The Urban Cowboy Era

The Urban Cowboy era, so called following the John Travolta film ‘Urban Cowboy’ released in 1980, was little more than a flash in the pan, but as flash in the pans go it was very successful – if it actually existed at all!

With the ‘Outlaw’ music of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and others beginning to be less popular, the country music scene was ready to move on to the next ‘new sound’.

This period saw country music start to move away from its roots and border almost on pop culture. Essentially Urban Cowboy music was 60’s and 70’s country ‘polished up’ to sound more pop, with a sort of hip rock beat.

The more successful songs at this time were almost ‘crossover’ tunes, with ‘Elvira’ by the Oak Ridge Boys and ‘Queen of Hearts’ by Juice Newton being good examples. At this stage the ‘new’ sound didn’t actually have a genre name of its own, but following the release of the ‘Urban Cowboy’ film, and the songs it contained, it was a natural progression to name this the ‘Urban Cowboy Era’.

Having what has been described as ‘the saddest voice in country music’, John Conlee had a number of hits during this time, such as ‘Busted’, ‘Common Man’, ‘Working Man’ and ‘American Faces’.

Alabama, one of the most successful country acts of all time with 21 consecutive number 1 hits, used this new style brilliantly. Although Alabama had been around for some time (founded in ’69 as Youngcountry), it wasn’t until they signed with RCA in Nashville in April 1980 that they began to achieve such success.

As Urban Cowboy music was at best a mix of many other country styles, it was never really recognized in its own right, and does not appear as a stand-alone genre in many purists’ eyes.

To search for recordings from Alabama, John Conlee or any other of your favourite country heroes go to www.countrysongscountrysingers.com