Classic country

Mainstream country music hits from previous decades Classic country is a music radio format that specializes in playing mainstream country and western music hits from past decades. Repertoire The classic country radio format can actually be divided into two separate formats. The first specializes in hits from the 1950s through the early 1990s, and focuses primarily on innovators and artists from country music's Golden Age, including Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, George Jones, Kitty Wells, Charley Pride, Tammy Wynette, and Johnny Cash. The other focuses on hits from the 1990s and 2000s, some pre-1990s music, latter-day Golden Age stars and innovators such as Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck, Kenny Rogers, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Merle Haggard, to newer recurrent hits from neotraditional country and honky-tonk artists such as George Strait, Reba McEntire, Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and Randy Travis. History The format resulted largely from changes in the sound of country music in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, as it began moving to FM radio stations in and around major cities and absorbing some of the electric sounds of rock music; similar pre