'Country Road take me home' -- to Jakarta

'Country Road take me home' -- to Jakarta

Jerry Norton, Reuters, Jakarta

It's prime time on a Thursday night in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, and millions are tuning in to state- owned TVRI to watch -- good old boys in cowboy hats belting out country and western tunes.

The programme is Country Road and for two hours a week it features a parade of Indonesian groups and singers who play mostly old U.S. hits in the original English, to appreciative studio audience members clad in checked shirts, jeans and boots, many of whom do a mean line dance.

That may not mesh with the images of Indonesia most recently seen on television news abroad -- a bloody bomb blast on the tourist island of Bali, anti-American demonstrations in front of the U.S. embassy, and Muslim militants saying the United States is the real source of global terrorism.

But despite such scenes U.S. culture has some deep roots in Indonesia.

Says Heru Samirono, head of the Country Road Club: "We have many American songs in Indonesia. We used to listen to the songs, but at that time we didn't know that it was country music".

Country Road -- which ends each programme with a rendition of the John Denver classic sung by the house band, guest musicians and audience -- has helped people identify the songs with the genre.

It was one of several weekly live music programmes TVRI began a little more than a year ago. "We then created the Country Road Club Indonesia, to help promote the TVRI country programme," says Samirono, a businessman.

Within its first six months the club had 650 members across Indonesia, he says. "Most Indonesians love cowboys and are influenced by American culture."

"We tend to like country music because there were a lot of Western movies during the '70s. The image of country movie stars riding their horses, it was very popular," says one man in the Country Road audience, jammed into an outdoor studio set that looks like a cross between a barn and a ranch house.

Aside from sparking the creation of a fan club, Country Road has drawn a heavy response in emails and phone calls, its producers say, and is second among five TVRI weekly live music programmes in advertising revenue.

However, although few of the other 10 Indonesian networks match the TVRI country-wide reach achieved in the days when its state backing gave it a near monopoly, the producers say they don't have a system that actually measures competitive ratings.

And no one is claiming the programme's popularity is making massive headway among the country's youth, whose dominant choice when it comes to music from the West is rock and pop, not country and western.

But there are exceptions. One of the bands regularly featured on Country Road is Eleven 0'C, whose five female members are all teenagers from the mountain city of Bandung, 140 km (85 miles) southeast of Jakarta.

Nineteen-year-old keyboard player Maya Permata conceded some of their friends found their taste in music a bit odd.

"They don't really know what country music was like. They'd say we play our mothers' songs."

But she said the group discovered that within country and western there were many types of music, including modern crossover songs with elements of pop and rock.

"We try to play the new version of country and western music, like modern and rock country, so that the young people can enjoy it," said lead singer Baby Asteria, 19, who also plays harmonica and bamboo flute.

When the group first came together two-and-a-half years ago the members were interested in becoming a performing band but not sure what kind of music they wanted to take up.

"We were given books on various types of music like jazz, Latin, rock, and western. We didn't have to pick one of them but to listen and try to play," said Baby.

"As we practised, country filled our hearts."