Pop stars turn to country music

‘The stars just lined up’
Country listeners have long accepted singers from outside the genre, but it’s been a while since a pop star has had a sustained career in country the way John Denver or Linda Ronstadt did.

The more common pattern is for country singers to cross over to pop, a la Shania Twain or Faith Hill.

Wade Jessen, director of Billboard’s country charts, views the current crop of outsiders more as an anomaly than a trend.

“For lack of a better analogy, I think the stars just lined up timing-wise,” Jessen said. “The Bon Jovi thing is maybe as country as we’ll hear Bon Jovi go. I don’t see that band making a run at the format in hope of a crossover career.”

Despite strong sales, neither the Morrison nor Jones albums is getting mainstream radio airplay.

CMT’s Philips thinks country fans are more adventurous than radio gives them credit for. Perhaps more than any other outlet, CMT has helped blur the lines of country music. The cable network airs videos by pop and rock stars like Sheryl Crow and Jewel, and it’s most popular series, “Crossroads,” pairs country singers with outside artists such as Dave Matthews and John Mayer.

This month it has been airing specials on a recent Van Morrison concert in Nashville and on the recording of Bruce Springsteen’s new album, a tribute to folk singer Pete Seeger.

“Twenty years ago, when you talked to people who listened to country radio, most would say, ‘I grew up in a house where we heard only country music,”’ Philips said. “Now, it’s impossible to grow up in a house where only one genre of music is accessible. If you’ve got electricity, that’s probably not the case.”

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