This week we are donning our Stetsons and grabbing a cold one, I apologise it doesn't sound right

coming from such a British accent, as we discuss the most rootin tootin American music genre

of them all. From Dolly Parton to Taylor Swift with a little bit of Footloose, country has

come to epitomise the US, but as the genre's popularity booms internationally, does its

American-ness still endure? In this episode I'm going to ask what makes country music so

Ameri-

Welcome to America, a history podcast. I'm Liam Heffernan and every week we answer a different

question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is

today.

To discuss this, I'm joined by a man with nearly 50 years of broadcasting on his CV, but he's

also a huge country music fan, currently living the dream as head of radio operations at Countryline

Radio, which is one of the biggest UK country music stations. So a big hello and howdy to

John Collins. Hello. Do you know what, I wrote that script and it sounded much better on paper

than it did actually reading it out. I'm fine, y'all.

It's really, it's great to have you on the show, John. And, you know, I've been a listener of

Country Line for many years and I love what you do, especially, you know, I'm going to

say like versus some of the other competitors in the UK, you play a lot more of the classic

stuff and I love that. Yeah, absolutely. There's a mixture really. We do a lot of the current

stuff and we do a lot of the older stuff and we're prepared to go back into the late 80s,

early 90s and before if necessary. Country music is such a broad church. You can't be a country

station and just play a narrow subset of it, because we are a completely fan-led operation

that hopes to make money, as opposed to a money-making opportunity that happens to play country music.

And the two are quite distinct mindsets. It is that real sense that it's kind of fans playing

the music they love that really is the appeal of Countryland. Yeah, and sometimes I think

it can get a bit wearing. An old program director of mine once said, John, do you have to say

you like every song you play? Yeah, occasionally. But I think it's nice for and by fans, we're

all in this gang together and we can remember when country wasn't cool. Yeah, absolutely.

And on that note, probably not a huge giveaway that you're not American. Nope, central Scotland

born and bred. So I'm just kind of wondering, you know, I'm here as an Englishman, you're

sat there as a Scot, but we're both fans of country music. So when did you first find the

genre? Kind of all my life I've been exposed to it. Scotland, like Ireland, has always had

a bit of a love, you know, going back to Jim Reeves and that kind of era of stuff. So these

guys were on my radar as I was growing up. And... I always wanted to work in radio, always, always.

And in 1977, I was 14, a hospital radio station opened literally three miles up the road from

where I lived then, and one mile from where I am now, Radio Royal. And I went through the

process and became a presenter. And these were the days when you were told what the show was

because they decided on the music for the audience as opposed to what would you like to play?

And... I wasn't a particular country fan, but they gave me a show called The Country Clinic

and it was 7.30 on a Thursday evening and I did that for several years. And it was great

because it took me from being somebody who had Chris Kristofferson on my radar to actually

bringing out a Chris Kristofferson album and selecting tracks from it and doing it the old

fashioned way. And it was great. And I've been in and around radio for a long time and countries

always cropped up. Obviously I've played your Top 40 music in the BBC and in commercial,

but then I spent a long time producing Radio Scotland's country show and Ricky Ross started

coming in as our presenter when Brian, who was the old presenter, went over to do a different

show on the station. And that was what alerted me to the fact that there was a whole lot of

us in the closet who really loved and understood country music. and all the subgenres within

it. And it's kind of never gone away. And Witzel and Bauer, they did a country show, I was like

the first guy in there with my hand up. MW No, I kind of I'm with you on that. I think that,

so I was first kind of exposed to country music really young because my mum was a big fan.

So I just remember Patsy, Clyde and Dolly Parton always playing in the background. But it wasn't

until I guess kind of 10 years ago when Chris

gained a bit of traction and it was picking up on my DAB signal down in the southeast of

England and I thought I'd tune in and it was like Maron Morris and that sort of music and

hearing my church play out and it was so modern and so it kind of really straddled the line

with pop music versus what I was used to hearing and it's like, I think there's a stigma isn't

there to country music?

and some of it, there is a naff end to country music fandom as there is with every other kind

of music. And some of the dressing up to me is maybe a wee bit egregious, I say that as

a man who wears a snatching from time to time, but we didn't go out of our way to make ourselves

seem accessible and of the mainstream, let's put it that way. And then Marin came along,

Sam Hunt came along, and if you remember when Sam Hunt started releasing stuff, people thought

he was the Antichrist of country music. Because here he was bringing huge R&B style sounds

into the music. And now, well he won me over at whatever year it was, 2016, 2017 C2C. It

was just extraordinary and that's when I got it, that's when I understood what he was doing.

And I think the music has continued to evolve. As we were recording this, I was listening

to Radio 4 earlier today and they were talking about Beyoncé being snubbed in the CMA Awards

nomination now. I'm a CMA member, I didn't put Beyoncé down as any of my nominations, but

nothing to do with anything other than I didn't rate the album particularly, I thought the

single was good but we're now in a place where we can talk about Beyoncé legitimately and

why we didn't consider her for a Country Music Award. That's amazing. Yeah and it's mad isn't

it because even just a few years ago Justin Bieber sort of teaming up with Dan and Shea

for 10,000 hours. That was a huge song and that really took people by surprise. You know, the

fact that Bieber was doing country music. So for Beyonce to release a whole album, I mean,

that was, that was, I had to do a double take when I saw the news because it just didn't

seem like it just didn't marry up in my head. Well, you've got her, you've got Shaboosie,

successfully straddling two genres. There's just loads of them. And I think that's really,

Post Malone again, four or five nominations. It's just extraordinary. Yeah, the steps have

been made. And as I said, again, Posty, real country fan who came out of the country closet.

Yeah, and I guess let's just dive into something a bit heavier right now, because you've mentioned

about the CMA nominations and we're recording this literally just after those nominations

have been announced. But Beyonce, one of the biggest country albums of the year, probably

of the decade in terms of its ability to sort of hit the mainstream, completely snubbed,

and someone, I forget the name, there's another nominee who's He had four or five nominations

last year and he's been nominated again this year. But he got in trouble a few years ago

for Morgan Wallen. Yes. Morgan what? Seven nominations. Yes. So, you know, he's a prolific sort of

CMA nominee and he's been in trouble in the past for saying things that were racially insensitive

and then you've get the sort of snubbing of Beyonce. Is there a problem in country music

that maybe it's still quite a white person genre? It's certainly improving. In the last five

years, Chapel Heart, there were several artists of colour now really breaking through. I think

they were always there, but it was difficult because the target market for the American

record labels was typically on the southern half of America, and that has its own basket

of insecurities. that will still take decades to finally wash out. And I think the minute

the record companies looked up and thought, oh, hang on a minute, we've got a bit of a

worldwide thing going on here. And Europe in particular is really quite integrated no matter

what you think about the newspapers here. And they began to understand the other forms of

country music, artists of colour.

comes out of a slightly different tradition, which doesn't sit well with us. It's in the

same way as many of us look a little askance when you see an artist openly supporting Trump

or loving their guns and so on, because that doesn't quite fit the British sensibility.

But they just turn it down a notch. And I don't think we get the kind of full strength gun

rack on the back of the pickup truck thing. There's this weird kind of image issue now,

I think with country music, that maybe the fact that Beyonce didn't get nominated is actually

playing exactly into the reason why she released a country album, right? Because it's taking

it away from the white man and actually the fact that people weren't willing to embrace

that, or certainly award givers weren't willing to embrace that, kind of makes a point, doesn't

it? It absolutely makes a point. My problem with the Beyonce album was... bizarrely, my

second favourite kind of music is R&B and I just felt it wasn't country enough. It was

an experimental, country-tinged R&B album into which you put in some extraordinary performances

and so on. But to me personally, I just felt there were stronger albums. So when I was selecting

my favourite five albums of the year, it just didn't quite make the cut. We played Texas

Hold'em when it came out. straight away, didn't mess about. And other people waited to see

how it would settle. And particularly in America, a lot of stations didn't get onto it for maybe

a month. And that's rare with an artist of that stature. Normally they would effectively debut

on all radio stations. But she made her point, I think she's made her point very, very well.

And as you say quite rightly, I think the morning after the night before, people are wondering

is there a racial element to the Beyonce snub? Genuinely, in my case, it's not just didn't

think the music was good enough, but my goodness, she's raised a flag. Yeah, and it kind of brings

me on to this sort of struggle that I have as well in terms of what kind of defining what

country music is because I feel like sometimes if a particular individual is associated with

country music and seen as a country singer, it doesn't matter what sort of what they release.

it's considered country. Because there are some, you know, Mara Morris, I think being an example,

I don't think a lot of her stuff, particularly more recent stuff, is that country. But it's

considered country. So kind of why does that differ from like what Beyonce's doing? M.M.

Mara Morris, Casey Musgraves, arguably, another artist who I absolutely adore, but she's into

that trippy-dippy thing much more than she's into twang and songs about biscuits. I wonder

whether once you've earned your country chops, they slash we will keep letting you into our

front room. Kane Brown seems to go release about R&B straight up country, R&B straight up country.

And we let them do that. Whereas it may be harder for somebody outside who's got an established

career to break their way in. Post Malone and Beyonce being two exemplary artists have done

that thing. Post Malone's album is straight up the middle, that's a country album that's

dripping with country references. Yeah, I think it's no longer uncool to do country though,

is it? No, no, not at all. And that's the thing that amazes me every day. I get up early in

the morning and look at the overnight emails that are coming in, whatever, and it is like,

this is not a niche interest anymore. No, it's not. And I think Chris Country, now Countryline,

where it was sort of... the first radio station to really play country music, sort of dedicated

country music, at the sort of scale that you did in the UK. And then, you know, a lot of

big players have come along since, you know, is it Global that own Absolute? Global or Smooth,

Absolute or Bower. But yeah, and I'll tell you now, both are very good radio stations. They

do what they do. But Chris did the proof of concept. Now, it's a great story. He went to

the States. to work. He's a jingle producer, musician, and he went to the States to do that,

grew to love country music by listening to it on the radio. And then when he came back to

the UK to work, because it's very easy now to set up an online radio station, he set up an

online radio station and it was playing on a computer in his bedroom. And it sounded huge

because Chris knows what he's doing. But there we were with the UK's country station and we

had that ground to ourselves for a long time. Yeah, I remember, you were really the only

station in the UK for a while that I could tune into, and I'm sure a lot of others that were

just country music, and then suddenly everyone loved country music again. What do you think

it is that's caused this resurgence internationally in country? There's a newness to it outside

the States. There's a slightly old-fashioned vibe in that it's singles with recognisable

pop structures that sound like they're being played on real instruments and they've got

a beginning, a middle eight and chorus. They tend to end, which is a thing that wasn't happening

before. And I think people buy into the stories and there's a bit of a love of the lifestyle

goes on. My daughters are 30 and 34 and when I started doing the stuff at Chris Country,

they hated it. And now both of them pay money to go to gigs. You know, and it's their go-to

genre. And Gillian in particular says, it's the songs, it's about the music. And some of

the artists are easy on the eye. I mean, you touched on this sort of, there's an almost

lifestyle aspiration to the genre that it promotes, but do you think the same music and the sort

of the same look and feel of country music is the same internationally as it is in the US

in terms of what sells? It seems to be. It's interesting because I tend to follow, not slavishly,

but I tend to follow what the American Airplay Chart is doing and be aware of that. And if

we take a flyer on a stripe, because I think it's great and I just want to get it on the

radio, you tend to find that it'll work over there. So it may be that I've become Stockholm

Syndrome and I'm doing it the, you know, I'm following the Americans without even realising

I'm doing it. But the Australians are the same, there's a growing scene in Australia, there's

a growing scene in South Africa, and interestingly we're all playing much the same stuff. Now

the Country Music Association, CMA, has international task forces and they bring together broadcasters,

bookers, the UK one is quarterly, well European one is quarterly, and I'll be there with colleagues

from Radio 2. Global, Bauer, blah blah. Because we're all fans, ultimately, and we're able

to say okay this is going well, that's going well, and we'll get insights into the speed

that the genre is growing at. The number of streams of country music has grown by 82% in

12 months. Now, interestingly, that's not translated into linear radio listening. I would love to

have grown my radio audience by 82%. But I think a lot of people are, because you can be quite

geeky in country music, are curating or finding their own playlists and doing it that way.

So the consumption model is different. This is not people that grew up with different DJs

on Radio 1 or their local radio station. This is people who've made a choice to go to a slightly

more niche. I think we're the sixth biggest genre in Britain just now. But your people

have said, I like this music, I'm going to find out more. I wonder what that appeal is like

at its core, because this is, as you say, this isn't people who routinely love listening to

and discovering music. They're hunting out country music because they've decided they like country

music. So what is the appeal about it? I'm thinking. I think the appeal is in. The pop songs, the

relatable stories, the structure of it, the cultural wrap around of country music is different

to the cultural wrap around of urban music styles. I mean, you know, it's interesting, guns do

pop up in country music, but you tend to use them for shooting deer during deer hunting

season. And in other genres of music, the use case is different. Yeah. There's something

unique, there's something open about country music, and it's also happily willing to plunder

other genres these days, which I think is great. And it draws people in. And people like Shaboosie

are like the gateway drug. And they'll come in, because Tipsy's a great song, and they'll

come in and they'll love Tipsy and then suddenly they're into Cain Brown, then you're into Sam

Hunt. and you've got the old Webb Pierce, There Stands the Glass song on the front of one of

his tracks and there's people going all the way back to 1955 just like that and I love

that. I think that's fantastic when that happens because a journey is possible and there's a

deep history. And I just I wonder if over time the genre has become a little bit of a caricature

of itself in just in the way that it's sort of promoting America and the South because

you're right, there's something that's very deep South about country music and I think

with that there's this sort of glamorous appeal to the kind of ideals that it's promoting.

It's wholesome though. There are, they do exist, Sunday Morning Coming Down, one of them, but

there's very few songs that don't have the hint of redemption about them. it's okay to have

a few drinks on Friday and go to church on Sunday, which is not the prevailing view in just about

any other genre of music. And in a lot of ways, it's maybe closer, not to our exact real lives,

but it's maybe closer to, you know, the way normal people live their lives. Yeah, it's

almost like you've got this, this sort of this typical country singer, certainly the typical

male country singer, like... tends to have this image of, as you say, this sort of religious

kind of beer drinking, pick-up truck driving, you know, little bit rough around the edges,

kind of anti-hero, right? Correct. And Morgan Wallen's egregious behaviour in the past would

be ten a penny in many other genres of music, but in country music, it didn't get away with

it. And he had to come grovelling back to his record company. Do you think though that part

of the popular appeal of people like that is the fact that they do play into the good and

the bad of what we kind of expect from, you know, the South? Yeah, I think so. Now, I don't

actually think Kip Moore's From the Deep South will get proven wrong the minute I've said

that, but if you think about it, he typifies that kind of trope of the tattooed gun loving...

wrapping himself up in the flag thing, but he still loves God and his mum. And I think that

is really interesting and really powerful because in many ways it's not as aggressive as other

kinds of music. Eventually, who was it? Toby Keith. All the drunk Americans end up down

in the pub together, doesn't matter who they love. And I think there's that, it's almost

as if you're joining a community.

to country music that other genres don't provide, I think. And absolutely, yeah. And I find that

actually amongst country broadcasters, behind the scenes, we're pretty much all friends.

Yeah, and I wonder if there's a bit of a catch-22, though, with the genre in that it's sort of

sold on the sort of the lifestyle and the ideals that sort of underlie country music, you know,

and the themes around it. But as the genre gets more international and as it grows and more

people from more countries start to emerge as, you know, popular country singers, does that?

fundamental sort of values sort of that underpin the genre and use to. Does that get a bit lost?

I think so. I think that is going to be a challenge. I get to hear quite a lot of German and Scandinavian

country music and with the honorable exception of Texas Lightning and the Common Linets, a

lot of it sounds just slightly left field of country. Now, the only nation that's managed

to put together a country scene that sounds uniquely all of its own, and it's easy to approve

of, is Ireland. That whole Irish scene, some of it, is absolutely wonderful. Other bits

of it are not my cup of tea. But my goodness, Ireland has developed its own take on country

music and managed to make something of it. But it doesn't trouble the US, does it? Similarly,

the European and Scandinavian stuff, I think we're going to have the same picture with that.

It still seems to be that if you want to make it big, you're going to have to end up in Tennessee

and you'll get into that system. Yeah, it does still feel like Nashville is the, not even

just the spiritual home, but the very kind of physical home of country music. And it does

make me wonder that, you know, it kind of comes back to this sort of definition problem of

is no longer American, then what is it? It is American, but it's American for the world.

In the same way as I would find it difficult to construct an argument that said prog rock

is, you know, Australian. It's not. It's a British thing that is popular around the world. And

there are fantastic bands in the state doing that dead... great work in that genre, but

then they ended up wearing spandex and playing that kind of pop rock thing. It's still different.

So I think it's okay. We're not in a bad place yet. I don't think the people who are all over

country music would allow it to lose its soul. It's a sort of difficult balancing act because

as we touched on before, the issues around Beyonce and some of these sorts of stigmas are almost

a little bit self-inflicted from from the country music industry. How does it kind of break down

those barriers whilst retaining kind of the core that sort of people come to expect from

the genre? Oh, I think there's so much bread in the offering right across country music

that I don't think country music breaks down the barriers. The listeners, the people that

enjoy the music do the barrier breaking. If you look at, I mentioned him earlier, Jason

Isbell for example, we don't play him. I don't think Smooth or Absolute play him, but he can

do a sold out tour of the UK. And that Americana scene is doing well because people have searched

it out. The UK country scene is in rude health. I probably get more correspondence from listeners

around Homegrown, the UK show we do, than I do from... from any other part of the station.

The rest of it is people looking for shout outs. The other one is, oh who was that artist that

Tim played at 25 past 7 and go and look it out and send the website details to them and whatever.

So I think the country listeners, from what we were saying earlier about the voyage of

discovery, I think country listeners are prepared to do a wee bit more heavy lifting than somebody

who just sticks on the radio in the background. Yeah, and I'm gonna just fact check something

here before I explain why I'm asking. And Lady A are British, are they not? No, Nashville

based. Okay, so I think either way, it would have been more interesting if they were British,

perhaps a little bit more worrying actually that they're American, but they obviously had

a very kind of public rebranding of their name because they were Lady Antebellum and they

became Lady A. they kind of passed it off as, you know, they didn't really understand the

connotations and the meaning behind their name, but there's, there is a slightly problematic

base to country music isn't there, that's kind of represented by names like that. Yeah, yeah.

And it goes back, you know, pretty much all the way. It's been difficult for artists of

colour to get picked up and played. And other people would buy into, you know, right, we

need a nice southern name. And, you know, if you're, you can be an accidental racist and

you don't get the connotations, you're maybe short of sophistication. And think, oh, that

sounds like a great name, we'll go with that, I wish you hadn't done that. You know, it's,

and I think because country as a genre has become more accepting of... Gosh, seven or eight years

ago it was difficult to get women on country radio. Consultants were saying that the people

that listened to country radio weren't here guys. And they were wrong of course, but this

was the way it was working. So I think as the world modernises so does the genre and our

listeners, especially the ones coming in now, expect us to reflect the real world and not

this made up mom's apple pie America. Yeah, and I do think though, and you might completely

disagree with me here, but I feel like female country singers used to still sing to men in

what they were singing about and how they were singing. Whereas you look at sort of more modern

country music, you know, things like, you know, Kelsey Ballerini, Hole in the Bottle, for instance.

I mean, that is a song that is very much a song by a woman for a woman. And oh, I can't even

think of the song now. But is it Diane? I want to say Diane. She's talking about accidentally

sleeping with her, with somebody's husband. Yeah, and it's kind of like, that is very much

a song, you know, by a woman, you know, for women. Yes. That didn't used to really happen.

So I feel like that's reflective of the new audience where more women are engaging with

country music. Way back at the start of Chris Country slash Countryline, Maddie and T's Girl

in a Country song is... all about that whole image of girls who are meant to wear short

shorts, have their tartan blouse tied in a bow and lean against the pickup truck and look

sexy. And the whole song is effectively a rant against that idea. And I was convinced they

wouldn't get picked up for anything else, but it turns out Maddie and Tate are brilliant

and they just make great music. So they've survived. I think a lot of men my age in America that

have worked in country radio since the 70s and 80s have had to take a bit of a long hard look

at themselves and incorporate other artists. Marin Morris, you know, she addresses gender

fluidity and all sorts of things. That's really great and really important. BD Yeah, and I

think, you know, certainly, and this is partly the credit, you know, of stations like Countryline

who are, you know, making it mainstream in countries. beyond America, but the genre definitely feels

like it's changing. I can't remember a time when it's not been changing, though. I'm quite

boring in real life in that I will go back and listen to old stuff. And when you see how far

it's come over the years, it's had a fairly rapid trajectory since the second half of the

60s. Really when it starts being Bluegrass and Jim Reeves. You've got that kind of slightly

more orchestral 90s vibe going on. You've got Garth Brooks arriving and turning it into a

stadium genre. Brooks and Dunn and so on. The clever artists, the Dollies, the Kennys, etc.

grew with it. Loretta Lynn doing an album with Jack White. I mean, whatever next? But all

of that stuff, these were the people that were moving country on from back then. where it

gets to be now. And I'll tell you for free that the more thoughtful of today's artists, because

there still is a singer-songwriter writing songs in the bus on the road, thinkers are in country

music. They respect the past but don't want to live in it. MW Yeah, that's a really interesting

way of looking at it actually. And I think there is still so much history and tradition in country

music, not just in the music itself, but in how it's performed and the sort of values that

it... it kind of presents. And I think that's why it feels so American to me is because you

just can't disassociate the sort of that from the genre. I couldn't agree more. And I am

that guy who enjoys American sports and follows American politics closely and all of that business.

So perhaps I don't get caught on the American-ness of it because I spend a lot of time in my head

in that world. Yeah, well, I'm with you there. But, uh, Before we sort of wrap up, I do have

one question I want to ask you, because country music, you've spent a lot of years playing

country music and talking about it. If there was one country music artist, dead or alive,

that you could meet and chat to, who would it be? I would love to sit down and have a pint

with Charlie Pride. Fascinating artist, amazing voice. He came to the fore in an era. when

African American country artists really didn't exist. And they would used to drive around

the radio stations and the owners would be, all right, and they would try not to be racist

to his face. I think he'd be a fascinating guy from a really interesting era of country music

when it was beginning to change into something, you know, more akin to where we are now, of

the ones I've met, I was starstruck meeting Brad Paisley earlier in the year and to the

point where you sometimes you do a quick interview and they are often very quick interviews with

a star and it's just like boom key points and you hit the bullet points. Paisley stops, considers

his answer and gives you an answer that's good and he rewards you for doing a bit of research.

If you're prepared to demonstrate that you've done a bit of research you'll get a better

answer and I thought you're blooming clever man and just you know to interact with it on

that level because you didn't particularly see the wheels turning but you knew he was engaging

himself and I really like that. I also like to meet Dolly, if ever I go disappearing for

a couple of days it's because Dolly Parton's made herself available. I mean that's fair.

I mean I think everyone would like to meet Dolly right? Yeah absolutely. But yeah on that note

I think we should probably wrap up this episode because I do feel like I could talk to you

about country music all day long, John. I could talk to anybody about it all day long. But

yeah, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. And for anyone listening as well,

we're going to put some useful links in the show notes of some of the stuff that we've

been chatting about. And if you want to go listen to Country Line and make it as easy as possible

for you, just follow the links. But John, if anyone wants to connect with you, where can

they do that? Probably easiest either on X. I'm at John Cogeo, HNCO. or drop me an email,

john at countryline.radio. Awesome. And you can find me if you want to on X as well via

This Is The Hef and on LinkedIn, just search for my name. And if you enjoy listening to

this podcast, do just take 10 seconds out your day to leave us a quick rating and review wherever

you're listening to this and give us a follow because then all future episodes will drop

straight into your feed. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.