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Beautiful Country

B

bturner

I guess it was around 1980 the idea appeared and it seemed not to be embraced by many stations. It was Beautiful Country.

This was a format that utilized the beautiful music orchestras doing covers of country hits. Then you had MOR singers and a few crossovers doing country covers or originals. Toss in some artists like Floyd Cramer and Danny Davis & The Nashville Brass and you have a EZ listening/Beautiful Music format based on country music versus pop covers. Crossover might be Eddy Arnold or Ray Price for example.

I thought this would have been bigger than it ever was because there were lots of FMs where the audience was more familiar with country than Pop. We're talking primarily rural areas. I figured it was a natural progression for the format, although late in the game as beautiful music was dying at the time.

I think one station WSNI in Philadelphia opted for the format for a year or song in late 1977.

There were a few automation companies offering the format. My favorite was "Country Fresh and Beautiful".

If anyone has some additional info or knows of a Beautiful Country format on 10.5 inch reels living in a storage shed at some station, I'd love to learn more.
 
Done properly, I think that could work. I know we got a lot more popular when I added cross-over country hits to our mix. The folks around here have been listening to country for a long, long time. In fact, I remember when that was all that was on the radio in my neck of the woods. Hearing Sinatra or Dean Martin was very unusual.
 
I think the first so-called beautiful country station was actually KSCS in Fort Worth/Dallas. According to the Billboard magazine archives on Google, KSCS (96.3) flipped from being WBAP-FM in February of 1973 and originally called their sound "Silver Country Stereo." Per the article, the focus was on B/EZ country covers and vocal country ballads. I'm not sure when it was that KSCS dropped this approach though. According to the DFW Radio Archives web site, it did decently in the ratings (after the combination of Dallas and FW into one market later in '73), though of course not nearly as well as its big sister AM in the same time period.
 
Actually KSCS was the easy side of country...the more mellow country hits and oldies by the original artists. The presentation was very much a lave beautiful music presentation. Three songs back to back with the jock simple back announcing title and artist and IDing the station. They caught on quickly with the older demos of country music. This was about the time country was evolving and country AM stations had success with a Top 40 styled format. The relaxed style of KSCS was quite different from the trend.

I lived in Mesquite from 1969 through 1978. Being a radio junkie, I knew the station had switched from their beautiful music format to Silver Country Stereo. I remembered thinking their formatics were a rip off of KFWD at the time, that also played 3 in a row and only allowed the jocks to back announce the songs.

If they did do beautiful country, they must have dropped it within a month. I say this because my parents sometimes listened to WBAP FM. Every evening it was a family meal. The TV went off and a beautiful music station went on as a background for the meal. They switched between WBAP, KMEZ (or what ever the calls were at that time) and KOAX. Used to hate that liner "Coax your friends to listen to KOAX".
 
Circa 1973 WHOO-FM WAS country flavored beautiful music. chet atkins, floyd cramer, danny davis and nashville brass, ray price, johnny matthis...interesting format to say the least.

In early 80's not sure if they were KJJJ-fm yet like their am, but they were 'easy country'. thought that format would have caught on more.
 
You are right, (Sinatra, Dean Martin) were not on a country station. We're talking a beautiful music variation. Beautiful Music formats were based on all time favorites, current MOR selections (usually orchestrated) and orchestrated versions of Top 40 hits.

Beautiful Country worked the same way except instead of featuring songs listed above, the format concentrated on all time country favorites done by orchestras and folks like Sinatra, Dean Martin and others. Most formats included country artists covering pop hits (as long as they were easy listening) and material by artists that would be respected by the beautiful music and country music fans: Floyd Cramer, Chet Atkins, Danny Davis & Nashville Brass, Boots Randolph, etc.

Perhaps a sample might be:
Galveston - Boots Randolph
Rose Garden - Percy Faith & Orchestra
Last Date - Floyd Cramer
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - 101 Strings
For The Good Times - Ray Price
Home on the Range - Boston Pops
Houston - Dean Martin
He Thinks I Still Care - Hollywood Strings
Good Morning Starshine - Chet Atkins
Green Green Grass of Home - Tom Jones
 
Reader's Digest put out a number of "Today's Easy Listening Country" LP box sets in the early '80s. The material was pretty much as described here: lots of covers and instrumentals, plus some of the lighter songs by the big country stars at the time (Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, etc.).
 
I'll be the first to admit that this format is not my musical forte. But to further discussion of this topic, I forwarded this page to both the Country and Easy Listening forums on the Live 365 message board for those who are interested in following the discussion of those who may have stations of either genre on that site. If you are not a member, you can sign up for free. Go to www.live365.com and click on "Community" to access forums.
 
I heard "Last Date" one day on Dial Global.

"Welcome to My World" and "He'll Have to Go" by Jim Reeves would definitely belong. The first one just for the violins.
 
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