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![’60s Country Essentials](/https/music.apple.com/assets/artwork/1x1.gif)
As it had done in the previous decade, country followed an analogous path to rock 'n' roll in the '60s. Just as rock reached a new level of pop-friendly studio polish early in the decade, so had country with the continuing success of crossover legends like Patsy Cline, Eddy Arnold, and Jim Reeves. Mid-decade, when The British Invasion was helping to bring rock back to its rough-hewn roots, Bakersfield boys like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens were likewise injecting some rawness back into country. And the late-'60s countercultural explosion that expanded rock in a million directions blew the lid off of Nashville too, as artists like Tom T. Hall, Roger Miller, and Glen Campbell began exploring more musically and lyrically complex avenues, coming up with new definitions of what country music could mean in the new American era.