Did Country Music Stay Neutral? Could be An Expensive Decision

A Nashville-based radio personality has been fighting to stay alive this week after coming down with the virus. Phil Valentine was not an anti vaxxer per se, but was a skeptic.

A few -- and that’s a very few -- Country “stars” have put their star power in the get vaccinated camp. A few Country personalities have been skeptics at best. Dolly Parton and Brad Paisley have been on the front lines of pushing the shot. Most have just been silent, not wanting to anger the millions refusing to get the shot.

Phil Valentine’s brother, Mark, says Phil is seeing things differently today: “Go get vaccinated. Quit worrying about the politics. Quit worrying about all the conspiracy theories,” is his current messaging.

Joe Diffie and Charley Pride died from Covid. Several others lived through it. Still, you’ve seen very little advocacy from Music Row. Well now, the bill may be coming in the mail soon.

Orange County Florida, where Disney World is located, is seeing 1,000 new cases a day. And the hospitals of Central Florida are nearing capacity. What’s next?

Garth Brooks rolls into Nashville this weekend and the Rolling Stones in October. Will this surge cause things to cancel again? Will they control capacity? Require masks? Social distanced seating? Any of those will be hard to take.

Music Row is not a far right political kind of place by any form of measurement. In fact, in 2021 it’s quite left leaning in many sections. With that said, why didn’t NARAS, the CMA, the ACM someone try to organize a very visible PR campaign to have fans get the shot?

The potential consequences of going back to where we were will be awful. As the President says, this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated, but it will affect us all. So sad and so preventable.

You would think the last 16 months would make people do anything not to go back to not working, not playing, not living. Confusing world we live in.

Music lovers will really enjoy the PBS documentary on Chuck Berry that should be locatable. It’s a series called “In Their Own Words.”

Willie Nelson is also the subject of a new documentary series. It’s in production now shooting in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Austin and Maui, focusing on the many lives and faces of the great Willie Nelson, an actor/singer/songwriter and so much more. Willie was part of a pro vax commercial recently. Just saying.

The CMA Summer Jam at the Ascend Amphitheater was held midweek. Luke Bryan is the Bridgestone Arena tonight (7/30) as live music in Nashville resumes full speed.

Drove through downtown’s bar district a few times over the weekend. Men and women with guitars and amps are going and coming to their cars. Just was great to see working musicians back to work.

Morgan Wallen’s public appearance on ABC created a lot of buzz. Now what? Who is calling the shots on this? When is this “time out” going to end? Is Music Row ready for a Luke Combs/Wallen or Wallen/Combs takeover of the upper regions of the charts. They’re already on some.

Country music might like to be seen as a BMW or Audi kind of format, but it’s still an F-150, Ram and Silverado truck kind of place. Sorry uptown East Nashville folks.

Country can be for everyone, should be for everyone. Maybe that’s why the pro-shot message has been so muffled.

Is it the Country red state mistrust of Washington, DC? Whatever it is, there is a message for everyone. Get the shot or we are all going back to the time that nearly ruined us. Get well Phil Valentine … no one deserves this sickness!