From Webb Pierce to Tupac: Country`s Roots Are Showing
(WorldNews Music)

Many artists aren`t just singing in one style and hoping to make a career out it. The fences officially have been moved. When Sam Hunt slid `Hard to Forget` into country radio playlists, he expanded the playing field for the format. On one hand, he introduced modern listeners to Webb Pierce`s `There Stands the Glass,` a 1953 single that demonstrates the whiny twang that once defined the genre. But he packaged it with start-and-stop, tech-based rhythms that pulled directly from hip-hop. It`s a stunning development: blending musical sounds that are separated by seven decades on the calendar and perhaps an even greater distance on a sonic map. But it`s also indicative of the increasingly...