What to Leave In, What to Leave Out

Too much to do this week!
Things I *am* doing:

Chesney 25 Million Party tomorrow
Montgomery Gentry interview tomorrow
Chris Thile (Nickel Creek) studio special today (man, there are days I want some of what he's smoking!)

What I've had to pass on:

BBQ with Alan Jackson (listening party for the new CD, I have it, no need to have him watch me listen to him, right?)
Chesney Round Robin interview
Pat Green show
Brad Paisley / Carrie Underwood bus trip

Things that might still be on my agenda:

Interviewing Marty Stuart at the Opry House on Thursday.

The Hall of Fame staff was all abuzz this morning about last weekend's Opry show. Apparently, there were NO Opry Members on the televised portion of the Opry Saturday night - I'm told that's the first time that's ever happened. Pat Green hosted the show - I'm not sure he's even played there before. Big & Rich, Cowboy Troy, and Danielle Peck. Odd.

Oprah debuted this morning, I listened to the first hour or so of the channel. At various points in the 6 years I spent directing news for NBC stations, I'd do newscasts right out of her show, so I'd see parts of it. She has certainly changed a lot since then. I also watched the very amusing hour long commercial for XM 156 on Larry King Live tonight. I was highly disappointed that Larry did not rave over his past visits to the XM Studios -- I've hosted 2 of his 3 visits (NYC and Nashville.) I'm sure it was simple oversight, it was hard for him to get a word in edgewise with all those gabby women around. Larry was wearing cowboy boots on the set.

Meet - Macy!

I didn't buy the black cocktail dress I wanted because I didn't have a big enough suitcase. Macy, however, followed me home.

The Clean Hair Act

I'm packing for my trip tomorrow. One night, easy. I have to take my laptop, so that requires a certain case, but other than that, I have it down to a science. Change of clothes, PJ's, toothbrush, can of hairspray, and a small assortment of travel sized lotions and potions.

However, there are these new regulations now... better check them out. No toothpaste. Ok, the hotel will have some on hand, I'm sure. No shampoo, which sucks, since Marriott's shampoo smells funny. No conditioner... that's a problem. As much hair as I have... one teeny bottle usually isn't enough. No liquid makeup, but I have a pancake stick somewhere... I can live with that in the name of national security. No hair gel or mousse... my new perm is gonna be all frizzy. Lovely. Let's hope the humidity is down. Gotta take out the body wash too. Bet the hotel doesn't have anything vanilla for me. Not even gonna smell their lotion, it will be all unisex and boring. No liquids, fine, but no aerosols either? What the heck? *sigh* No hairspray. I'll just buy a can there and leave it in Ray's office for the next time I'm crazy enough to think about getting on an airplane.

Wait, wait, wait. NO BEVERAGES? These crazy people think I'm getting on an airplane at 6:45 in the freakin' morning WITHOUT a cup of coffee or a can of Mountain Dew? Have they lost their MINDS? This has gone too far. I'd write my congressman, but he's on the way out and doesn't give a damn.

I'm certainly going to sleep better tonight knowing that our government is hard at work protecting our citizens from clean hair and fresh breath. Wouldn't want the minty smell to overpower the flight crew. When I think about it... there's no telling how dangerous those rivets on my button flys might be. Better take them out too.

This is what I think I'm safely allowed to fly with. I don't need a suitcase, I need a bandana, so I can tie all my belongings up into a hobo's napsack. If I didn't have a show to write, I'd leave the laptop behind and do just that.


Who recognizes the CDs I am delivering to the music library on behalf of Bluegrass Junction? :-D

Sunday Schmooze

Heigh ho... heigh ho... it's off to work I go....

There was a private event at the CMHOF tonight for the Eating Disorders Coalition that featured a fashion show and a performance by Sara Evans. Prior to the event she met with the media for a Round Robin with radio and a few television interviews.

Sara has a very dry sense of humor. Deadpan, is that what it's called? For instance, someone asked her about being criticized by the judges and she said "Well I'm married, so I'm used to it." I'm not sure that always translates well on the radio when you can't see her smiling. But anyway... a few things that will hit the press in the morning...

- She's invited her Dancing with the Stars partner (who also popped in at the end of the Round Robin) to walk the CMA Red Carpet with her

- She was pretty outspoken about Tom Delay's email campaign for her. She didn't know he did it until she saw it on CNN, and heard what he had to say about Jerry Springer. (I need to find that email he sent.) She did have wonderful things to say about Jerry, and said she thought the reason the judges were so horrible to her was because they saw the coverage of that email and thought she was a right wing conservative snob. To which she says "My husband is in politics, I'm not."

- The guy who designs her dresses for Dancing with the Stars is going to design her CMA outfit. She talked about the costumes and how there were things she didn't want to wear and things she didn't want to show. I wish I had a camera with me to show you her red bra that she was showing all of us by having her shirt unbuttoned to her belly button.

I think that's about it. Although the REAL Kodak moment was Storme Warren, who was in the Fashion Show. The stylist did something with his hair that looked like he was joining Rascal Flatts. I totally didn't recognize him.

Just for fun, I put on the ACM dress discussed below to wear to the event. It zipped and everything! But I had to weigh the options of looking good versus breathing. I chose breathing.

Country AND Cool

Once upon a time, when I worked for a website called CountryCool.com I was backstage at the Wildhorse for an interview with this brand spanking new boy band trio and they twisted the lyrics around to "I Was Country..." to include CountryCool.com. Thanks to the WayBack Machine, you too can travel back in time to that night (although unfortunately they don't have our video, and tragically, I don't have it anymore either.)

You know what struck me as wild when I went and looked at that site? 2 Things really... First off - I'd totally forgotten that Hazel had written for them too, I didn't know her back then. And secondly, we carried the internet stream of WMZQ in Washington, which is the station Jon Anthony was at for the 8 years before coming to XM. We were working together years ago, and didn't even know it!

Since I've posted photos in the last week of Jon and I both looking enormous next to little short people, I thought I'd post a picture of us together where we look semi-normal, and you can see I'm wearing ridiculous heels, which didn't help my picture with Barbara any. I've since deleted the picture of me and her, LOL, but this was taken the same night. No one even giggled about my picture of Barbara and Mrs. Kenny Chesney in the Funny Flashback??

Speaking of Kenny - I saw his mini-movie tonight. Hatless! I was shocked. Hubby asked if Vane was really hispanic... I haven't met her, but I didn't think she was, although she's got some sort of exotic, potentially foreign look. She's beautiful, that's for sure. Although I thought he'd learned his lesson about putting his girlfriends in his videos.

Have you heard ShortCuts yet? (Those of you who wanted to :-P ) I listened to most of it on the treadmill at the gym Friday night, and thought it sounded pretty cool. Of course, I may be biased. ;-)

And on a semil-related note, I just saw the video for MG's "Some People Change" for the first time. (I've GOTTA get TiVo.) I thought the tent performance scenes were a little off from the really poignant scenes in the verses... didn't quite have the right feel to them. But I do love Troy's vocal performance on this song.

Ok, on to the meat of this post, which is Friday's event for Barbara Mandrell. The "reception" thing was actually a press conference staged for the show that GAC is doing on the making of this album, She Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool (A Tribute to Barbara Mandrell.) So that was wierd... we had to stage the clapping for her entrance, and it was all choreographed. It wasn't a press conference, it was a television shoot. Barbara's parents were there, and Irby got up and spoke, which was really cool. He was hysterically funny.

It was a small crowd - 100-120 people or so, but it was all heavy hitters. I've looked for coverage on CMT.com but don't find it yet. Ed was there, so maybe Monday. Barbara spoke quite a while, and was really just classy. They unveiled the album cover, and we all got advance copies of the album.

Reba, as you'd expect, does a killer job on the title track, and Kenny pops up in the cameo performance that George Jones does. He gives a really good vocal performance, although he obviously doesn't have the "presence" of Jones when he pops up. The standout track on the project though is LeAnn Rimes doing "If Loving You Is Wrong." She nails it. When we talked to Barbara later she pointed it out as being one she was really proud of. Dierks does a great job on Fast Lanes and Country Roads too - I need to use that song in a Road Trip sometime.

Following the press conference there were 5 of us taken into a conference room for a Round Robin interview with her. ABC Radio, CMT Radio, Westwood One and X Radio were there, plus me. We each got 2 questions, and all agreed we could have gone another hour. Not that I expected any less, but Barbara was so gracious, and really sincere and genuinely appreciative of the artists doing the project.

My 2nd question to her was talking about how some artists make a career out of retirement and the never endng farewell tour... I asked her to explain why she was so adament about not picking up a microphone again and to tell her fans how she felt about the decision 9 years later. She about had us all near tears as she talked about going out on top of her game and what her life was like now. It was a very passionate and emotionally charged response. And then... came the follow up.

The girl sitting next to me was from CMT Radio. And she broke down telling Barbara about seeing her in Branson when she was 12 and telling her dad "I can do that. Someday I'm going to go to Nashville." And she asked Barbara if she knew how many people she'd inspired. It was quite the moment. The girls in the room are all crying at that point. Reminded me of the days my neighbor Jenny and I would sit on the roof of my playhouse and sing "You can eat crackers in my bed anytime" even though we had no idea what that meant.

When we wrapped up she hung out for a few more minutes talking, and one of the guys did his Reba impression for her, which cracked her up. Before she left she stopped and thanked each of us for being there, and said something to us individually. Barbara Mandrell thanked me for asking such good questions. That's gonna rank right up there as a career highlight.

Mission Accomplished!

One of the coolest things about my job, to me, is the people I get to meet that I'd never get to meet otherwise. Today I met someone who indirectly influenced my even being here in Nashville. And I got to tell him that. That's cool.

I was raised on the country music of the 70's and early 80's, and was making music videos in my head to Statler Brothers songs long before TNN came along. My mom had every Statler Brothers album ever recorded. Just about every Statler Brothers album ever recorded was produced by musical legend, Jerry Kennedy. And today, I got to thank him for the music. What a sweet man. He told me of all the people he's ever worked with (and the list is long!) The Statlers are his favorites, because they were so much fun.

Jerry was there to celebrate with his son Bryan Kennedy, who was one of the four co-writers on "Good Ride Cowboy." Another cool thing about what I do is I get into events early, before the crowd arrives. So we had about 45 minutes with Garth and the writers before things got crazy. Bryan admits the whole confusion on the "Navy Brat / Air Force Brat" was his fault. It got a big laugh from all of us sitting around the picnic table with them (the event was held at a BBQ joint) as he admitted he was a journalism major, and said "lesson learned - double check your facts!"

Bryan has a great play called "Toe Roaster" that we talked a bit about privately, I know a lot of you have seen it. It was funny, when I introduced myself and told him I was with XM, one of the first things he asked me was if I was Wil and Langdon Reid's friend. It all goes back to the Statler Brothers! (Wil and Langdon are the next generation of Statlers, also known as Grandstaff.)

Three of the four co-writers on the song were celebrating their very first #1, including Garth's longtime manager, Bob Doyle. I got to talk to Garth and Bob about how it had all come full circle, since they met when Garth was a new writer in town, and Bob was working as ASCAP. The Q&A session was really fun, with Bob and Bryan and Garth cutting up a lot with each other. The two BMI writers, Richie Brown and Jerrod Nieman, also celebrating their first #1, were a little stunned by the whole experience, the only time they spoke was to talk about how they'd grown up as Garth fans. Garth was beaming like a proud papa every time their names were mentioned in the presentation.

Not much news-wise to come out of the event, except that Garth said "You've only seen the tip of the iceberg with Wal-mart." He's going back to raising kids again until fall, when they start promoting the next project for the Christmas season. (Rumored to be concert DVD's.)

To answer some of the questions that I've gotten via email:
- No Trisha was not there. Nor the girls, nor his dad.
- No the LeDeux family was not there.
- Yes I got a close up look at his wedding ring, and yes, it's the same one from the statue. Very pretty.
- Places to be watching for coverage: The Tennessean, CMT Insider, CMT.com, CMT Canada, Country Music Across America, channel 4 and 5 in Nashville (saw myself on TV tonight, LOL) and all the usual radio prep services / syndcated outlets. Although maybe not so much in radio... the audio quality wasn't very good in the venue.

Also in the crowd: Scott Walker from the Nashville Predators, (a member of Teammates for Kids), Hazel Smith, Keech Rainwater (from Lonestar) behind the camera for his expectant wife Elyssa, and songwriter Gordon Kennedy, Bryan's brother. (Really, how much talent should one family be allowed?)

I did not personally see anyone from Capitol Records there, although they might have been, it was crowded. Garth thanked them too, from the stage, and told them he loved them. I was standing next to Dale Turner from Lyric Street, who he thanked profusely for getting the song to number one.

Oh! And I'm sure it's no surprise to the GarthNutts that Garth was wearing his Chris LeDoux hat. :) And an orange MoBetta sweatshirt. I did not take pictures, although there were a few people there with cameras, and as the party wound down there were people standing in line to get their picture taken with Garth, which is NOT something that happens at the typical Music Row party. I went to a party, and a meet & greet broke out!

I don't have a cute title for this post. But I wanted to tell you about my buddy Thom Shepherd's show tonight at the Bluebird Cafe.

Thom is a songwriter. He wrote Riding with Private Malone, which went #1 for David Ball in 2001, and Redneck Yacht Club which just went #1 for Craig Morgan. We also got to hear a song called Man's Job that he just wrote a couple of weeks ago, and Montgomery Gentry has already cut it. Thom has put out a few CD's himself, his music plays on XM 10, America. He's really just a great guy, always, always, ALWAYS has a smile on his face.

I've seen Thom play at several clubs around town over the years, but tonight was a pretty special show, and not just because it was at the legendary Bluebird Cafe. This was Thom's first gig in several months, having just completed 9 weeks of chemotherapy. He looked great, a cowboy hat covered up his bald head, but nothing could cover up his big smile.

Boat Drinks

One of the coolest events of CRS week, in my humble opinion, is the RCA Label Group dinner cruise. It's also the joke of CRS week... folks talking about how RLG holds you hostage and forces you to listen to their artists. I think the people complaining are the ones who aren't invited. I ain't gonna complain about being wined and dined while listening to some of the biggest artists in country music give me a free concert. It's my favorite event of the week.

The premise is simple. They load up about 700 invited guests, mostly radio folks from out of town, onto the General Jackson, and sail the Cumberland River. (Unlike many places... our riverboat actually sails, and does not have any slot machines on board!) They give you a full dinner, and an open bar.

This was the 20th anniversary of the RLG boat, so what they were asking artists to do was their first hit, and their most recent hit. Most of them complied. The ones that didn't apparently weren't sober enough to follow directions.

Randy Owen of Alabama did the intro for the night, and Brooks & Dunn kicked off the performances. They did Brand New Man and Believe. Ronnie, wearing a 1974 Rolling Stones t-shirt, admitted that "this is a wierd song to lay on you right now," as he performed their latest hit, but it earned them a standing ovation.

Funny little B&D interaction:
Ronnie: "You're in radio these days aren't you? I never did trust you."
Kix: (New host of American Country Countdown) "You might want to start listening to the show."

Phil Vassar, who is one of the most energetic entertainers we have in country music and is badly overlooked by the industry and the media, did Carlene and his new song "Last Day Of My Life." What a great song that is! Phil did not climb on the grand piano, but he moved around so much I never could get a decent photo of him.

In between the superstars, the label trotted out their new artists, most of whom did one song. Because that's all they had. Jamey Johnson did The Dollar.

Next up was Lonestar, who performed No News and I'll Die Trying. Which really should be packaged with Phil's Last Day of My Life in some sort of marketing bundle with roses and chocolate.

An artist who shall remain nameless came next to perform their debut single. I think this artist's career died right there on the stage over cheesecake and chocolate mousse.

Carrie Underwood pretty much stole the show with her performance of Jesus Take the Wheel. She gets the award for coolest outfit of the night, I wish I had a good shot of her Jeans. Joe Galante, head of RLG, came out onto the stage and talked about the zillions of albums Carrie has sold, and the single spending 6 weeks at #1. He said Carrie keeps asking 'Shouldn't I be getting a plaque or something?' She was presented this really cool double platinum heart shaped plaque, commemorating 2 million copies of Some Hearts. She got all teary eyed. This was probably the coolest RIAA plaque I've ever seen.

Blaine Larsen did not follow the 'first hit / latest hit' rule, but since he wasn't old enough to be drinking we're not going to blame it on alchohol. He did his current single, "I Don't Know What She Said." Hysterically funny. I hope this one is a hit!

A new five member group called The Lost Trailers was next up. They were great. First single is going to be called "Chicken Fried." They were part of one of the Willie Nelson shows I did this summer, either the 4th of July picnic or Farm Aid. Their name comes from having their equipment trailer stolen. Three times.

Ronnie Milsap kicked off the Mega Star portion of the show. I love seeing him perform. He did Pure Love and a new single, Local Girls. He's working on a country album for RCA.

Martina McBride came out after that, and performed The Time Has Come and her current single from Timeless, the Johnny Cash song I Still Miss Someone. I talked to Martina a little bit before the show, thanked her for doing the XM Christmas commercials. She changed into a slinky black dress and 5" heels for her performance.

The real treat of the night came next, when Ronnie Milsap came back out and performed "I Can't Stop Loving You" with Martina. Wow. Another standing O.

Joe Galante came back to the stage to present Martina with a platinum plaque for Timeless, telling how she pitched the idea to him at 2am after an evening of dinner and drinks at her house.

The boat was docked by the time it was Kenny Chesney's turn to perform. Accompanied by 2 accoustic guitar players and a pianist he did accoustic renditions of Livin' In Fast Forward and The Good stuff. RLG is keeping the Nashville picture framers in business, giving Kenny a plaque for 25 million CD's sold.

The evening closed with Alan Jackson making his first ever performance on the boat. (Is there an excuse for that?) He'd drank just enough to be funny, but not enough to be slurring his words and forgetting the lyrics. He started by showing some love to the radio industry. "I appreciate y'all finding a spot for me. My wife had a job, my first single died, then this song came out and saved our lives." He then started into his first hit "Here in the Real World." Midway through he waved the band to a stop, saying "we're putting everyone to sleep, let's do something else." They then launched into Don't Rock the Jukebox followed by Five O'Clock Somewhere. (AJ improv'd the line "What would Kenny Buffett do...")

And five o'clock is quittin' time, no matter where it is!