'80s Country

Country may move with the times, but it doesn't follow trends, so when the rest of the music world was plugging in synthesizers and setting drum machines to stun, '80s country nodded to pop while staying true to its roots. Original outlaw Willie Nelson teamed up with Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias for a triple-play country/pop/Latin crossover smash, paying wistful tribute "To All the Girls I've Loved Before." Dolly Parton monopolized movie theatres and radio with the bouncy working girl's war cry "9 to 5," the theme from her hit movie. No matter how pop-friendly country got, though, John Williamson was there to keep things homespun and rootsy with "True Blue." Country artists of the '80s honor the roots of their raisin', in Next Steps.

While some '80s country artists courted pop-crossover success, the New Traditionalists paid homage to honky-tonk history. Sporting a ten-mile stare and cocky swagger, Dwight Yoakam became a cowboy-hatted sex symbol while pumping out Buck Owens-influenced, Bakersfield-style romps like "Guitars, Cadillacs," while Alan Jackson toned it down a couple o' clicks at the end of the decade with "Wanted." If you want hear how the lineage of country royalty continued when Johnny Cash's little girl Rosanne grew into the family business, check out her classy, catchy country-pop confection "Seven Year Ache," in which steel guitars meet synths and everybody wins. The old-timers keep it real in Deep Cuts.

Exciting, new country voices popped up like cornhusks on a mid-Western plain throughout the '80s, but the veterans held up their end with just as much style. Bakersfield's bar-room bard Merle Haggard made his alcoholic agenda well known with the juicy jukebox stomp "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink," and Conway Twitty — who made the switch from rock 'n' roll to country in the mid-'60s — scored his 26th country chart-topper in 1981 with "Tight Fittin' Jeans." Clint Black's rugged, movie-star mug, meanwhile, made the ladies weak, but he got the guys on his side at the same time with hard-hitting, saloon-shuffling smashes like "Killin' Time."

In the era leading up to country music's larger-than-life, rock-friendly "hat act" era, Nashville was home to an equal amount of rootsy roughnecks and pop-savvy crossover cowpokes. Even as the New Traditionalists pursued honky-tonk heaven (try George Strait's "All My Ex's Live in Texas" on for size), old-schoolers like Dolly Parton were expanding their horizons by reaching out to pop princes the Bee Gees for the boundary-breaking hit "Islands in the Stream" (with Kenny Rogers). But whether you're an Eddie Rabbitt-lovin' urban cowboy looking for an uptown tinge to your twang, an Aussie roots fan who prefers Slim Dusty's sound of the outback, or an unreformed outlaw rustling up a ruckus with Hank Williams, Jr.'s "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight," you'll find the finest in '80s country right here.