Light the Candle, But Don’t Do It Here

March has arrived, and the spring breakers are getting their sunglasses and flip-flops. The parties have begun.

South Padre Island, Mexico, the Bahamas and Hawaii are the most popular spots.

Florida is out of the spring break business. The big MTV-influenced spring breaks in Panama City are a thing of the past.

Kenny Chesney, Eric Church and Luke Bryan are among the stars that played Club La Vela in Panama City Beach just before they hit superstar status. They played to thousands. It was fun for everyone until drug use and violence crept into the party. Florida spring break was the place for your act to be seen. Country acts were on fire … while it lasted.

On fire now two guys who are Country! Morgan Wallen is perching atop the big single hit parade this week. His album is out March 3rd, “One Thing at a Time.” How big is that going to be?

Luke Combs’ new album is out March 24th. How big is that going to be? It’s a Country blockbuster album month! Been a while since that kind of thing happened.

June Jam is back with Alabama in Fort Payne June 3rd at the VFW Fairgrounds. It’s been 26 years since the last one. It was the Country music event for a long time. Hope lightning strikes for them again. The public celebration of life for the band’s Jeff Cook will happen in the days leading up to the June 3rd concert. Tickets went on sale March 1st.

Brad Paisley put out a song that shook the rafters last week. “Same Here,” his first on EMI Records Nashville, got more discussion than any Nashville song to come out in years. In terms of concentrated discussion, maybe ever, and ever is a long time!

Brad started talking on TV about it: “Fox & Friends” at 8:45 a.m. last Friday, about 10 minutes, then for 30 minutes (when did anyone get 30 minutes on a national/international news show?) with Nicole Wallace on MSNBC, then at 9 p.m. (CT) for 10 minutes followed by a panel discussion for a few minutes on CNN. All over the top positive and friendly. You couldn’t script how good those three diverse outlets were handled.

There was coverage in every major media online from AP, to The Hill to Billboard to Canada’s Global Network, with hundreds if not thousands carrying the Kristin Hall AP story that went worldwide. Why? Brad had the President of The Ukraine on the last bit of the song, part of the recording of a Zoom call Brad and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a few weeks ago.

It is not a political song, it’s a song about humanity, and how people are basically the same in what they want and need. A “We Are The World” kind of neutral, positive song.

Still, social media went nuts with spew as only social media can. No one said anything bad about the song. The subject of Ukraine and Zelenskyy they did. Brad took a few shots, too. None of this unexpected.

“Same Here” got one hell of a blast off. Now let’s see what all that publicity can do. It debuted day one on iTunes at #1.

Can a Country artist have a worldwide hit? Stay tuned! Brad’s first EMI Records album is coming soon.