Cold One Day ... Fired The Next...

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville

Axes falling again today on radio sales people in the Carolinas and all kinds of other media types everywhere. These are stressful times and if you can get past the personal trauma, which is painful, check out the Chapter 11s and mergers!

See the one about Live Nation and Ticketmaster getting together? One Congressman is speaking out loud that a federal anti-trust investigation might be in order. That would be a huge segment of the concert business run by one company. The last Administration didn't seem to stop any business deal. Let's see if this bunch will be any different.

It's Grammy weekend. You have to wonder how all the partying was affected by the cutbacks and economic gloom. A post-Grammy bump in sales will happen in the new week, but how big is the question. Who will benefit?

Last-minute big names have been added ... Stevie Wonder, Keith Urban, Neil Diamond and many others. The music business needs a big ratings night and someone needs to catch fire and sell some CDs and downloads.

The Grammy event saw at least a dozen big named Country stars. Many other figures of smaller name value attended the Clive Davis party and Lifetime Achievement honors for people like Gene Autry and Brenda Lee.

Whitney Houston is making a comeback ... I wish her well. One of the great voices before she tossed it all away.

"Idol" rolls along. Still haven't seen a lot of future Nashville homeowners, but it's still very early. Several "Nashville Star" alumni are in the running still. Some of the men overall are good this year.

Taylor Swift's plane is still flying higher than the rest. The CBS Katie Couric special was a good hit for her and the others.

One month down, 11 to go. I know we all are concerned and troubled by the economy and how the government is dealing with the issues. Depressing to see how lost both sides seem to be.

iTunes got a shout-out from Paul McCartney this week. The former Beatle said that Capitol Records and iTunes are still negotiating. It doesn't sound good ... but you never know.

If you don't have an i Phone you are missing out on at least the application part of the phone. That is cool. Someone put a 99-cent Country Music News application, but I didn't do it. Called True Country. A group out of L..A is using a horror actress as the host. Ugh...

I love Gone Country 3 ...DVR it ... Good mix of people and the show is well done. John Rich is more comfortable in his father role and it works.

Hooray for Pat Green and his new CD; that boy is going to be a big star yet!

Miley and the Olympic swimmer had bad weeks with their behavior. Sales continue to be very anemic in country and pop. The Boss only sold 211,000 after a huge Super Bowl bump.

Why was there so much lip-sync interest post-Super Bowl for Faith and Jennifer Hudson.?

The Boss was fun at the Super Bowl and he's coming to Tennessee for Bonnarro... Tickets went on sale Saturday, Feb. 7th and probably sold out even with a crappy economy.

Twenty years ago, Music shows got first looks at the class of 1989...Garth, Travis Tritt, Clint Black and Alan Jackson ... What a different place those four made ... and it's going different again. Technology will change what Garth did not.