Country’s climb

Country music, which rode Garth Brooks and Shania Twain into the suburban mainstream almost two decades ago, now has lassoed an even wider and younger audience.

Last year, country artists dominated record and concert sales and radio airwaves. Purchases aren’t tracked by age, but music-industry observers see country concert crowds splashed with more fresh faces – twentysomethings, teens, even preteens. Club managers say their college-age country music nights and promotions offering free country line-dancing lessons are packed.

That earlier swell in the 1990s was roused by demand for younger artists singing traditional country music – partly because younger fans became disenchanted with the pop, rap and hip-hop trends, says country music expert Neil Haislop.

“They started searching the radio dial and found music they could relate to coming out of Nashville,” he says. “Now, 17 years later, the new generation is having similar problems with even more urban variations on the pop radio dials. The result is a new and welcome surge of country listeners among the prime 25-to-34 demographic.”

And the sound, style and sex appeal that define many of the newer, popular country-music artists would have curled Conway Twitty’s pompadour.

“A lot of people still think that ‘Hee-Haw’ is what country music is about,” says Lisa Sands, promotions director for country station WGAR FM/99.5, Cleveland’s perpetual ratings giant. “They’re wrong.”

Songs are still delivered in Southern accents. Lyrics are still sprinkled with “ain’ts” and “thangs,” pickup trucks and family dinners after church on Sunday. But country has evolved from Lester Flatt to Rascal Flatts.

“I hated country when I was little,” said 24-year-old Lisa Runyon of Berea, Ohio, seated with a table of friends during a recent line-dancing night at a bar.

But, at 17, alone in her room channel surfing, she was hooked by a country-music video about a relationship gone bad, like her own – “There Is No Arizona,” by Jamie O’Neal.

“It’s always one song that sucks you in,” she said.

Or one artist.

“American Idol” exposed millions to country as viewers followed winner Carrie Underwood into commercial superstardom with a youthful style and message. (Where Loretta Lynn laments loving a two-timer anyway, the character in Underwood’s empowering “Before He Cheats” keys his car, slashes his tires and takes a Louisville Slugger to his headlights.)

Rascal Flatts, which contributed a cover of rocker Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is a Highway” to the soundtrack for the animated film “Cars,” pulls in new, young country fans with boy-band-ish harmonies and an energetic, sometimes syncopated pop beat.

Big and Rich snares younger fans with heavy guitar rhythms, screaming leads and such high-energy, partying sing-a-longs as “Save a horse, ride a cowboy!”

“I call them ‘bridge acts’ – acts that can serve as bridges to bring new fans to the format,” says Mike Kraski, president of Equity Music Group in Nashville.

The record label represents Little Big Town, a rising country quartet that has performed with rockers John Mellencamp and Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham. Other rock and rock-rap acts, such as Bon Jovi, Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker, have bridged the gap with country recordings.

Jewel and Sheryl Crow routinely straddle the pop-country fence. The Dixie Chicks, who grabbed a mainstream pop audience in the late ‘90s with their country debut, continue to thrive, political setbacks aside.

Unlike previous generations of country-music loyalists, country isn’t all that younger fans listen to, says WGAR morning personality Jim Mantel. But a country CD will be found among their collection of rock, pop and hip-hop discs.

It doesn’t hurt that the music is wrapped in stylish packaging. Country’s face carries the People magazine sex appeal of the gritty Keith Urban and happy-go-lucky Kenny Chesney, tabloid marriages and all (Urban to Nicole Kidman, Chesney briefly to Renee Zellweger). When the husband-wife duo of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill takes the stage, it’s the star quarterback and head cheerleader.

Nielsen SoundScan tracks music and music video sales in North America. Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems monitors radio play. According to both, country music claimed:

“Two of the three top-selling albums in 2006 (Rascal Flatts and Underwood, behind only the soundtrack of the Disney Channel’s TV movie, “High School Musical”).

“Half of the 10 top-selling artists in 2006 (Rascal Flatts, first; Johnny Cash, second; Underwood, fourth; McGraw, sixth; and Urban, ninth).

“Six of the 10 most-played artists on radio (Toby Keith, Rascal Flatts, McGraw, Chesney, George Strait and Urban).

“The top-selling new artist of the year (Underwood).

Six of the 30 top-earning concerts in 2006 were country artists, according to Pollstar magazine. McGraw and Hill grossed almost $90 million last year, behind only the Rolling Stones and Barbra Streisand.

With rock, says Gary Bongiovanni, Pollstar editor-in-chief, the biggest draws are baby-boomer evergreens – the Stones, Madonna, the Who, Elton John and Billy Joel.

With country, the hot tickets are Chesney, Brad Paisley (coming to the Spokane Arena on May 24), Urban (who follows Sept. 13) and other younger, rising artists.

They’re hurdling fewer and fewer boundaries that once limited country to “hat acts,” as Equity Music’s Kraski calls them.

On radio and country-music television videos, fans can catch 17-year-old Taylor Swift (coming with Paisley to Spokane) one minute and Cowboy Troy – a 6-foot-5 black rapping cowboy and his self-styled “Hick-hop” – the next.