the perennial, lucrative tension between genre and format proved decisive. Despite the “Southernization of America” proclaimed in the 1970s, country remains the one geographically separate wing of the format system. The Opry and Hall of Fame codify the past and provide continuity. Commercial radio maintains contemporary talent. Blue-collar men find primary voice in honky-tonk; office-worker women in what Lynn, Wynette, and Parton launched. Country singers can be Australian, like Keith Urban (succeeding Olivia Newton-John), or Canadian, like Shania Twain (succeeding Hank Snow). But within the
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