By C.E. Hanifin
The Cincinnati Enquirer

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The performers on Friday's Meijer Country Stampede lineup tipped their hats to a bevy of all-American institutions: the rodeo, good ol' girls next door, baseball and disco.

Yup, disco.

In the middle of his set, Neal McCoy veered from his country hits into a gleeful medley of '70s booty-shakers that included "Play That Funky Music," "Ladies Night" and a snippet of "Y.M.C.A."

About 24,000 fans showed up to hear country tunes on the second day of the annual music festival, a weekend-long event held at the Kentucky Speedway in Sparta. Nobody seemed to mind McCoy's musical detours, though, even when he landed squarely in power-pop territory.

The Texas-born singer, clad in a T-shirt proclaiming him to be "100% country," took on a cover of the Fountains of Wayne song "Stacey's Mom." McCoy punctuated his (almost) twang-free rendition of the hook-heavy hit with a down-home "Woooo!"

Joann and Robert Williams of Verona, Ky., came out specifically to see McCoy. Joann, 58, said she got a kick out of watching people dance along with the performer's unorthodox covers.

"Not everybody in country can slip into some of the songs he's doing," she said.

Chris Cagle, up before McCoy, and Chris LeDoux, who closed out the show, played their sets a little straighter.

Cagle's fiddle-spiked numbers honed in on his love for the U.S.A., the Lord and a woman who makes him feel good.

"I'm American born and country by the grace of God," he sang.

He's a baseball fan, too. During a version of Dobie Gray's "Drift Away," Cagle name-checked his favorite players, Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr.

LeDoux's tales of his adventures on the rodeo circuit harkened back to the early days of country music. The old-fashioned cowboy used his acoustic guitar and rough-hewn voice to spin yarns about life beneath the Western sky and the men who are "still out there ridin' fences."

E-mail chanifin@enquirer.com