During the past four months, the articles in this section have concentrated on specific topics within Country Music. Specifically, they have described some of the web sites on charts, record labels, magazines or the artists themselves. This month, I would like to do something different and offer a potpourri of various sites. We'll visit another artist site, a couple of radio station sites and a topical index site.
Country Music Artist Site
Ricky Van Shelton has been performing Country music commercially for over ten years. His first album, Wild-Eyed Dream, debuted in February 1987. The following year, he won all three major (CMA, ACM and Music City News) newcomer awards. Throughout his career, he has continued to win a long string of various awards, culminating in winning the Music City News Country Christian Artist award for the last three years (1995-1997). This is also a man of multiple talents as he has written a series of children's books, Tales From A Duck Named Quacker, and learned to pilot his own airplane to overcome his fear of flying.
Two years ago, Ricky Van Shelton walked away from the only record company that had produced his albums in order to make country music his way. He has recently released his latest album, Making Plans, which he produced using $80,000 of his own money. The album is being exclusively distributed through Wal-Mart, which surprisingly sells about 50 per cent of the country music in the U.S. This is a great album of traditional country music and sells at an unbelievably low price!
All this and much more can be found on the Ricky Van Shelton web site. There is an extensive collection of audio clips (using RealAudio) from all ten of his albums. There is an on-line store where you can order merchandise; but outside the link to Wal-Mart for the Making Plans CD, it is very low-tech. This site is well worth a visit. There's a lot of information on the artist. Take the time to listen to the music; I think you'll become a fan.
Radio Station Sites KVOO — Tulsa, OklahomaKVOO is a Country radio station located in America's heartland. Visitors to the site are greeted by the "News Ticker," a collection of news headlines and a brief local weather forecast. Also found on the front page is a featured KVOO personality and album review. You'll also find a menu bar to navigate to other covered topics including more detailed news coverage, weather, music news, an events calendar and "other stuff." Future expansion will include the capability to listen to live broadcasts over the Internet using RealAudio technology.
