The Country Music Family

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville.

Music City is awash in nostalgia tonight.. The Playin Possum tribute to George Jones event. Over 100 stars from six decades take the stage to give a musical salute to one of the Country genres greatest singers.

Backstage at rehearsals, it was a love-in! Hall of Famer Ralph Emery said he had never seen anything quite like it. A high school reunion meets a wedding party. Mood upbeat and genuine, not the plastic industry superficiality we get used to ... Laughter, hugs and kisses, joy seeing people you haven't seen in a decade or two.

That is the Country music that I fell in love with in the early '80s. Like Kid Rock and many in the non-Country world, it was the kindness and real family that you saw and wanted to be a part of. The music was performed by people who then became a part of something bigger. No greater than when the song, "Will the Circle be Unbroken," is performed at some very special country event.

You would hope that the Opry and the Hall of Fame would do their function and be the focal point ... Cornerstone for the business and historical side of the Country genre.

It is what was so unique about Fan Fair. It was real and intimate. If we have lost anything with the dozens of Country millionaires created on stage and in the board room, it is the intimacy.

The old discussion ...You do need to live here or establish some type of beach head here before living someplace else. Comes up ... What would Nashville had been like today if everyone chose the Sugarland, Zac Brown, Toby Keith route? It is their right to live anywhere they like, but harder to be a family member when you live hundreds or thousands of miles away. A few can get away with it but when it becomes the majority then this becomes just something else.

9/11 brought people together in NYC so beautifully. Country music brings people together in Nashville.

It is a wonderful thing to see .

Much could be said for radio then versus now. The lack of intimacy ... Corporate business is cold and you don't even getting a ham for Christmas. More likely just a pink slip and not from Victoria's Secret.

I read somewhere everyone longs for the days of Mayberry. They were simpler and sweeter. Leave it to George Jones to show up what we are missing.

We don't live in Mayberry and things are not simple.

The year is slipping away. It was an odd year. I did get a new Iphone and Ipad. My life should be perfect.