Don't forget that country music goes up and down. In the early 80s, after the execrable Urban Cowboy years, country was pronounced dead, rotten. That was just before Ricky Skaggs, Randy Travis, Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith, the O'Kanes, Lyle Lovett, the early Clint Black, the Desert Rose Band, etc. The late 80s and early 90s were a Golden Era of country.