The Visible And The Invisible

You didn’t have to look far during the recent holiday period to find those artists with a good publicist, or no publicist at all. Here’s a look at the season’s winners and losers.

Winner: The G.O.A.T. Dolly Parton. The all season/all purpose Dolly with Miley in hipster Miami giving the strongest performances with the best production New Years Eve. From “Wrecking Ball” to “Jolene,” when those two were on the stage you were not changing channels or going to sleep. Ratings-wise, a photo finish with the much more ambitious Nashville CBS show.

Winner: Shay Mooney of Dan & Shay and his nothing less than amazing 50-pound weight loss. How did he do that? He’s getting tons of social media and other media attention.

Getting to be a Winner: Google Zach Bryan and click on “news.” Website the BrooklynVegan (whatever that is) has a story on “music you may have missed over the holidays” that focuses on Bad Bunny, redevil, Ice Spice and Country artist Bryan! The story mentions his new live album, “All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks).” Radio wants to join the wave, but does his music blend with the other 39 on the Top 40? Again, a good publicity machine behind him. How does this story end?

‘Yellowstone” is such a huge TV hit that its soundtrack cannot be ignored. Lainey Wilson a huge WINNER for saying yes to series co-creator Taylor Sheridan for a role on the show!

Luke Grimes, who plays Kayce Dutton on “Yellowstone,” has a song out. It’s not bad. It’s not the factory-made sound song, so will it find a place on the air or just the streaming?

Hating Ticketmaster and this performance pricing is somehow going to be a big LOSER before all is said and done. The fans are not happy, and are mad enough to tell their federal representatives to look at this. To be continued.

Anyone reading Rolling Stone’s new “Greatest Singers of All Time” list? It has 19 Country singers in the 200. Most are crossover singers with huge pop followings.

Ray Charles ranks #6 overall and #1 among the Country singers. Works for me! Read the list. RS loves to stir the pot.

As Music Row drags back to the office, 2023 is off and running. The Grammys are up first. The tours are under construction, and what a huge year this will be with the Vegas residency shows and the extreme variety of musical styles and choices coming out of Middle Tennessee studios. (Can’t say Music Row studios anymore—they are going just now all over the mid-state.)

Country artists and politics … always tempting and always dangerous. Front and center on that subject are Mr. and Mrs. Aldean with the Trumps again for New Years. FOX News was at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville on New Year’s Eve. A Trump kiss is getting a LOT of attention on social media.

2023 is slow starting, but you can feel that engine about to throttle up. As I write this, the huge NRG Stadium-based Rodeo Houston is announcing its lineup. Big payday date, with a potential 80,000 or so audience.

Look at the current top 50 Country songs. Some of these artists remain invisible. The song first, yes, then you need a story or something for people to get to know you.