Traditionalists.

During the early 1980s Nashville was dominated by popular, glossy performers such as Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and the award-winning Alabama. The gospel quartet Oak Ridge Boys were enjoying chart success with songs such as "Elvira" (1981), while Lee Greenwood became a conservative hero with "God Bless the U.S.A.," the unofficial theme song of Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign. (Greenwood even sang the song at the Republican National Convention.) Nashville was certainly in tune with the times, but the pop-music sound and television-friendly images of these artists were anathema to country music purists, who welcomed a new breed of country-music performers who labeled themselves traditionalists. Ricky Skaggs, a former blue-grass musician who played with Emmylou Harris, led the rebellion with his 1981 album Waitin' for the Sun to Shine. Skaggs's sparse, hardcore instrumentals and Kentucky vocals opened Nashville ears. By...