105 By The River ... Country Music's Summer Is Here!

Right in the middle of the CMA Music Festival ... Carly Pearce and Luke Combs seem to be the breakout young artists ... if you can say that about anyone this year.

Blake Shelton owned the town Wednesday and Thursday as The Today Show helped him open the new fancy beautiful Ole Red. Blake smoked the transmitter with his Opry shows and won the big award at CMT. The BS Machine is rolling really good right now ... Stadium show Friday night along with fellow Opry Member and top female star Carrie Underwood.

Carrie has her CMA fan week down to a science ... Tuesday with fans and the Opry ... CMT Awards and stadium show. Her media appearances are very limited.

The CMA Festival has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. The downtown traffic and parking is near gridlock. Media relations have not been good this year as the stadium news conference was ended for some unexplained reason. Has this event gotten too big?

If you are an artist, you sort of go where they tell you to go ... baby artists even more so. Security is tough as it should be, but still not up to Grammy/Oscar level. None of the credentials have pictures to go with the names ... at least none that I saw ...

Corporate sponsorships and their logos are everywhere ... From Chevy to Budweiser, Madison Ave. is into trying to get in with Country music listeners.

It's a 105-degree heat index down by the river and that seems more normal than unusual. How is that a fun experience for fans?

If you are not capable of walking 10,000 steps a day, you better not try this event ... Good shoes and cool clothes are not an option.

Great to see Carly Pearce finally get the attention she deserves ... Newcomer Rachelle Wammack signed to Sony seems like a charmer.

All those honky-tonks downtown may be the biggest story ... Jason Aldean's opening got overshadowed by Ole Red but it's open and going ... I asked a top suit about the revenue figures we see in the press about these clubs ... Many, like maybe a dozen, pulling in over a million a month ... some 1.5 to 2 million ... 11,000 beers sold on a Saturday night at Tootsie's ...

There is so much money flying around Nashville right now ... every empty parking lot near Broadway is growing a building. Hotel rooms are $300-400 downtown with $50 a night/day parking because I just paid that much with tip to attend Blake Shelton's news conference ... NY prices in middle Tennessee ... How long can this pace keep going?

Finding a happy medium with the press needs to be a CMA work project. Red carpets are too long and lacking star power. Media is fed by star power and recognizable faces. Blake Shelton filled that need for one day ... but no famous faces, no ratings.

Stars bring in concertgoers and TV /Internet viewers. PR people and news people have jobs to do. Different jobs but same goals.

Stars need to help sell this great music. Spread around the love, but if this is going to keep growing, hiding behind walls is not going to be the right recipe.