Pop Music Is Going Back To The West again
But the current boom has cut the usually harmonious country music into warring family camps.
So many rock stars are switching to country and western music, their guitar cords trailing, that the industry has coined a term for them “crossovers”.
A battle royal has de veloped between the traditionalists and the country “freaks” as the “crossovers” -are alternatively called.
The smouldering antagonisms exploded at the Country Music Associations’s recent award night, when Australian singer, Olivia Newton-John, won the best female vocalist award.
Now Miss Newton-John has not long been known as a country and western singer. Her reputation rested on her of English renditions pop songs until she recorded in country style, Let Me Be There, a song which hit the top of the charts and won a gold record.
No matter that she goes around saying things like: “I enjoy country music but I don’t know much about it.” The association awards prizes for its services rendered to country music in the past year and the 4,400 rank-and-file members of the association voted her in.