Holly Dunn is 53 today.

“Holly Who?”

Siddown.

Back in the mid-eighties, country-western was trying to shake off the last of the detritus of its dismal “crossover” era – the wretched stretch starting in the mid-seventies when Nashville became obsessed with trying to conquer the Top Forty pop charts.  It led to much of the worst, most banal, formless, most pre-processed country ever, bilge like Eddie Rabbit and Barbara Mandrell and such.

Into this vapid desert came a few performers who stubbornly stuck to the country’s traditional forms; Emmylou Harris, George Strait, Ricky Skaggs…

…and Holly Dunn.  Dunn – a San Antonio native and preacher’s daughter.

It was still a few years before the likes of Garth Brooks would yank mainstream country back to its roots.   In that interim, Dunn was a glorious little burst of unabashed honky-tonk twang.

Anything Gretchen Wilson does today, Dunn did twenty-odd years ago.

Dunn retired from music in 2003; she lives in the Southwest and works as an artist.

Anyway – happy birthday!

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.