1990s country music stars come together in Pinellas Park

In an interview many years ago with this writer, Kenny Rogers was explaining why he’d made the purposeful transition from pop and rock music to country.

In 1975, he recalled, “I went to this Fan Fair thing, and there were 8,000 people in this auditorium, and they said ‘Here’s Freddy Davis, who had a hit in 1956,’ and everybody went crazy. I though whoa, this is where I need to be.”

There was no “Freddy Davis.” He was illustrating a point. “The thing I learned is that it’s a very stable market,” Rogers said. “It’s not like pop music, where you have a hit and you disappear, and no one cares.”

Over and over again, statistics have borne out  the truth in his observation: Score a hit or two, and even if you disappear from the charts, and the TV, country music audiences will love you forever.

Only a scattered handful of country hitmakers of the 1960s are still with us, but those who choose to work find gainful employment – and the continued admiration of fans – at county fairs, special events, festivals devoted to some fruit or vegetable or another, or celebrations of an earlier, simpler time. There are more singers from the ‘70s, and the ‘80s, still walking the earth.

(If it’s Lee Greenwood, all he has to do is show up and sing “God Bless the USA,” and everybody’s happy.)

Saturday afternoon brings Pinellas Park’s 30^th annual Country Music Festival to England Brothers Park (5010 81^st Avenue N). This is an event for the family, and it seems to have everything you’d want in a community fair: a live rodeo with bull riding; food, beer and soda sold by local charities; local entertainment; crafters and vendors; a trade show hosted by the Pinellas Park Gateway Chamber of Commerce; QLaw Auto Race Car Display; a tree and plant sale (starting at 8:30 a.m.); “Six Gun Territory,” a mechanical bull and children’s activities (ride armbands will be available for purchase).

Admission to the event is free.

But there’s more. The headline entertainment (taking the stage at 8:15 p.m.) is a touring show called Roots & Boots: ‘90s Electric Showdown. There are three bona fide country music hitmakers here, all of them singing their best-known songs.

You won’t find Aaron Tippin, Sammy Kershaw or Collin Raye on the charts these days, but they were – and are – three of the strongest personalities in country, and in the 1990s you couldn’t throw a cow patty without hitting one of their tunes or videos.

Aaron Tippin has a big ol’ baritone voice and an “everyday working man” persona, used to great effect on the No. 1 power ballad “That’s as Close as I’ll Ever Get to Loving You” and the chest-thumping “You’ve Got to Stand For Something.” Tippin’s other chart-toppers are “There Ain’t Nothing Wrong with the Radio” and “Kiss This.”

Sammy Kershaw scored his only No. 1 in 1993, with “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful.” But this hardscrabble Cajun crooner was Top Five a bunch of times – his other hits include a cover of the Amazing Rhythm Aces classic “Third Rate Romance,” “I Can’t Reach Her Any More” and “National Working Woman’s Holiday” (all 1994), “Meant to Be” in ’96, and 1997’s “Love of My Life.”

Collin Raye hit the top of the Billboard country charts right out of the gate in 1992, with his first single, the sweet, story-telling “Love, Me.” His first four albums went platinum (more than one million copies sold). “In This Life”,  “My Kind of Girl” and “I Can Still Feel You” also went to No. 1. His most recent hit, “Couldn’t Last a Moment,” reached No. 3 in 2000.