The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 355

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1999 www.herald.com 37G Top touring acts still can't get any radio respect BY HOWARD COHEN Jimmy Buffett gives up. Don't worry, he's still going to perform in concert. He's also going to release new albums probably more of 'em now that he runs Mailboat Records, his own Internet-friendly label that falls outside the traditional record company system. But Buffett has given up on the idea of ever getting radio to play anything new he puts out. He hasn't had a Top 40 Billboard single since 1979's Fins inched up to No.

35, and 1977's Margaritaville remains his only Top 10 hit. "Singles have never been an issue for me since 1977, when someone actually played that last one, so it's more about still making a record that fans like," Buffett said in a recent phone interview in which he discussed his latest CD, Buffett Live: Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays. Thankfully, his legion of fans continue to like him just fine. In fact, plenty of artists sell millions of tickets years after hitting the Top 40 for the last time. Here's a look at a few others in Buffett's boat: Grateful Dead.

At least Buffett had five Top 40 singles. The Dead had one, 1987's Touch of Grey, which crested at No. 9. But can you think of a more definitive touring act? The term coined to the phenomenon Deadheads led to Buffett's Parrotheads. The Rolling Stones.

The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, and that was also the last time Mick Jagger and Co. saw the Top 40, when that year's Rock and a Hard Place peaked at No. 23. So why do the Stones set box-office records every time the group mounts a lavish tour? Proven performers. James Taylor.

Buffett's friend, and another touring top banana, has an equally devoted fan base. But pop radio hasn't touched Taylor since 1981's Her Town Too. And, like Buffett, his last Top 10 single (Handy Man) also dates to 1977. Tori Amos. She has never had a Top 40 hit her outthere style suggests she never will.

But Amos is one of rock's busiest live acts and she easily sells out mid-sized halls. Neil Diamond. I'm Alive, he sang in 1983. But after that hit, his Top 40 days flatlined. No problem.

For almost 30 years, his tours consistently rank among the Top 10 concert attractions on the road. Tony Bennett. He hasn't had a Top 40 single since 1965's If I Ruled the World, but he probably has a wider fan base now than at any time during his original heyday. A March performance at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts sold out. Bette Midler.

Shows on NOERT the diva's current U.S. tour are among Amusement Business' weekly ranking of Top 10 grossers worldwide. Her last hit? From a Distance, in 1990. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Jacksonville Southern rockers remain one of the top touring acts in the country a September concert at the National Car Rental Center and a show last fall at Coral Sky Amphitheatre drew heavy crowds yet the group's last Top 40 hit, What's Your Name, hit the charts in December 1977, a little over a month after a plane crash killed members of the original band.

Gordon Lightfoot. Canadian troubadour still sells out shows in his homeland and his North American jaunts like the one in 1996 at Broward Center sell well. After six Top 40 hits, the sun went down on Lightfoot with radio when 1978's The Circle Is Small ran its course. Pet Shop Boys. The British duo hasn't hit the American Top 40 singles chart since 1988's Domino Dancing, but last month's Nightlife tour sold out mid-sized venues from Miami Beach to New York.

Jimmy Buffett the Coral Reefer Band: 8 p.m. Thursday (lawn seats only) and Dec. 11 (sold out); Coral Sky Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansbury Way, West Palm Beach; $26.50 (festival lawn); 561-793-0445. Shania Twain Shania Twain goes international with pop radio remixes of CD BY HOWARD COHEN Shania Twain isn't the first singer to flash a belly button, but no other toned tummy has taken a performer this far. As if 11 million in certified shipments for Twain's 1995 CD The Woman in Me wasn't impressive enough (it was by far the most successful album by a country female artist in history), her third CD, 1997's Come On Over, has shipped 14 million copies.

With those numbers, Twain is even outselling her Canadian pop peer Celine Dion, whose last two albums sold only 10 million copies apiece domestically. To further broaden her market, Twain's label, Mercury, has just issued Come On Over International Version, a CD that shifts the running order of the songs and features the poporiented radio mixes of hits like You're Still the One, From This Moment On (sans Bryan White's cloying duet vocal) and the dancey That Don't Impress Me Much that we've been hearing on Y-100 all year long. It's this version of the CD, actually, that closely approximates what listeners outside of North America have had all along. While these familiar mixes don't do anything to erase the memory of Twain's truly insipid lyrics, International Version is the better album. By stripping away the forced country instrumentation (like fiddles and strings) that always made Come On Over feel condescending, Twain's music is revealed for the finely crafted pop it really is.

Sure, it's all soundalike and gimmicky, but in this form it's also hard to resist. Need more proof? Twain returns to the Coral Sky after filling it late last year. On Thanksgiving night, CBS aired Twain's Come On Over, her second network special of the year (this one a concert from the Texas Stadium), and the men at the holiday dinner I went to had their VCRs running warmer than the bird at our table in anticipation of catching the show later. The wives didn't seem to mind too much Twain is undeniably attractive, yet there's nothing really threatening about her. She sings songs of female empowerment (Any Man of Mine, Honey, I'm Home, If You Wanna Touch Her, for all her sex appeal there's a curious detachment to Twain's stage act.

You can look but you can't touch. Sounds like Twain's next hit. Shania Twain with Shane Minor: 7:30 p.m. Sunday; Coral Sky Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansbury Way, West Palm Beach; $35 (festival lawn); 561-793-0445..