Friday, December 06, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Ebb and Flow

Randy Travis and Keith Urban take advantage of shifting tastes in country music

Randy Travis, left, broke through in country music in 1986 and has been a regular performer during the National Finals Rodeo for 10 years. Keith Urban, a country newcomer, is riding the popularity of his No. 1 single, "Somebody Like You," to headliner status at the Las Vegas Hilton. Brooks and Dunn are among the country performers playing Las Vegas during the National Finals Rodeo

You could call them the old and new faces of country, but that wouldn't tell you much until you looked at them.

The "old" face, Randy Travis, had his big breakthrough in 1986. Keith Urban, the new face, neither looks out from under a cowboy hat nor sounds like what a lot of people think of as country.

But this is National Finals Rodeo week, and they're here -- along with a lot of other Nashville veterans and newcomers -- turning the next nine days into a celebration of Music City and all the good and bad that goes along with it.

While the showroom roster isn't quite as packed with country acts as some years, fans will find variety ranging from former cowboy Chris LeDoux and rodeo favorites Brooks & Dunn to country comedians Rodney Carrington and Bill Engvall.

Travis, playing The Orleans today through Sunday, has been a rodeo week headliner for more than 10 years. Urban rides the momentum of his No. 1 country single, "Somebody Like You," into the Las Vegas Hilton's big theater after first playing its smaller NightClub during the 1997 rodeo.

"I'm glad it's happened that way," Urban says of his steady progression to a single that topped the charts for more than eight weeks. "It feels more balanced and grounded than I think it would be otherwise. It doesn't seem quite as surreal either, which is probably a good thing."

Urban always has been slightly outside the realm of Nashville "hat acts." He's a native New Zealander who grew up in Australia. And though he's lived in Nashville for 10 years, his first band, the Ranch, was managed by Miles Copeland, who steered the Police to fame.

His new album "Golden Road" sounds far more like Kenny Loggins than George Jones, and probably would have been considered rock in the early '70s.

" I definitely was influenced by a lot of the West Coast rock. Jackson Browne, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt," he says. Throughout "Golden Road," there's a distinctive rhythmic acoustic guitar that balances Urban's electric leads for an airy, relaxed sound.

Urban cites John Mellencamp's 1988 "Lonesome Jubilee" album as a "huge turning point": "The blending of fiddles and accordions and acoustic guitars with sort of a rock rhythm section and these really rural, organic lyrics," he says. "If that record came out now it would probably be a country record."

Travis, on the other hand, says with a laugh, "Listen to me sing and speak. If I sing, it doesn't matter, it's going to sound like a country song. I can put a big orchestra behind me and it will still sound like a country song."

His "Storms of Life" album in 1986 gave face to a solidifying "new traditionalist" movement, a backlash to the "Urban Cowboy" fad and pop-country acts such as the Mandrell Sisters and Kenny Rogers.

"For 10 years I got turned down by every label in Nashville because I wanted to be a country singer. Then I got signed by the same label that turned me down," Travis recalls.

He was an entrenched star by the time Garth Brooks led the "new country" movement that went from boom to bust in the '90s. And now, he says, the industry is very similar to the way it was when he was signed.

"The looks (of a star) to me are more important now than the quality of vocals," Travis says. "That's a bad place to get to.

"Two things exist now that didn't exist then. Everybody's attempting pop, but we also have fighting against us way more of an abundance of artists being signed. When that happens, you can't find that many hits."

Travis has recorded four or five songs for his next album, but says there is an intense fight for good material. "You have, what, 200 touring artists? And most of them trying to record and put out albums. That many good songs just don't exist. They're not out there."

At least not in the secular world. For his past two albums, Travis turned to the diverse world of gospel and contemporary Christian songwriters. And with radio more or less a closed door, it's a happy coincidence to be performing both "Inspirational Journey" and the new "Rise and Shine" album in churches as well as casinos and concert halls.

"I didn't know that much about how the gospel acts went in and played shows in churches," he says. "Somebody told me I had a `music ministry' early on. I said, `What?' "

"The first time to do the `Inspirational Journey' music was in a casino in Atlantic City." he adds. "I was shaking like a leaf."

But he's since found that fans don't draw a big distinction between the Christian songs and the rest of his country catalog, which also favors strong narrative lines. "They respond to these songs like they're hearing hits they remember."

Urban also witnessed the new-country boom partially from the sidelines. He was living in Nashville with the income from a 1994 publishing deal that "gave me a little bit of income weekly to live on. I've never had expensive tastes. I've lived poor all my life so it was nothing new to me."

By 1999, when he released his first solo album, most of the "hat acts" had been effectively eclipsed by Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks.

"Actually I saw that as an opportunity, because you can only have so many of them and then everyone wants something else," he says. "There were so many Shania clones it was getting unbearable."

Urban says he passed on a couple of record deals that wouldn't have given him free reign. "You just have to be patient and not take the first record offer that comes along," he says. "I think it's having a clear vision of what it is you want to do and then being patient. They say that patience is the weapon that forces deception to reveal itself."

Granted, his Bon Jovi-like hair and chiseled looks might not hurt when it comes to competing with Twain on Twain's terms. "I think I just look for opportunities to be able to connect my face and my name with my song," he says. "Those three things don't always go together for every artist."

"There's just so much music and so many artists out there," he says. "Obviously the first job is to make a good record. But then the challenge really comes in making sure people know who that record is."

Travis has an advantage there. At the ripe old age of 43, fans come up and say, "I grew up with you," he says. "But I've got to face it. I've been doing this 17 years. I've been in clubs since I was 14."