Change ... Like It Or Not ...

"The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind."
― Friedrich Nietzsche

That's a pretty deep thought to begin this, but the whole last week is deep with change. Host changes, health changes, tastee changes, Everything changes ... One more:

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

Music Row survives on change. As I sat on the stage of the Opry last Saturday night, I watched a great drummer. Flashback a couple of decades, a fully kit drummer would have been sacrilegious. When Marty Robbins brought horns to the Opry once, the world was thought to have stopped. Change happens.

Thoughts are with Randy Owen dealing with cluster migraines and vertigo. Hopefully he will be freed from this health change soon. You think back 50 years ago when Alabama was getting started. If you have said then these boys would be in the Country Music Hall of Fame someday, they would have put you in an institution. Alabama, Randy Travis, Garth Brooks and later Taylor Swift brought along big changes to everything around Music Row. Change can be cursed at the time but looking back it doesn't seem that radical. But at the time it was. Add Shania to that list, too.

The big host shakeup at the CMA Awards was handled poorly. The duo of Brad and Carrie was popular but was never thought by anyone as a lifetime appointment. Still, the last-minute announcement after a spirited CMA Board meeting came off as sort of a Hail Mary. ABC has a new boss; award shows are not the giants they used to be. The CMA wants a 50th anniversary kind of show buzz. Great thinking. Saluting Women in Country by adding Dolly and Reba to the marquee does just that. Moving Brad out that way didn't feel right. His fans don't like it. It's not deserved after 10 years of great work. Brad's a class act. This change should have been done in more of a win/win way. Why couldn't Brad and Carrie add Reba and Dolly and lead a great salute?

This is not a special Women of Country TV show; it's an awards show and a showcase for men, women, groups ... everybody. It's Country Music's Biggest Night.

Carrie Underwood with a picture one-third or so bigger than Reba and Dolly. It comes off as Carrie Underwood stars in...

Lots of people have lots of agendas behind the scenes on Music Row. No one stays in the Captain's chair forever at the labels ... the booking agencies or anyway else. Change is the name of the game.

Everyone can't get a participation medal. Someone makes it to #1 ... The Best Seller ... Top Box Office ... #1 Station.

It's rarely done in this century but "Do Unto Others..." is still a pretty good way to run your life and your business. Things don't have to be as cutthroat as they seem to be.

Eagles and tigers roam among us. Watch CBS Sunday Morning this week and watch the Taylor Swift interview. Whew!

Change ... Who Moved the Cheese? ... a little book with a big story. Lots a cheese moving around in Nashville ... a final highbrow quote:

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
― Mahatma Gandhi