WHO WOULDN’T WANNA BE ME

The sun is shinin’
This road keeps windin’
Through the prettiest country
From Georgia to Tennessee
I got the one I love beside me
My troubles behind me
I’m alive and I’m free
Who wouldn’t wanna be me

Yup, inside the Sommet Center for Keith Urban’s "All For The Hall" concert.

If you haven’t been to Nashville, you haven’t been to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  And you’re the worse for it.  You might think you don’t care about shitkickers, but you’re missing out on the history of America.  From slaves to the Dust Bowl to Elvis Presley’s solid gold Cadillac and the history/tragedy of the Williams family.

It’s jaw-dropping.  To see the old footage of people fiddlin’ and dancin’.  Watching Jimmie Rodgers sing you become an instant believer.  But what enamored me most was the video of Wanda Jackson.  Exhume her and put her on the road today.  She’d be bigger than all of the wannabes.  She didn’t need no Timbaland, just her pipes.  She shimmied and shook, singing this music halfway between country and rock.  To go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is to become a fan.

And to insure that it lives on, can expand, do its mission properly, Vince Gill proposed every artist cough up one night of revenue for the Hall.

Keith Urban took him up on it.

Yes, Tuesday night at the Sommet Center, the Staples Center of Nashville, the Madison Square Garden of Music City, albeit with much worse food, some of country music’s finest came out to raise money for the Hall.  Keith, Vince and all the people who’d opened for Keith over the past years.

The show started with over an hour of Keith’s hits.  Performed by him and his band of crack guitarists.  Yup, they’re an army, a coalition that could triumph over any adversary merely with sound.  Keith Urban played the incredible solo at the end of "Stupid Girl".  He sat down alone and performed his roots music, Dolly Parton’s "Coat Of Many Colors" on his acoustic.  And he and his band played my favorite song, "Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me".

I got no money in my pockets
I got a hole in my jeans
I had a job and I lost it
But it won’t get to me

That’s the power of music.  It crowds out all the negativity, it replaces the bad thoughts with joy and inspiration.  And when you hear Keith Urban wail on his guitar, you get the same feeling you do when Derek Trucks or Warren Haynes or even Jeff Beck pick out the notes.  This is not some hack, playing crap.  Keith Urban can play!  Actually, that’s the Nashville mantra.  Go to see one of these acts.  You can’t believe there are no hard drives.

BRAD PAISLEY

I’ve O.D.’ed on his sophomoric lyrics, and I believe his joint song with Keith Urban, "Start A Band", is a bit lame.  But you should hear him wail!

Brad and Keith eventually journeyed into the audience, on separate sides of the arena, shredding all the time.  They were exhausted after minutes of picking, it was hard to believe they could go on.

And you wonder why people are country fans.

This ain’t canned music made to get laid.  Not background stuff in a bar.  This is positively foreground, it picks you up and energizes you.

VINCE GILL

Positively staggering.  A revelation.  I knew he could sing, but who knew he could pick?

He started off with Pure Prairie League.  Then, I lost track.  Not completely, but he was off in this country world, before country became the new rock and we all gravitated there.

You might think he’s a crooner, but he could hold his own with any rock band out there.  Even Metallica!

And after pointing out his wife, Amy Grant, he sang a sweet love song that converted you.  (After saying he hadn’t seen her for two and a half weeks and hoped to get lucky tonight!  There may be too much religion in country music, but that doesn’t mean there’s not any SEX!)

LITTLE BIG TOWN

I feel no shame
I’m proud of where I came from
I was born and raised in the boondocks

Can’t say that’s where I’m from.  But I loved that Billy Joe Royal song, does that count?

They started off with "Fine Line".  I would have done something different from the third album, but then they lit into this hit from the breakthrough record.

It’s where I learned about living
It’s where I learned about love

It’s where I learned this wasn’t my father’s country music.  "Boondocks" resembles nothing so much as a Fleetwood Mac number.  But with one difference.  It’s better than anything that concoction has done in thirty years!

If you don’t know the joy of Little Big Town, I feel sorry for you.

FREE AND EASY DOWN THE ROAD I GO

I don’t think I’ve heard any song more on country radio.

This Dierks Bentley number bridges the old and new, the ancient and the modern.  Harkens back to the country of yore, yet is still fresh and exuberant enough to sound modern.

LADY ANTEBELLUM/JASON ALDEAN/FAITH HILL

They all triumphed.

But the show was stolen by someone much younger.  Someone still wet behind the ears, but wise beyond her years.

TAYLOR SWIFT

You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors
It’s the morning of your very first day

Do you remember the first day of high school?

You thought for days what you were going to wear.  You walked into the building minding your cool.  This counted. You had to get it right, you didn’t want to ruin your reputation.  Not for the next four years.

Taylor Swift walked on stage in a glittery silver dress and a guitar strung around her neck.  The applause, the screams were DEAFENING!

Have you ever been at a show and been completely exhilarated, knowing that you were at the exact center of the universe, ground zero of the human experience?

That’s where we were Tuesday night, all 18,000 of us, when Taylor Swift performed.

Not reading from a script, intelligent and schooled, Taylor started riffing.  After basking in the adulation she said what she loved about country music is that everybody got to tell their story.  And this was hers.

It’s your freshman year and you’re gonna be here
For the next four years in this town
Hoping one of those senior boys will wink at you and say?
‘You know, I haven’t seen you around before’

Life.  It’s full of hopes and dreams.  And victories and losses.  What gets you through is your friends and the music.

That’s the power of music.  When done right.  Too often it’s done wrong.

It’s done for corporations.  For old men in suits.  It’s streamlined for radio.  Made inauthentic in order to sell not only itself, but associated products.  To the point where when you hear something genuine, you exult EUREKA!

I could analyze the changes, the lyrics.  Deconstruct the song.  But that would be missing the point.  It’s the total effect.  Of a gawky, geeky girl who made it through.  To womanhood.

Isn’t that the goal?  To not drop out?  To not commit suicide?  To get to the point where you can call your own shots?

I didn’t know who I was supposed to be at fifteen

I don’t know who I’m supposed to be at fifty.

I don’t own a home.  I’ve got no children.  And I’m gonna have to work for the rest of my life just to pay the bills.

Somewhere along the line, I diverged.  And when I finally realized that we were on different paths, there was no going back.  I was stuck, out here, alone.  Just me and the music.

But the music’s been failing me.

I’ve seen the Who perform "Tommy" at the Fillmore.

I’ve seen Prince blow away the few in attendance at Flippers roller disco, performing "Dirty Mind" the night of the Academy Awards.

I’ve seen music become about looks more than sound, I’ve seen music become a sideshow, something that makes people rich, but leaves the audience starving, turning to television and the Internet for fulfillment.

And then I discovered Taylor Swift.  Someone who knows it’s about songs, not stardom.  Someone willing to keep ticket prices cheap so her young fans have a chance to see her.  Someone who’s got the ethos of a star from way back when, as opposed to the sold out creeps who tramp about today.

Music when done right is life itself.

Listening to Taylor Swift Tuesday night, tears came streaming down my face.  I couldn’t stop them.  On one hand, I was embarrassed.  On the other I was thrilled.  Just when I’d given up, believing that everything I’d experienced previously had gone, here it was, back.

That rush of going to the show, feeling that there was no place I’d rather be.

I don’t care if you like the music.  I don’t give a shit if you go to see her.  But I want to be very clear.  Taylor Swift is a SUPERSTAR!