The Cheerleader In Emmylou Keeps Coming Through

If Emmylou Harris seems to have spent most of her musical career on an intellectual search for cerebrally appealing music and leading cheers for other greats who have passed before her, the pattern was probably set back in high school in Virginia.

There Harris - whose recently released pop-aimed album, “Wrecking Ball,” has gotten much critical praise - was both her class valedictorian and a cheerleader. She reluctantly acknowledges the latter in answer to a question.

“You’re really sticking the knife in,” she says.

Why is that sticking the knife in?

“You know, you’re supposed to be so hip and cool and groovy and beyond all that stuff,” she replies. “But, you know, when I was in school that was the ultimate thing to be. And I got to be a cheerleader - and I discovered it was no big deal, so I quit.”

Isn’t it true, though, that she has been a cheerleader for some of the great and often under-noticed artists who have preceded her? And isn’t it true that she has demonstrated an intellectual desire to seek out and help preserve their music, many times by recording it herself?

“Well, it’s not that I’m going out to put people in the spotlight,” she says. “I’m doing it for selfish reasons. I want to find a song that I really love to sing. That’s where it all comes from. That’s what keeps me going for another year. And then I’m just happy to talk about the songs and the people.

“It’s not like I’m a professional cheerleader. But you’re right, it’s a good analogy.”

How many other stars seem so driven to try to get other people recognition? Harris has done that for everybody from George Jones and Merle Haggard to the late pioneer country-rocker Gram Parsons. She began her career singing backup for Parsons, whose legend she has helped build ever since his death at age 26.

“Well, as I say, I’m just trying to get the songs for myself,” she says. “It’s purely selfish.”

If you say so, Emmylou.

Gatlin a military favorite

The Defense Department’s choice of Larry Gatlin to be the first person to entertain the troops in Bosnia over the holidays isn’t its first such nod toward Gatlin.

The Texas-born singer-songwriter - who with his two brothers now owns and performs on the stage of a theatre in Myrtle Beach, S.C. - was also the first man to entertain the troops in Haiti and Somalia.

Twain videos in spotlight

Shania Twain, who took country music by storm in 1995, will be CMT’s February Showcase Artist of the Month.

“Videos have been a big part of my success through 1995,” Twain says, “so I can’t think of a better way to kick off 1996 than to have the honor of being named CMT’s February Showcase Artist.”

Radio and video have been by far the biggest parts of her success, because thus far she has managed to sell more than 2 million copies of her second Mercury album, “The Woman in Me,” without doing a concert tour.

Her first tour of any kind since the album’s release, an eight-city autograph-signing “fan appreciation” jaunt to record stores, will be happening during February. Twain is to visit Minneapolis, Detroit, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Salt Lake City, Denver and Nashville.

Oak Ridge’s new boys

When the Oak Ridge Boys prepared to come into Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, Ind., for their annual New Year’s Eve stand Dec. 30-31, it was for the 15th consecutive time, but there was still something different about it.

For the first time in those 15 years, the Oaks had to prep for the Merrillville show with a temporary member of the group: Paul Martin. Martin, an ex-member of another once-prominent country aggregation - Exile - just happens to be a son-in-law of Oak baritone Duane Allen. Martin recently replaced another temp, Allen’s son Dee.

Dee, 22, had to step in for former member Steve Sanders, who had resigned effective the end of the year but suddenly departed the band in Fort Worth, Texas, Nov. 4 at 3 p.m, six hours before the Oaks were scheduled to go onstage for a performance.

Nothing if not resourceful, Duane Allen called his wife, Norah Lee, in Nashville and asked the whereabouts of Dee, a Middle Tennessee State University student who helps support his studies by working in a Murfreesboro, Tenn., restaurant. Norah Lee said Dee was at his job.

At Allen’s urging, Dee was picked up within the hour and rushed to the Nashville airport with a bag hurriedly packed by his mother. He landed in Fort Worth 20 minutes before the group was scheduled to go onstage, thus having had no rehearsal with the quartet’s other members, tenor Joe Bonsall, bass Richard Sterban and his father.

He did, however, have the benefit of having heard the Oaks’ hits throughout his young life, and after the show his father said the son missed a total of only seven notes all night.

The relieved permanent members of the aggregation were “really really complimentary,” Dee told the group’s Kansas City-based publicist, Kathy Gangwisch. Asked if such praise from the group was mind-boggling, the young man - whose musical ambitions lie in the direction of rock rather than country - shook his head.

“He has been around the group so much that Joe and Richard are like his uncles,” Gangwisch says. “He said it was like getting a kiss from your sister.”

Dee held down the position for a month, but then had to get back to college, where he is finishing work toward a music business degree. When he departed, the Oaks were in the middle of a run at Bally’s in Las Vegas, so Martin was flown in. Since he came from playing a solo date the night before in Duluth, Minn., he had no rehearsal either. He, too, though, had spent a lot of time listening to Oaks tapes.

The group is expected to name a permanent member early this year. The quartet’s best-known fourth voice was William Lee Golden, who was on hand for the recording of most of the group’s biggest hits: “Y’all Come Back Saloon,” “You’re the One,” “Leavin’ Louisiana in the Broad Daylight,” “Elvira,” etc.

Golden - who joined the band two years before Allen, seven years before Sterban and eight years before Bonsall - was asked to leave the group in 1987 because of artistic and personal differences with other members of the band. He was replaced by Sanders.

As a group, however, the Oaks date back to 1945 to a gospel aggregation called the Oak Ridge Quartet. During its life it has had more than 40 members.

Stone heart attack mild

Doug Stone’s heart attack the other day in North Carolina may not sidetrack him very long.

A spokesperson said the quadruple bypass the singer underwent three years ago was undamaged by the “mild” attack.

An excellent vocalist on both traditional country as well as more pop-ish material, Stone rose to fame with the neo-traditional and funereal “I’d Be Better Off (in a Pine Box),” but has become best-known as the romantic crooner of such hits as “I See You (in a Different Light),” “I Thought it Was You,” and “Too Busy Being in Love.”