Big Country

Vince Gill
The new-artist thing in this town is rampant — I'm old news, in a sense,'' Vince Gill says with a chuckle. A sideman and solo act for the last decade, Gill finally broke through in 1991, winning a Grammy and a Country Music Association award for Country Male Vocalist of the Year and a CMA award for Song of the Year (for his duet with Patty Loveless, ''When I Call Your Name''). ''It went nuts in the last two years,'' says Gill, 34. ''I don't know why — it's the same four chords it's always been.''

Indeed, the hint of bluegrass tenor in Gill's voice has direct roots in his years playing in bluegrass bands in and around his home of Oklahoma City in the '70s. In 1978 he joined Pure Prairie League, singing lead on the group's 1980 hit, ''Let Me Love You Tonight.'' Upon moving to Nashville in 1984, he began singing on records by Rosanne Cash and Rodney Crowell, yet his own career didn't take off until 1990, thanks to stylish contemporary country hits like ''Look at Us'' and ''Liza Jane.'' Gill, who lives in the Nashville suburb of Franklin, Tenn., with his wife, Janis Gill (of Sweethearts of the Rodeo), 37, and their daughter, Jennifer, 9, has no hard feelings: ''Maybe it's beneficial in the long run for my career to happen gradually. I went to a basketball game last night, and all these high school kids knew who I was.'' Score one for Gill.
— David Brown

Randy Travis
No matter how gargantuan Garth Brooks gets, it's worth remembering that it was Randy Travis who put the twang back in country and restored the heart to the heartland's music. On his debut album, 1986's Storms of Life, Travis' honky-tonk paeans to hearth and home rang with uncommon truth and fervor. The singer wrapped them in a stripped-down, hard-country sound (''On the Other Hand,'' ''Diggin' Up Bones'') that didn't shy away from fiddles, steel guitars, and Dobros. What's more, he set it all off with a nasal baritone that took some of its impeccable phrasing from the masters — Haggard, Williams, Frizzell, and Jones. Travis, now 32, put a new voice to an old sound and made it vital again.

By his second album, 1987's Always and Forever, which resided at the top of the country charts for 43 weeks, Travis had become the standard-bearer for contemporary country. Even the usually curmudgeonly Roy Acuff was heard to allow, ''Country music needs you.''

''I came along at the right time with something a little different,'' modestly explains Travis, now married to manager Lib Hatcher. ''Had it not been me, it would have been someone else.'' Maybe so. But Travis' success opened the ; door to all those guys with hats — and they owe him more than a wave as they pass him by on the music charts.
— Alanna Nash