Giving Back Never Hurts...

If there is one thing that I hope never goes out of style in the Nashville music community ... it's the charity. This week an amazing lineup of artists showed up to raise money to help pay for singer John Berry's cancer treatments. The chemo worked and John looked great as star after star sang for him. They raised over $300,000!

Then Luke Bryan threw a benefit at his downtown honky-tonk, raising $120,000 for various local charities.

Giving back is a lesson most all of the artists have learned. Show business in general is good. Garth has the sports guys stepping up more with his children's-based charity. And Country radio does so much well with St Jude's and other worthy causes ... It's just such a positive story. Everyone wins!

Let's go racing, boys ... Franklin Tennessee's Darrell Waltrip will call out those words at Talladega this weekend and then a few more times and he retires. The Hall of Fame NASCAR racer/broadcaster has always been close to Country music and his adopted state of Tennessee. Times change and DW is ready to slow down.

NASCAR's new racers are a lot like the 2019 Country stars. Musically they are not rooted in traditional Country, but '90s music they all grew up with. Rap with some Country and edgy rock. Older fans of both need to remind themselves of that when judging the "new" Country.

Did you see where the Opry owners, Ryman Hospitality, are getting with a large TV station group and creating a Country music streaming channel and over-the-air broadcast programs? Ryman sees an audience not being served and is going for it. The Opry folks own some amazing archives. It's great content so everyone should cheer that project on. I bet there are no shortage of ideas flowing post-announcement. A Ralph Emery-like Nashville Now would be great. That's my two cents.

Dick Clark's Bandstand and other archives are amazing, but the complicated rights process keeps most of that material in the vaults. It's a shame. The labels and the publishers weave a complicated, nearly impossible web. Someone needs to lead a way to make all this easier ...again, everyone will win ... no one wins with that material just sitting on a shelf.

Former Country music award winner Taylor Swift has been busy with new marketing and new music. Countdowns and personal appearances ramping up to fan-thrilling surprises. Aren't Taylor and Garth the greatest marketers in County music history? Both are so good at how they bring their music to market.

Stagecoach in Indio, CA is this weekend and with it the major outdoor touring season. Carrie's big tour wrapping up rehearsals and several others are already hitting the road.

Can Nashville get any hotter as the "IT" city? NFL Draft used many Country faces to engage potential viewers. ABC/Disney really wants this to be huge and they spent a fortune building things in downtown. If you haven't seen what they did ... it's a wow... The CMA Music Fest will seem minor after this...