The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 67

(5Ju U. Li Friday, October 9, 1981 Section THE TAMPA TRIBUNE Country Music Rides A Bull Market. And Bucks For Number One 4 fllllSffli 1 Paul Rose, right, and Shorty Gagney of Nashville, are part of the Country Gentlemen Band, shown playing for the customers at Walt's. Photos by Fred Bellet Off tie i fx 1r Ism watt MTSm For Ti Cops By DAVID CLARK SCOTT The Christian Science Monitor If your favorite disc jockey's voice has recently develpped a "daown home" twang welcome to thehoedown. Country music is riding the bull market that was partly created when the movie "Urban Cowboy" was at its popularity crest, and it may be bucking for the No.

1 radio format if the stations keep converting at the rate they have been. In the last year, more than 500 radio stations have switched to programing country music, boosting the total to almost 3,000 stations carrying the mountain-born music. That is an increase of more than 20 percent over 1980, according to an annual survey done by the Country Music Association. And rock and pop radio stations have found it easier to go with the popular country crooners than buck the trend. Last spring Billboard magazine reported 14 country albums had scaled the Top 50 pop chart.

That is twice as many as last year at that time. According to the latest figures from the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, more country music records and tapes were sold in the United States in 1980 than ever before $526 million worth. o- Country music was the second largest selling category of music in the nation, with a 14.3 percent share of the entire market. This marks the highest percentage of the total that country has ever achieved. The $526 million figure represents an astounding 20 percent growth over the 1979 figures four times that of the rock-pop category.

It's no wonder record company executives are flocking from the "music centers" of New York and Los Angeles to where the action is Nashville. Country stars like Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, and Eddie Rabbit have gone beyond the country-music category to become household names. And on television, country stars now get more than a three-minute slot crammed between "Gong Show" caliber jokes on "Hee Haw." Nashville's best now bask in the limelight of Barbara Mandrell's prime-time show, or any one of the country music specials that have been springing up. Country music recordings are riding high in the sales saddle, too. Country hogtied all other catagories but rock for the first time to take over the number two spot in the 1979 roundup of recording sales.

According to the 1980 National Association of Recording Merchandisers survey, country sales continued to rise, garnering over 14 percent of the recording market. Most program directors are willing to admit part of the recent popularity of country music has been spurred by the movie "Urban Cowboy" when it was at its peak, and the televison show "Dallas." And most say they like the pub- Kenny Rogers 1 "Although country has been around a long time, it seems like about five years ago some really good marketing people from New York started getting involved in country music." Rob Parrish, Country Music Association 1 owner is especially proud of those machines. And Walt Meredith, who is as proud of those smoke-eaters as he is of his clientele, is a colorful, if inexperienced, owner. He seems to have forged success in a tive field which offers sudden failure and slow death lb the unlucky and unimaginative. The 47-year-old Meredith doesn't even like music and has never run or owned a bar.

His philosophy starting out was, "You fake it. I never tended bar in my life." He is a former carny who has spent his life on the road. Having never owned a drink-and-dance joint, he admits his only training is the ability to count money and understand human nature. "I know absolutely nothing about music," Meredith said, discussing the birth of his nightclub 16 months ago, "I went around (to other bars) and country was hot." His business practices would send shudders through an accountant. Among the come-ons which Meredith regularly provides are free popcorn, free hot dogs for Monday-night football and free barbecues every so often which have become legendary with the regulars (some past main courses have included ribs, chicken and Italian sausages).

With an intense pride, he cooks all the food himself. Early on a Saturday evening, Buck Starr mounted the small stage elevated from the tight dance floor. Resplendent in By PAUL LOMARTIRE Tribune Staff Writer Walt's Lounge is the home of cowboys and cops dancing the Cotton-Eyed Joe with their women. This north Nebraska Avenue nightclub is social hangout for an unusual mixture of cowboys, both real and imagined, and off-duty officers. It's easy to find a bar where violent headaches are created by exploding beer bottles.

But the action at this club doesn't even have the traditionally rough edge born of mournful country music, cold beer and cheatin' hearts. At Walt's, if there is a skirmish, it is usually more comical than threatening and the off-duty officers always win. It's an improbable site and circumstance for success in a world of flash and fashion. But Walt's remains one of the nightclubs which has successfully outlived the "Urban Cowboy" fad. It's not the home of a mechanical bull or a room full of video games.

It's a dimly lit honky tonk with a dance floor in the corner full of gliding and bouncing cowboy hats couples either dancing to slow, sad country songs or bouncing along to good-time cowboy music, Walt's is small and neat, a simply designed cement-block structure once intended to be a restaurant. It's located on north Nebraska Avenue between Skipper Road and Bearss Avenue on a strip of two-lane highway known locally as "bar row." But in contrast to many lounges, inside this place the air is cleared by eight smoke-eaters hanging from the ceiling. You can smell a myriad of perfumes and after-shaves, along with the sweet smell of liquors and the sharp tinge of beer. The 1 If, y- jf sv I -4 Mil i tit in ii licity and the new listeners. But Bill Ford, programing director of WKHK-FM, New York City, questions the conviction of recent country music converts.

He's inclined to lump most of the new listeners together as "faddists" who have drifted from disco to punk to new wave, and now to country. There's no argument from his colleagues on this last point. In fact, they get downright ornery if one tries to put country into the fad music category with disco. "Disco was born on the big bang theory and has trailed away a burnt-See COUNTRY.Page 4D a deep red shirt contrasted by black a beard, boots, pants and a fancy vest he sang two slow ballads to loosen his pipes. Walt Meredith, owner of Walt's Lounge, proudly stands in the foreground of a sign which he feels made him famous in local country and western entertainment.

Photo by Fred Bellet See WALTS, Page 4D With Love, Lust, Lechery Soap Bubbles TV Preview "Behind the Screen," a soap opera about soap operas, debuts at 11:30 tonight on WTVT-TV, Channel 13. By WALT BELCHER I Tribune Staff Writer i CBS may have come up with the ultimate premise for a soap opera a soap within a soap. "Behind the Screen," which premieres tonight on Channel 13, follows the on- and off -camera relationships of the and producers of a fictional soap called "Generations." i But that's only the setting. This is not really about the making of a soap opera. It's about love, lust and lechery all the things that typify soaps.

The off-screen lives of these characters get more twisted than a Rubik's Cube, but the show has a couple of other things going for it it was developed by David Jacobs, the producer-writer who created "Dallas" and "Knots Landing," and it stars veteran film and stage actor Mel Ferrer, who plays the evil starmaker Evan Hammer. "Behind the Screen" is offered by the networks at 11:30 p.m. Fridays, but WTVT, Channel 13, will air it at midnight beginning Oct. 23. There's a special one-hour premiere tonight at 11:30.

Subsequent episodes will be a half-hour. "Behind the Screen" is a slick, well-edited, well- wholesome girl who racked up three beauty-queen titles in the late 1970s. The dark-haired Parks was Miss Hillsborough, Miss Tampa, Miss Florida and third runner-up in the Miss America pageant. Born in Orlando, she grew up in Tampa, attended Town 'N Country Elementary, Webb Junior High and graduated from Leto High. She also attended the University of South Florida.

Her parents, Jim and Libby 'La Belle, own La Belle's Showcase, a television sales and service store on Henderson Boulevard in Tampa. Tm on the phone to her every day," said Libby! La Belle. She says she helped her daughter get the part. While Catherine was pounding the pavement in Los Angeles, Libby was home watching TV and frantically writing down the names of writers and directors as the credits rolled by. La Belle said she saw David Jacobs' name roll by one night at the end of "Dallas." She called Hoi- lywood and got his address and then gave the information to Catherine.

It turned out that Jacobs was in the middle of casting for his new late-night soap opera and being partial to dark-haired women, he signed up Parks. "This a really a big break for me," Parks said. I was scared to death when I first came out here, I had intended to be a singer, but it worked out that theater turned out to be the best way to go for now." acted package which is about as good as a soap opera can get. And it also features a 24-year-old Tampa beauty queen in her first major, TV role. Catherine La Belle Parks, who left Florida last year to try to crack into show business, has landed a part in this series.

In fact, tonight's show begins by exposing Parks' lovely legs. The opening scene has her clad in a tight T-shirt while in bed with her lover. In a telephone interview from her Los Angeles apartment, Parks confessed that the opening scene was not as romantic as it might have appeared, what with all the cast and crew watching. "I was worried about how short that T-shirt was," she said. She added that it became one of the most dif-.

ficult scenes for her because they had to keep stopping the action to check out whether that T-shirt had everything covered. She plays the roll of "Sally," an actress on "Generations" who loses her lover to the lead of the show. Parks is quick to point out that her bedroom scene was only acting. She says she's still the same Parks, a 24-year-old Tampa beauty in tonight's premiere of "Behind the Catherine LaBelle queen, is featured Screen.".