Country Oldies, when you can find them on the radio, often come in one of two packages.

The bulk of the FM commercial outlets are heavy on ’80s titles and, increasingly, early ’90s songs as those become a little harder to find on mainstream Country stations. The ’70s are represented by a relatively small swath of titles, and the ’60s by only a few songs. On some Country stations, the ’60s and early ’70s titles are only those songs that crossed over—understandable in terms of what’s likely to perform well in music testing with a 45-year-old who didn’t grow up with Country radio.

Then there’s a lot of what’s available online, which overshoots the mark a little in the other direction—going heavy on ’40s, ’50s and early ’60s Country. Like a lot of Web-only formats, many Country Oldies stations have depth, but the feeling of playing music that is coded, but not curated.

George Wilson’s Memory Tunes is both the kind of station that ought to exist online and can only exist online. Technically, it’s not Country Oldies. It plays at least 50 years of music that also includes recent Americana titles, new versions of Country classics, and occasional AC crossovers. It’s billed as “Almost Country, Awesome Adult Music,” although if a station that plays the Boxcar Willie version of “King Of The Road” is “almost country,” you wonder what their version of stone country would be. Streaming for about six months now, it’s one of my happiest recent discoveries.

A veteran programmer, Wilson was the group PD of ’70s top 40 powerhouse Bartell Broadcasting; he then surprised Los Angeles in the early ’80s with KIQQ, which became a quirky Top 40 success story in between KHJ and KIIS-FM. Bartell’s ’70s “Q-format” Top 40s were the intense, high-energy, tight-playlist stations that made the Bill Drake model sound less boss by comparison. KIQQ was something else altogether, a long-playlist, all-current, anything-and-everything Top 40 that sometimes felt like a deliberate pre-Drake throwback in its pacing.

Memory Tunes is very much in the spirit of the latter station. It’s probably 80% music that you wouldn’t hear on a Country Oldies FM. But it has a clear, consistent aesthetic—which, to use a long-retired term, could be called “countrypolitan.” (And it wasn’t hearing a ’60s Country crossover that made me think that, it was Toby Keith’s recent-but-classic-feeling “A Little Too Late.”) And as somebody who discovered Country music in the mid-to-late ’70s, it’s been a treasure trove of the songs I want to hear again on the format.

Here’s a stretch of the station from last Tuesday (25):

Crystal Gayle, “Talking In Your Sleep”
Elton John, “Sad Songs (Say So Much)”
Toby Keith, “It’s A Little Too Late”
LeAnn Rimes, “I Fall To Pieces”
Speedy West, “This Ain’t The Blues”
Cal Smith, “It’s Time To Pay The Fiddler”
Billy Bob Thornton, “Smoking In Bed”
Jeannie Seely, “I’ll Love You More (Than You Need)”
George Strait, “Lovesick Blues”
Hoyt Axton, “Never Been To Spain”
Merle Haggard, “The Seashores Of Old Mexico”
Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler, “Poor Boy Blues”
Brook Benton, “The Boll Weevil Song”
Eagles, “Hotel California”

And here’s Memory Tunes on the morning of Oct. 31:

Anne Murray, “You Needed Me”
Rodney Crowell & Rosanne Cash, “It’s Such A Small World”
Junior Brown, “Long Walk Back To San Antone”
Patsy Cline, “Crazy Dreams”
Johnny Cash, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”
Brenda Lee, “I’m Sorry”
Dale Watson, “You’ve Got A Long Way To Go”
Bellamy Brothers, “Jalapenos”
Charlie Rich f/Janie Fricke, “On My Knees”
Roy Clark, “Thank God & Greyhound”
Moe Bandy & Becky Hobbs, “Country Side”