>K.T. Oslin
BACK IN THE SWING
Her 1987 hit "80's Ladies" swept Oslin from a job as an advertising jingle singer into a country music career that would include four No. 1 singles and three Grammys. Recording only sporadically since the death of her mother in 1992, the Arkansas-born singer-songwriter was at work on a new album last year when she was hospitalized for quadruple-bypass heart surgery. Now 54, her health restored, she completed and recently released that album, My Roots Are Showing...(BNA).
Did you experience warning signs?
I started getting the classic pains running down my left arm and feeling like I'd swallowed an ice cube. I went to the doctor in the afternoon, and they operated the next morning. I was hours away from a big heart problem.
Was it a painful recovery?
It's an amazing thing. Other than being sore and hurting from surgery, I instantly felt better.
How do you rate country music today?
There's a cookie-cutter quality to it. Everybody has gotten very hip in marketing. And everybody knows how to be politically correct, and everybody's got their look. I can't tell you that anybody really thrills me. I love Alison Krauss. She's a little creature unto herself, like Emmylou Harris was. None of the boys are killin' me. I think the boys are really all chasin' after the same bone.
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