The Ins and The Outs

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville.

Jack White ... The Kings of Leon ... the biggest stars of Christian music all list Nashville as home base.

Folks like Country icon Dolly Parton don't live in L.A. or East Tennessee; it's Williamson County, near a dozen other Country stars. Nashville is really music city like Hollywood is movie town.

Hollywood has been devastated by runaway production. Hard to find a movie these days not made in Georgia or Louisiana. The marketing and bosses are in Hollywood but they make it everywhere else. Not good for Hollywood in any regard.

When Country music gets out on a limb where it is right now, you get nervous. It swings from trend to trend like a monkey in the forest. The Urban Cowboy phase and now Bro-Country.

The only constant is change. The music will come back a little more to the center. The critics on the coasts have gone from yawn,to fans to yawn again. Too many trucks and dirt roads for the city slickers.

It's all good in recommended dosages. The all-men's club format of today is crazy. It can't stand.

It was getting too girly for a minute with Taylor and rebelled so good ... Now head back to the center.

Play Carrie and Miranda ... find something you like by Kasey ... Sara Evans' new stuff is good...

Or split the format up and have a Classic Country-like format with Josh Turner, Strait and Alan Jackson, and a second Top 40 Country with limited talk and Bro Country music with a few teen girl singers ... We may be big enough now in some places for that to happen.

Rushing through everything ... no talk ... jukebox ... no remotes ... all Bro Country ... is not a life-sustaining broadcast investment.

Network radio on the other extreme ... study why it left in the first place and get back to me ... We are not going back to Arthur Godfrey on morning radio while my mom shells peas!

You often hear about the Country music family. This week we saw it again and again. Urban, Underwood, Gill, Womack, Milsap, Rucker, Nail, McEntire, Carpenter and many more raising $600,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The Grammy block party is in the week ahead where many of the behind-the-scenes folks come out and support the local Grammy chapter. Pretty much all the stars will do whatever they are asked by these institutions. It is a sense of community that you never want to see go.

It takes some effort to be part of a family. Artists such as Darius Rucker go the extra mile. Rucker comes to Nashville frequently from his home in the Carolinas to play the Opry and attend industry events. Carrie Underwood is another so respectful of Country institutions.

Taylor and Miranda always do the right thing.

There is no rock and roll family ... there isn't really a rock and roll headquarters...

Nashville is the home of Country music ... Artists who choose to live elsewhere do so at their own peril. You don't have to live here. It's just hard to be a part of the community if you don't. You have to go that extra mile like Darius and a few others do.

I hope it doesn't get to the point when more stars live elsewhere than here...

Last few years with Sugarland, The Georgia gang, The three Carolina singers and a few others did stay away from here for the most part. The Austin move, too ... we were close to the tipping point. Now we are the IT place ... Come here and live here and be a part of this great musical village. It is special!