Growth Of Country Music Levels Off As Anticipated
The Country Music Association appears to have had about enough of this economic gloom-and-doom talk concerning country music.
A dip the last two or three years from the eye-popping accomplishments of the early ‘90s doesn’t exactly mean the industry has been relegated to a street corner and a cup of pencils, the Nashville-based trade organization notes.
“Anyone who looks at the industry realistically could not have expected growth to continue at the rate we’ve seen over the past six years,” says Ed Benson, CMA’s executive director.
“This is a leveling off period that was anticipated, not a death drop. Country radio is still the No. 1 domestic radio format, corporate America is getting involved with country more than ever before and the international market is growing tremendously.”
While granting that record sales “may be down slightly from 1995,” the CMA notes a lot of encouraging and - to the doomsayers - probably surprising news. For instance:
The number of people listening to country music in the 21 largest American cities has grown from 21 percent to 26 percent since 1995. Seven country tours were in the Top 25 in 1996 as compared to five in 1995. The Top 10 country tours made $136 million in gross ticket sales in 1996, $22.3 million more than was brought in by 1995’s top 10. The CMA Awards broadcast on CBS-TV gave the network its highest-rated Wednesday evening since Nov. 16, 1994.
Meanwhile, the industry continued making significant inroads internationally. The ratings of the 1996 British broadcast of the CMA’s annual award show attracted 2.5 million viewers as compared with 1.5 million in 1995 and .05 million in 1994.
Rogers rides again
Kenny Rogers’ recent tour of the Northeast and Midwest is the latest manifestation of yet another resurgence in the career of a performer who, over three decades, has proven to have more professional lives than a cat.
Rogers’ Christmas show has been billed “The Gift,” which is also (1) the title of his briskly selling fourth Christmas album, (2) the title of a new volume from Thomas Nelson Publishers containing a Christmas story written by Rogers, and (3) the subject of a Christmas special Rogers did recently for the Family Channel.
The cluster of activities surrounding the album - Rogers’ fastest-rising package in more than seven years, according to Billboard - is a perfect illustration of the never-do-something-by-itself strategy of Rogers’ longtime manager Ken Kragen, who has helped the singer maintain a national profile since the ‘60s.
“That’s the key,” the California-based Kragen said last week of the tour-album-book-TV special approach to marketing Rogers. “My middle name is probably synergy.”
Much of the credit for this latest rise in Rogers’ fortunes is due to Rogers himself. He not only wrote the “The Gift,” but it was he who decided to make an ambitious holiday album rather than just go into a studio and record more musical chestnuts of the season.
He went to the trouble of finding newer songs and putting them together with a couple of traditionals and a so-called “montage” of beloved oldies he assembled (along with a smattering of recitation, children’s dialogue and singing) under the song title “The Chosen One.”
Such music has made up the second half of the Rogers Christmas show. In the first half, he has been performing a collection of his career’s major non-seasonal hits.
“It’s like a Broadway show coming to town,” Kragen says of the 28-show, 13-city tour. “There’s an orchestra and local kids and local choirs. And it snows onstage during the performance.”
The Christmas show has gone so well, Kragen adds, that two major venues - Westbury Music Fair on Long Island and Valley Forge Music Fair near Philadelphia - booked Rogers to come back to do additional performances of it between Christmas and New Year’s.