Fallen Angel

It's almost 10 Thursday morning when the Navy's Blue Angels screamed across Music Row with their famous smoke trails giving the downtown workers are thrill....

It would be the last show flight for USMC Captain Jeff Kuss. At 3:01p, seconds after take-off, his F/A 18 failed. The plane crashed into a golf course. Hunter Hayes was at the Smyrna Airport for a VIP ride. It was a great tragedy ... The Blue Angels are now grounded ... No performances until they figure out what happened.

Country music has hooked up with the military as long as there has been Country music.

A Thunderbird crashed Thursday about the same time but the pilot ejected. A half-dozen Army 1st Calvary soldiers killed in a high-water accident at Ft. Hood, TX.

Radio is where most people heard about these tragedies and it is radio at its best when it informs and soothes the emotions when events like this happen.

The seven days have been a whirlwind with many tours hitting the road in North America, among them Keith Urban and The Dixie Chicks.

The Chicks made international news today when the media picked up on their Donald Trump jab in their show as they play "Goodbye Earl." On a huge video screen behind the girls/band, as the history of abusive men go by ... The Donald pops up ... complete with horns and drawn on moustache and goatee. Natalie has been public with her dislike of Trump. I guess this was predictable.

It's been 13 years since they first stepped in the political septic tank.

It's been almost 25 years since Billy Ray Cyrus was the King of Fan Fair with his song, "Achy Breaky Heart." That song was a big as they come ... He was being offered million-dollar dates to come and play it. (A million for a gig was impossible money in 2003)

Billy Ray will be all over the place in the next week before his new CMT show debuts, Still the King. Billy will sing with Cheap Trick Wednesday night at the CMT Awards.

That show will be duet heavy: Bill and Cheap Trick, Blake Shelton and The Oak Ridge Boys, Dierks Bentley and Elle King, and Keith Urban with Brett Eldredge and Maren Morris.

The CMA Music Festival is unofficially a week of events. The actual festival is from Thursday to late Sunday Night. Many other events take place starting Monday ... Fundraisers with Tim McGraw and Darius Rucker on Monday and Tuesday ... A big charity softball game on Tuesday ... and CMT Awards on Wednesday. It is the busiest week of the year for stars and their people ... (The #2 is CMA week.)

Luke Bryan played for rain-soaked fans at the Today show Friday ... Almost all of the Country A-listers are playing with GMA or Today between now and the end of September.

They say it's going to be a LONG Hot SUMMER! The weather may include hurricanes this year ... Political conventions ... huge music festivals ... Here we go!