old-time country music never appealed to me. My mom used to watch the Grand Ole Opry every Saturday night with people like Porter Wagoner and the Statler Brothers," she says. "I was never a big fan of all that. I like the new country people. There's a pop edge to a lot of it."

Lanier says the appeal of getting close to country stars is "the whole aura of them being a celebrity." Of course, they also enjoy country music and like meeting the people they hear on the radio. If they meet a singing celebrity who is young and handsome and single, that's also nice.

At the fairgrounds on Monday, Lanier and Taylor put their game plan in motion: Hit the exhibition booths first to see which performers are there and when others will show up.

Seven concrete block buildings hold more than 100 exhibit booths where country music artists sign autographs and sell T-shirts and CDs. Some booths are rented and run by a performer's fan club, some by a record label and some by the performer. Given the buildings' usual purpose -- poultry hall, milking parlor and so on -- it's hard not to think of Fan Fair as a kind of melodic county fair, with the likes of Wynonna and Vince Gill as the day's prize livestock.

Lanier and Taylor make Daniel Lee Martin's booth their first stop. Martin gave up a career in advertising and moved from New Port Richey to Nashville three years ago to pursue his dream of being a country music star.

He's still dreaming.

Labels are interested, he says, and he may get a deal sometime next year. Until then, Martin has to promote himself without a CD and without a song on the radio, which means putting on a smile and selling himself like crazy. For the four days of Fan Fair, he holds court in his exhibit booth from 9:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., signing autographs and posing for photos for people who have never heard of him.

Quite a few walk past him without even looking, the way a harried grocery shopper might bypass the lady handing out samples of cocktail wieners.

"I come out here and meet with people," Martin says. "You don't see many artists outside of their booths, and this is what I love to do."

Lanier and Taylor, an accountant on her second visit to Fan Fair, know Martin from his days in the Tampa Bay area. Stopping by his booth for a quick hello, they give him a hug, chat a bit and move on.

The booth next to Martin belongs to another Tampa Bay area country act, also unknown and looking for a label. The young guys who make up Southbound do whatever Fan Fair visitors want, even stepping from behind their booth, lifting up their shirts and letting women take photos of their jean-covered butts.

Get the picture

[Photo: AP/Mark Humphrey] Country star Tim McGraw shakes hands with fans during a concert. He and his wife, Faith Hill, are a bona fide power couple at Fan Fair.

Lines. They're a fact of life at Fan Fair. Lanier and Taylor won't stand in one unless it's for someone like Garth Brooks, who hasn't been to a booth since 1996. According to Fan Fair legend, Brooks signed autographs that year for 23 hours straight without taking bathroom breaks.

"I'd rather have a picture than an autograph," Lanier says. "I'd prefer to have a picture with me in it, but I'm not patient enough to wait in the long lines."

The women have their own system of getting close to the country stars. It starts with their appearance. Although most women do without makeup, figuring it will melt off in the heat, Lanier and Taylor go all out with eyeliner, mascara and lipstick.

And it pays off. While everyone else is a sweaty mess of matted hair, Lanier and Taylor turn heads when they show up with their camera.

One of their strategies for getting pictures is to wait near the door that performers have to walk through to get to their booths.

"When we see him, whoever doesn't have the camera will holler his name and he'll stop and turn around and smile and we'll take his photo," Taylor says.

The line to see Lonestar on Monday is hard to maneuver through, but Taylor is still able to click a few shots. LeAnn Rimes' line twists and turns outside the building and down the walkway and loops around to who knows where. Even Lynn Anderson, who hasn't had a big hit since Rose Garden in 1970, draws a respectable crowd.

A country legend can appear anywhere at Fan Fair. Donna Fargo walks through the crowds without anyone stopping her. But as Loretta Lynn arrives surrounded by security guys, a woman in a tight pink tank top yells out, "Hi, Loretta!"

Lynn stops and turns to the nameless fan as if she knows her. She smiles and says, "Hello. How are you?" You get the impression that, if not for the security force that keeps her moving, Lynn might invite the woman back to her tour bus for tea.

Lanier has no interest in older country music stars. Just the new ones.

"I'd love to see Tim McGraw," she says. "I've never met him. Never seen him in person. I went to his concert but never got close. Never took a picture of him. I definitely want to find his booth and find out if and when's he's going to be signing."

On Tuesday, Lanier finally finds McGraw, who's signing autographs with his wife, country singer Faith Hill. Nothing hits country music fans' hearts deeper than two hitmaking country artists who are married to each other. McGraw and Hill are this generation's George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

Somehow Lanier gets close enough to capture McGraw on film.

Close encounters

When Lanier and Taylor make their way to the Fan Fair concert stage, newcomer Chad Brock of Ocala is performing. Instead of sitting in the stands to watch, the women get in the photo line.

The special line works like this: The minute someone begins performing, camera-toting fans start walking toward the stage. They form a long line, where they passively wait for their opportunity to wander in front of the stage and snap a frame or two. Those who linger too long are hustled along by Fan Fair staffers.

"You get herded through like cattle," Taylor said.

Back inside the exhibition halls, the two women pass up the lengthy line to see Brad Paisley. Last year the guy couldn't buy a fan. Now he's hot stuff.

"Oh my God! Hold my beer," Taylor tells her friend after spotting John Michael Montgomery signing autographs. She stands on her toes and takes a snapshot of the singer in his black cowboy hat and long-sleeved T-shirt.

A quick turn to the left and there is Jo Dee Messina. They want to get close enough for a peek at the singer's huge diamond engagement ring. A few booths down, the two of them quickly reload their film and secure a spot in front of Tracy Byrd.

Lanier has a photo album for each year she has been to Fan Fair. She has also framed a few photos and distributed them throughout her home. On display now is a shot of her and a member of Blackhawk, one of her favorite groups.

Like a lot of Fan Fairgoers, Lanier and Taylor finish their days in Nashville's clubs. They hit places in Printer's Ally and visit the Wild Horse Saloon and Tootsie's, hoping to find what they have just spent a long hot day seeking.

Country stars, up close.

"The fans are so hip to where people are," says Kix Brooks of the duo Brooks & Dunn. "All over town you just pull into somewhere and they've found out. To them it's like a big scavenger hunt. Finding those things out is a big coup for them. That's all part of the fun for the fans."

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