Why Have You Left The One You Left Me For by emt11

Country Through the Years..
Hosted By: Shirley and Nathan
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The 1960s British Invasion was not only a major influence on rock and pop music, it also had an influence on Country music. Starting in the late 1960s and continuing into the 1970s, country music blended with rock music developing a new genre known as Country Rock. Early innovators in this new style of music included Rock n' Roll icon band The Byrds (while Gram Parsons was the front man) and its spin-off The Flying Burrito Brothers, Commander Cody, and The Eagles. Subsequent to the initial blending of the two polar opposite genres, other offspring soon resulted, including Southern Rock and Heartland Rock. In the decades that followed, artists such as Alabama and Linda Ronstadt moved Country farther towards rock influence.

Another subgenre of country music that took root in the 1970s was Outlaw Country. Outlaw Country was derived from the traditional and honky tonk sounds of the late 50's and 60's and helped revolutionize the genre of Country music. The term "Outlaw Country" is traditionally associated with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Ray Price, Roger Miler, and Billy Joe Shaver. According to Willie Nelson, "After I left Nashville (in the early 1970s), I wanted to relax and play the music that I wanted to play, and just stay around Texas, maybe Oklahoma. Waylon and I had that outlaw image going, and when it caught on at colleges and we started selling records, we were O.K. The whole outlaw thing, it had nothing to do with the music, it was something that got written in an article, and the young people said, 'Well, that's pretty cool.' And started listening."

Similiar to Country Rock, Country Pop is another subgrenre that developed in the 1970s blended two different styles of music into one. In 1974 Olivia Newton-John, an Australian pop singer, won the "Best Female Country Vocal Performance" as well as the Country Music Association's most coveted award for females, "Female Vocalist of the Year".

However, not everyone was happy about this new trend. That same year, a group of artists, troubled by this trend, formed the short-lived Association of Country Entertainers. The debate raged into 1975, and reached its apex at that year's Country Music Association Awards when reigning Entertainer of the Year, Charlie Rich (who himself had a series of crossover hits), presented the award to his successor, John Denver. As he read Denver's name, Rich set fire to the envelope with a cigarette lighter. The action was taken as a protest against the increasing pop style in country music.

Despite the controversy, pop music singers Glen Campbell, John Denver, Olivia Newton-John, and Anne Murray all had hits on the Country charts with Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy" was among one of the biggest crossover hits in Country music history. - From the WWW