Bring On The Next Randy!

The legacy of Randy Travis surfaced this week as the Country Music Hall of Fame announced the newest inductees. Three true legends.

Randy Travis was accepted as a new traditionalist. Could we be any farther from that today? Randy's music rebooted the business and opened the door for so many future Hall of Famers. It was TOO Country at the time. Randy was rejected by labels and kept pushing until it was the right time. From the singing cook at the Nashville Palace to the Hall of Fame. This will make a great bio movie someday. It does have everything!

The Top 40 programmers running "new" Country today would probably get no feeling about standing in the rotunda of the Hall of Fame. They are too busy chasing the next "Taylor Swift" ... By the way, a once-in-a-generation phenomenon.

The 125 or so plaques on that wall represent 100 years of American music. Rich characters and hard work. The soundtrack of a nation. The roots of Rock.

Fred Foster is now a Hall of Famer. I personally thought he was in the Hall already. What a resume! The pickers for the richest Country songs were also playing Rock n Roy. Rock and Country have merged and they are still merging. Tyler and others are nothing new really. It is okay.

What is not okay is the watering down of the music. Randy gave Country weight again. It was back to the basics in a modern presentation.

The bad pop music that is all over our Top 40 has to be rejected at some point, but with the programming machine in charge, not sure how that is possible. Chris Stapleton's fresh approach is not enough to turn the ship around.

Charlie Daniels was and is such a cool figure. He is ageless ... 79 and rolling as fast as ever. Such a deserving man of this honor. A class act ... always ready to help out a worthy cause. Veteran and patriotism at the top of his help list. There is so much to learn from the work and work ethic of these three Hall of Fame selections.

Turning this rap-bathed generation into Country music fans is a challenge. In this multi-cultural world we live in, Country music must evolve. It will but it needs to evolve around some of its roots and some of its great songs.

Instead of singing a ZZ Top classic rock song, "Tush," on the ACMs ...find a great Country song and have someone cool do it like U2 or Usher ... pick someone ... Imagine Bruno Mars singing "It's Only Make Believe," for example. We don't have to leave the roots to be cool. It is politically incorrect to say more...

The rotunda of the Hall of Fame is the top of the mountain. It would be a great place to go for regeneration. Find the true meaning of Country Music ... America's music and stop this race to the bottom of the pop barrel. The teens are revisiting The Beatles and Led Zeppelin these days ... Johnny Cash, too ... Cream always rises to the top ... It would be too obvious to say more.

And who decided to put the iHeartradio show on the same night of the ACMs ... That can't be a good thing.

And some award shows give out too many awards ... wow ... very few make it on to TV ... Award shows more and more are moving infomercials and the folks at home are figuring that out. Ratings and demos to be seen next week ... The times, they are a'changing........