Country Music's New Mecca

By ELIZABETH L. BLAND

It is 200 miles south of Kansas City, near the center of the U.S. but isolated from everything. You reach it by a two-lane highway that snakes through the Ozark Mountains with nothing but oak trees for company. You round a corner and -- Look! -- there is a line of campers and cars stretching to the horizon, crawling along a five-mile strip of neon lights that flash from theaters, motels and miniature golf courses.

Welcome to Branson, Mo. (pop. 3,706). This hardscrabble town attracts 5 million tourists a year, who drop an estimated $1.5 billion into local pockets. And in a recession-slowed summer when many travelers are staying close to home and spending less, business in Branson is up 5% from last year.

The draw: big-time country-music shows, enough to fill 24 theaters every afternoon and evening, with stars such as Mickey Gilley, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Mel Tillis and Reba McEntire, several of whom have moved to the area and own the theaters in which they perform. Nashville may still be the capital of country music, its recording and publishing hub, but Branson has become its Broadway. Says Mel Tillis (Heart Healer), who moved to Branson two years ago: "You go to Nashville, you see the stars' homes. You come to Branson, you see the stars."

Down-home hospitality keeps the audiences coming -- mostly from a 300-mile radius that takes in St. Louis, Memphis and Wichita, but increasingly from all across the U.S. Patrons can meet the stars' families in theater lobbies; Tillis' wife, for one, sells candy. Most of the performers sit onstage at intermission to sign autographs, and violinist Shoji Tabuchi heads to the parking lot after his show to wave goodbye to the tour buses. Prices are right too. You can still get a motel room for $40, and there are 6,000 campsites in town. Says Mary Nell King of Pocahontas, Ark.: "I've seen one Broadway show in the past 10 years. But we can get to Branson two or three times a year."

The appeal of the rolling Ozarks is not lost on the entertainers, most of whom have settled there after long, exhausting runs on the road. Even with 12 shows a week, Tillis considers life in Branson "a vacation." Says resident singer-comedian Jim Stafford, whose witty, whimsical show is in its second year: "It is easy to get burned out on the road. But here I live on the lake. I just drive in, play and go home."

Branson, too rocky to grow anything but "kids and tomatoes," has long been a tourist town. It drew its early visitors as the setting of the sentimental 1907 best seller The Shepherd of the Hills, now re-enacted nightly in an amphitheater. Things picked up around 1960 with the opening of Silver Dollar City, a turn-of-the-century theme park, and Table Rock Lake, a fish-rich creation of the Army Corps of Engineers. At about the same time came a country jamboree called the Baldknobbers, named for a legendary vigilante group, and still a top attraction. But it was not until 1983, when Roy Clark's Celebrity Theater began to bring big names to town, that the strip began its growth spurt.

Next spring will see the strongest surge yet: new theaters from Johnny Cash, Silver Dollar City and, perhaps, Andy Williams. Country is still king, but the newer shows have broader ambitions. Violinist Tabuchi's variety show, perhaps the most popular in town, downplays country and goes heavy on glitz. Says Ben Bush, a businessman who plans a two-theater complex next spring: "People want to be entertained. If that means less country music, then that is what it will take."

But city fathers have no intention of turning their town into another Las Vegas. Branson sees itself as a family attraction: almost every production has a flag-waving number, and there are several gospel shows. Jack Herschend, president of Silver Dollar City, points out that no blue shows have succeeded. "This is such a family place that anyone who tried to capture the off- color niche wouldn't work."

Some locals are less than thrilled by the heavy traffic -- and by the half- percent increase in sales tax passed last week to pay for new roads. Many more jobs are available than in the past, but most are seasonal and pay at or near minimum wage. "In the winter everyone sits around on unemployment," says Gary Evans, a vending-machine salesman. "Mostly, though, the attitude is, 'Don't bite the hand that feeds you.'

But there is no turning back the clock. Too many tourists have found a friendly, affordable mecca in Branson; too many nationally known performers, & some of whose hits are behind them, have found appreciative audiences. "It is an honest-to-goodness boomtown," says Stafford. "There are other places where this could be happening, but it's not. The gold rush is here." Spoken like a true pioneer.