Welcome to Indie Country

Pam Tillis knew she was entering uncharted waters when she was recording her new album, "Rhinestoned," out Tuesday.

Though the balance of the disc is the kind of high-quality mainstream country she's been making since the '90s, there are some quirkier tracks -- a spoken-sung number called "Bettin' Money on Love," for instance -- that were truly liberating for her to put down on tape.

"There were a couple of songs on there that I have tried in the past to get the labels to let me record, and they just couldn't see it, mainly because a lot of the big labels want to cut 10 singles and I don't like albums that sound like 10 singles," says Tillis. "I don't even like the way that sounds."

She did, however, love the sound of recording those songs for her own start-up label, Stellar Cat.

And she's not alone.

Tillis joins a growing number of artists, both established and brand new, who in the past few years have decided to bypass the major labels in favor of independents, with the creative freedom and often more equitable financial arrangements they can offer.

What's surprising about this trend is that Nashville and country radio seem to be accepting these indie upstarts, breaking the decades-old chokehold the majors have had on playlists and offering a wider variety of options to listeners.

The names include up-and-comers such as Taylor Swift (who is on Big Machine) and Jason Aldean (Broken Bow), artists who kicked around in the majors before corporate musical chairs left them without a seat -- Jack Ingram (Big Machine) and Little Big Town (Equity Music Group), for instance -- and hit acts who decided to strike out on their own, like Toby Keith (Show Dog Nashville). These artists and others have watched their indie singles and albums hit the Top 20, garner gold and platinum sales, and score major award nominations.

That's big news for a musical genre that clings to old habits.

"Every once in a while there would be somebody who would break through, but not to the extent where you can now look at the Top 20 of our chart and, depending on the week, see a big number of independent artists," says Billboard country correspondent Ken Tucker.

Indeed, a glance at the current Billboard country music charts shows the indies' staggering penetration, with more than 20 percent of the top 75 albums and nearly 30 percent of the top 60 songs coming from artists on those labels.

To put it in context, when Alison Krauss -- who records for Burlington -based indie Rounder Records -- ascended to No. 6 with her 1995 hits collection, "Now That I've Found You," it was the first independently released album to hit the country Top 10 in 16 years.

"I think there was some resistance from country radio early on because of the perception of what indie meant," says Tucker.

What it meant was not nice, says Clint Black, who left RCA in 2003 to cofound Equity Music Group -- home to himself and Little Big Town, among others. Black, who's sold 20 million records and scored two dozen Top 10 country hits in his nearly 20-year career, says he knew people were thinking , "He's selling his own records out of his trunk and whoever else's trunk he can get to come over to his little record company."

And they probably were thinking that. Unlike in the rock and hip-hop worlds, "indie" has never carried hipster connotations in Nashville. The stigma of being an independent artist meant you were one of three things: washed up, a y'all - ternative act with either fringe or mostly noncountry appeal, or not good enough to play with the big boys.

This perception was promoted by the major labels themselves, which, says Ed Salamon, executive director of Country Radio Broadcasters, "were quite good at marginalizing anyone who was on an independent label and asserting if an artist was really good they would be on a major label." (Certainly, there have been exceptions, including the seminal and successful Sun and Curb labels.)

So how has radio, still the single most important factor in breaking mainstream acts, been almost fully cured of its phobia of CDs whose spines contain unfamiliar logos?

One word: consolidation. Severe belt tightening has affected the music industry over the last decade, and as the major labels went through mergers and corporate downsizing, heads rolled. Many of the displaced decided to take their know-how and hang out their own shingles. So, in part, this newfound open-arms attitude has less to do with the music than with who is running the show.

"After the major labels consolidated, not only did some of the quality artists find themselves without major label deals, but, almost more importantly in the marketing of the music, a lot of the quality executives who were at those major labels found themselves working for the independent labels," says Salamon.

In other words, many of the faces long trusted by country programmers are now simply entering the stations with new business cards.

Mike Kraski, president of Equity Music Group, is one of those trusted veterans who, along with others like Scott Borchetta, president/CEO of Big Machine Records, have likely surprised their former bosses at, respectively, Sony and Universal with the speedy inroads they've made.

"When I started Equity there hadn't yet been any rich history in independents being successful going toe to toe with the majors, so I think 'surprise' is probably a mild term," says Kraski, who worked with the Dixie Chicks and Little Big Town during his tenure at Sony. "Probably shock was more the prevalent sentiment."

"I think that we definitely have their attention," says Borchetta, who helped steer the careers of Reba McEntire and Keith before branching out on his own and scoring his first No. 1 with Ingram a mere eight months after starting Big Machine in September 2005. "I think they're looking at the business model and the overhead and how quickly we can move."

Light feet, more frugal approaches to recording, solid distribution channels, and the proliferation of Web-based marketing have all dovetailed nicely for the new Nashville indies. All of which translates to a faster return for both the label and the artist, and -- pleasant benefit alert -- a greater degree of creative freedom.

"We were a band that was all about finding an organic sound, and it seemed as if being at a big label you immediately don't have any leverage within the system," says Little Big Town vocalist Phil Sweet. "Nothing we do will ever be cookie cutter for country radio. Being at an independent, now you clear up a lot of that doubting and second-guessing and you make a clear creative decision about what's in your gut."

Which is good news for country music fans. With the rise of the indies, they can still enjoy artists they've loved for years, like Black and Tillis, while discovering new ones with different sounds.

"The next great hit can come from anywhere," says Salamon. "It's no more the advantage it used to be to be on a major."

"It's happening even faster than radio wants to acknowledge," says Borchetta. "People are moving quicker. . . . Online is moving quicker. But the reality is, as a whole, radio's a little behind the curve on where the passion is right now. But they'll catch up."

These changes don't "mean we don't swim upstream every day," says Kraski. "It's certainly harder for me to work a record up the charts than it is for the majors. But it's no longer because of a built-in bias, lack of belief, or a desire for us not to succeed."