Country Stars Shed A Purple Tear!

Jimmy Carter in Auburn, Alabama

Here on the campus of Auburn University where Kenny Chesney starts his stadium shows this weekend...

But it was Prince upstaging Kenny on Thursday. And I'm sure Kenny didn't mind; in fact most of the superstars of Country had something to say about the passing of the Purple One.

Faith Hill might've said it best: I can't imagine my teenage life without the music of Prince!

You heard that more than once this week; it was "Purple Rain" that I danced to the first time with a girl during my junior senior prom in high school.

The MTV stars of the early '80s were highly influential on the Music Row stars of today.

It is hard to get your hair or your arms around someone being influenced by both Merle Haggard and Prince, but it's true.

Keith Urban and Brad Paisley I'm sure it admired his guitar ability. Hillary Scott said no one comparable; Darius Rucker said he was one of my musical idols.

How many times have we seen it on Music Row? A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and you get a new sound. Prince was a little bit of Rick James, a little bit of Sly and the Family Stone, a lot of James Brown and a lot of Michael Jackson!

Prince Rogers Nelson took those influences and sold 100 million records.

Luke Bryant dedicated some Instagram space to Bretz; everyone did a little something for him in the past 24 hours. All the stars that go up on stage every night, they look at someone like Prince and they are in awe ... he was the master of modern pop.

Was he weird or just shy or maybe a little both? The guy knew how to refresh that brand. He knew how to reinvent himself ... after all, he had a 40-year career. I don't think any of us knew exactly what we were seeing at any given time; he was so far out front and sometimes so far over the top.

You don't see innovation and creativity like that very often; he was an artist's artist.

He wrote 50 pages of his memoir recently; it's almost like he knew that his end was near.

As the veil is removed from this very secret character, we will learn a lot and we will be impressed by the creative world of this Prince Rogers Nelson.

Life goes on ... George Strait is back on stage in Vegas this weekend and Kenny Chesney is back on his stage at Jordan Hare Stadium in Auburn, the first of his very successful stadium shows of 2016 ... Luke Bryan wrapping up the fourth of four shows in the state of Montana...

Merle Haggard and Prince ... will be very interesting to see how they salute them at the Grammys in 2017.