Mexico, And Grammy Meltdown With A Hard January

Right now, hundreds of Country music fans and a dozen stars are enjoying 72-degree temperatures with some clouds at Luke Bryan's successful Crash My Playa event in Riviera Cancun, Mexico (January 22-25). Bryan, Jason Aldean and their families and friends and fans are taking a mid-Winter break. Every year about this time we long for a little warm sun and nice water.

Others are arriving in Los Angeles, where the high is 75 degrees, for a nice, long weekend of Grammy business. They'll maybe hang out at the pool at the Four Seasons on Doheny, unless they are rehearsing or trying to put out the five-alarm fire at the Grammy headquarters. Dirty laundry was set on fire last week, and it went mainstream on "Good Morning America" on Thursday (½3). What a mess!

There was a cafeteria of claims by the former Grammy boss, with denials and counterclaims coming out faster than artist press releases. Will the EEOC or even some DA/U.S. Attorney look into some of this? The PR damage is huge and growing. There are disgruntled employees, conflicts of interest, you name it.

Might be a good time to make sure all the award-oriented places you may be involved with have clean slates. Conflicts of interest? Block voting? When these things come out, and they do come out, it's bad. Music Row has seen a few block voting stinks, but not in the age of social media. Good and bad news travels hypersonic!

This month is going by fast. None of us can talk very openly about the changes going on all over media, but in radio especially. The year started of very badly for over a 1,000 media folks. From the Miami Herald layoffs to more radio names than we could print, the times they are a changing. Take a breath, regroup and come back even stronger!

There's a great event coming up in March: the "King of the Road" Roger Miller salute with a dozen or more big stars. From Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson to Wynonna, it's going to be a great "only in Nashville" kind of night.

The Titans ...what a great season! The year started out very slowly but these last two weeks ... jeez!

At 5 a.m. in the rain the other morning, there was a very long line of wannabes paying their dues to get a chance to be on NBC's "The Voice." Just 1% made it. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You see things like that, hear of the layoffs, and you just wonder how did any of us make it on any level?

Netflix's Taylor Swift documentary, "Miss Americana," is out January 31st. The trailer looks great. How will they tell her Nashville story?

To all the Taylors and Taylor wannabes, it takes so much time, hard work and dedication and a huge pocketful of luck. Music Row -- like Broadway and Hollywood Blvd. -- is the land of dreams and wishes.

Prayers to the family of the late singer/songwriter David Olney. And more prayers to Taylor Swift's mom, Andrea, battling health issues.

We're only three weeks into 2020's 52. Wow. Fasten your seat belts!