I remember years back there was this big argument over the UK country charts as to what consituted Country Music.   Back in the 80's and early 90's Irish MOR country singer Daniel O' Donnell virtually took over the country charts and awards, and there was debate as to whether his releases should have ever been counted as country music and would therefore have to be removed from these charts. If I remember correctly, for a while Daniel's releases were banned from the UK country charts.

Apart from his pure Nashivlle recorded Last Waltz album - which was a really strong country release, most of Daniel's releases at this time were a mixture of classic country, 60's pop, folk and MOR - thus causing confusion in the classification system.

My own father Stewart Ross wrote a Scottish song called 'My Bonnie Maureen', which was included on the Daniel o' Donnell album 'From the Heart'.   'From the Heart' occupied the top Country slot and was in top ten British Country charts for years. The album won the Music Week top country album award for 1988 ahead of Nancy Griffiths and Steve Earle. This album contained 50's-60's Pop covers, Country, Irish and even my father's Scottish song.   So this shows the kind of dilemma in classifying music.   In my father's song's case you had a Scottish song, sung in Irish style on a top country album which crossed into the pop charts.