Editing Country music (section)

====Country pop====
{{Main|Country pop}}
[[File:John Denver 1975.JPG|thumb|upright|[[John Denver]] (1975)]]
Country pop or soft pop, with roots in the [[countrypolitan]] sound, folk music, and [[soft rock]], is a subgenre that first emerged in the 1970s. Although the term first referred to country music songs and artists that crossed over to top 40 radio, country pop acts are now more likely to cross over to [[adult contemporary music]]. It started with [[pop music]] singers like [[Glen Campbell]], [[Bobbie Gentry]], [[John Denver]], [[Olivia Newton-John]], [[Anne Murray]], [[B. J. Thomas]], [[the Bellamy Brothers]], and [[Linda Ronstadt]] having hits on the country charts. Between 1972 and 1975, singer/guitarist John Denver released a series of hugely successful songs blending country and folk-rock musical styles ("[[Rocky Mountain High]]", "[[Sunshine on My Shoulders]]", "[[Annie's Song]]", "[[Thank God I'm a Country Boy]]", and "[[I'm Sorry (John Denver song)|I'm Sorry]]"), and was named Country Music Entertainer of the Year in 1975. The year before, 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". In response George Jones, Tammy Wynette, [[Jean Shepard]] and other traditional Nashville country artists dissatisfied with the new trend formed the short-lived "Association of Country Entertainers" in 1974; the ACE soon unraveled in the wake of Jones and Wynette's bitter divorce and Shepard's realization that most others in the industry lacked her passion for the movement.
[[File:Dolly Parton, 2011.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Dolly Parton]]]]

During the mid-1970s, [[Dolly Parton]], a successful mainstream country artist since the late 1960s, mounted a high-profile campaign to cross over to pop music, culminating in her 1977 hit "[[Here You Come Again (song)|Here You Come Again]]", which topped the U.S. country singles chart, and also reached No. 3 on the pop singles charts. Parton's male counterpart, [[Kenny Rogers]], came from the opposite direction, aiming his music at the country charts, after a successful career in pop, rock and folk music with [[Kenny Rogers and the First Edition|the First Edition]], achieving success the same year with "[[Lucille (Kenny Rogers song)|Lucille]]", which topped the country charts and reached No. 5 on the U.S. pop singles charts, as well as reaching Number 1 on the British all-genre chart. Parton and Rogers would both continue to have success on both country and pop charts simultaneously, well into the 1980s. Country music propelled Kenny Rogers’ career, making him a three-time [[Grammy Awards|Grammy Award]] winner and six-time [[Country Music Association Awards]] winner. Having sold more than 50 million albums in the US, one of his Song "The Gambler," inspired several TV films, with Rogers as the main character.<ref>{{Cite web|author=Christina Maxouris and Alta Spells|title=Legendary country singer Kenny Rogers dies at 81|url=https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/entertainment/kenny-rogers-country-singer-dies/index.html|access-date=November 1, 2021|website=CNN|date=March 21, 2020 }}</ref> Artists like [[Crystal Gayle]], [[Ronnie Milsap]] and [[Barbara Mandrell]] would also find success on the pop charts with their records. In 1975, author Paul Hemphill stated in the ''Saturday Evening Post'', "Country music isn't really country anymore; it is a hybrid of nearly every form of popular music in America."<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Hemphill | first1 = Paul | year = 1975 | title = Nashville—Where It All Started | journal = [[Saturday Evening Post]] | volume = 247 | issue = 3| pages = 44–86 }}</ref>

[[File:WIKI KENNY ROGERS.jpg|thumb|[[Kenny Rogers]] in 2004]]
During the early 1980s, country artists continued to see their records perform well on the pop charts. [[Willie Nelson]] and [[Juice Newton]] each had two songs in the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the early eighties: Nelson charted "[[Always on My Mind]]" (#5, 1982) and "[[To All the Girls I've Loved Before]]" (#5, 1984, a duet with [[Julio Iglesias]]), and Newton achieved success with "[[Queen of Hearts (Hank DeVito song)|Queen of Hearts]]" (#2, 1981) and "[[Angel of the Morning]]" (#4, 1981). Four country songs topped the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in the 1980s: "[[Lady (Kenny Rogers song)|Lady]]" by [[Kenny Rogers]], from the late fall of 1980; "[[9 to 5 (Dolly Parton song)|9 to 5]]" by [[Dolly Parton]], "[[I Love a Rainy Night]]" by [[Eddie Rabbitt]] (these two back-to-back at the top in early 1981); and "[[Islands in the Stream (song)|Islands in the Stream]]", a duet by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers in 1983, a pop-country crossover hit written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb of the [[Bee Gees]]. Newton's "Queen of Hearts" almost reached No. 1, but was kept out of the spot by the pop ballad juggernaut "[[Endless Love (song)|Endless Love]]" by [[Diana Ross]] and [[Lionel Richie]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060903144110/http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/yearend_chart_index.jsp Billboard.com], Historical Music Charts Archive.</ref> The move of country music toward neotraditional styles led to a marked decline in country/pop crossovers in the late 1980s, and only one song in that period—[[Roy Orbison]]'s "[[You Got It]]", from 1989—made the top 10 of both the ''Billboard'' [[Hot Country Songs|Hot Country Singles]]" and Hot 100 charts, due largely to a revival of interest in Orbison after his sudden death.<ref>Whitburn, Joel, "Top Pop Singles: 1955–2006," 2007</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Whitburn |first=Joel |title=Hot Country Songs: Billboard 1944 to 2008 |publisher=Record Research |year=2008 |isbn=9780898201772}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=October 2024}} The only song with substantial country airplay to reach number one on the pop charts in the late 1980s was "[[At This Moment]]" by [[Billy Vera]] and the Beaters, an R&B song with slide guitar embellishment that appeared at number 42 on the country charts from minor crossover airplay.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://qz.com/quartzy/1592928/old-town-road-is-only-the-third-country-song-in-30-years-to-make-it-to-make-it-to-no-1/|title="Old Town Road" is only the third country song in 30 years to make it to make it to number one|first1=Dan|last1=Kopf|website=Quartzy|date=April 11, 2019 }}</ref> The record-setting, multi-platinum group [[Alabama (American band)|Alabama]] was named Artist of the Decade for the 1980s by the Academy of Country Music.