'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."