Dick Barrie's
Country Music Website

Top Ten Contemporary Group/Duo Performers

In preface to this list, I should explain I consider a "contemporary" performer to one currently active, signed to a major label and (regardless of when their career began) who is creating Billboard chart activity in 2001.

A "group" can be a duo, or a bigger band - but I usually presume they'll provide their own basic instrumentation, as well as just singing!

They need not be specifically "New Country" - just currently active at the top of the profession!

This list is created in no specific order - just ten groups I reckon to be the best in the business at this point in time.

1) ALABAMA: Twenty years and millions of records - and they still sound so fresh! A band who paid their dues for a number of years at Myrtle Beach (where they are still dancin' on the boulevard!). Alabama are the group who tuned the country music industry into self-supporting groups, just as the Beatles had done in pop nearly twenty years previously. Curiously, when I interviewed the band in the early 'eighties, they were quick to cite the Fab Four as their major musical influences, with such innovative chord changes and harmony.

2) THE BELLAMY BROTHERS: Like Ol' Man River, Florida's David and Howard just keep rollin' along! Hit after hit, great videos, a keen sense of business - and new life after striking a chord with the line-dance crowd in the 'nineties. Nice guys to talk to, too!

3) THE DIXIE CHICKS: Wow! The hottest girl group ever, with massive crossover appeal for the younger record-buyers - and they play mandolin, banjo and fiddle! Country as get-out, yet zany and kookie enough to take their music to several higher planes. When they played Shepherd's Bush Empire in 1999, they took to the stage late - yet won over their very mixed audience in a nano-second, when Natalie Mains said "Hey, give a break! It takes a long time to get to look as weird as this!" Then they laid down two hours of the freshest and best country music London had heard in years!

4) LONESTAR: Had to get into this list, if only for the success of "Amazed" in 2000, which took over the UK pop charts for months! Quick, witty and intelligent in interview, and innovative in the studio, this Texas outfit are set to stick around for a long, long time.

5) BR5-49: Discovered playing for tips in a boot store on Nashville's Broadway (yes, really!) this retro outfit have a unique ability to make old music sound fresh and new. Regular UK tourists in the past, we must be more than due for another visit soon.

6) THE MAVERICKS: A strange mix - and a stranger background - for a country band. From Miami, the Mavericks' sound is based around the prolific song-writing and soaring voice of Raoul Malo, yet on stage they provide a tight, exciting show. Probably more-popular in Europe than Nashville, at the time of writing it seems we have to be ready for another killer album (they haven't put out a bad one yet) or news of their break-up. I know I'm voting for the former option there, every time!

7) BROOKS & DUNN: When Arista Nashville suggested to a couple of minor-league songwriters that they might consider working together, it is unlikely either Kix Brooks or Ronnie Dunn realised what was coming! In a decade of success for country acts, these lads have been more successful than most - and their string of danceable, singable hits and hooks just keeps on coming!

8) THE TRACTORS: A strange outfit. A group of veteran Oklahoma musicians, bound around Steve Ripley's unmistakable vocal sound, this band have produced only two mainsteam albums (plus a remarkably-fresh Christmas offering) in nearly ten years. However, although few and far between, their often-untidy musical offerings are always worth a listen.

9) THE WILKINSONS: A surprise hit in 1997, this Canadian family band (father, son and daughter) make delightful music and fully deserve their several hits -- all from a debut album.

10) CONFEDERATE RAILROAD A converted road-house rock band built around the redneck image projected by front-man Danny Shirley, the unit lay down an unashamed Southern-rock groove in most of their music, while allowing the occasional surprisingly-gentle ballad to emerge. Their fame and fortune remains as the purveyors of rough and rowdy bar-room ditties however. Another outfit popular with the UK line-dancing fraternity.

Not easy, picking out only ten! If it gives any consolations to champions of their cause, a "mention in dispatches" must also be given to the likes of SAWYER BROWN, DIAMOND RIO, THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS, MONTGOMERY GENTRY and BLACKHAWK - and many more!

DICK BARRIE - 27.2.01