Sometimes they’re hiding in plain sight.

Sometimes you have to break all the rules.

Corey Smith is working a new single at radio.  Slinking from station to station, trying to convince the gatekeepers.

GIVE UP!

Go to radio last.

Go directly to the people.  They get it.

I’ve known Corey’s manager for years, even skied with him.  Love that he’s given Corey’s music away for free.  Listened to the grass roots development.  But I never got it until I saw Corey Smith live last night.

WOW!

Going to the gig is an obligation.  You check your BlackBerry and your watch and wonder when you can leave.

So when you experience someone with unfamiliar material who rivets you, you take notice, because it happens…NEVER!

Corey sat across from Felice at dinner.  He barely spoke.  Looked like the social studies teacher he used to be, only nerdier.

But when he put on his sunglasses and took the stage, he was a STAR!

Not like Katy Perry, more like Jimmy Buffett.  A man of the people.

He was so good it was jaw-dropping.  I found myself singing along even though it was the first time through.  I laughed.  I got it.

This guy needs to be on Leno TOMORROW!

Fuck YouTube.  Like I said, sometimes you’ve got to break all the rules.

And if Leno says no, I’d tell him he’s missing out and go to Letterman.  And Fallon.

But Leno is a perfect start.  Because there’s nothing edgy about Corey Smith, unless you consider yourself edgy.  Have you ever said "fuck" to a cop?  Corey did, and wrote a song about it, "Fuck the Po-Po".  It expresses exactly how we feel, the frustrated everyman.

If you’re good, it doesn’t stop growing.  All Corey Smith had to do was play and word spread, he played further and further from home, to bigger and bigger audiences.  People came back.  Because it was so much FUN!

The songs are there.  As is the patter.  It’s all done.

And now he’s got the song.  "Drugs".  It mixes alcohol and Ambien and health care and it’s got you laughing, because it’s honest in a way the Top Forty is dishonest.  There’s no gloss, just reality.

All Corey’s got to do is play the song on Leno, and he’s made.

Every other TV station is gonna call.  And he should go and play.  Because you don’t have to hold back when you’re real.  You can’t burn out on what’s real.  I can’t burn out on James McMurtry’s "We Can’t Make It Here", I can’t burn out on Don McLean’s "American Pie".  Corey’s great stuff is just like that.

Then he’s got to open.  Maybe for the Eagles.

Then again, they’ve got too old an audience.

Someone younger.  Who appeals to thirtysomethings.  People locked in their lives, married to their wives and their jobs and their kids.  But still twenty one on the inside.

And the twenty one year olds get it too.  Because isn’t that what college is about, DRINKING?

Come on, you know the drill.  You’re going to bars looking to get laid and then suddenly you’re the oldest guy in the bar and you’ll never get laid.  That’s how fast life goes by.  Who writes songs about that?  That aren’t sugarcoated, that touch your heart?  COREY SMITH!

If you don’t get this, you never went to college, you’re straight edge and never took a drink, you’re so busy being hip, denying who you are inside, appealing to those who don’t really care, that you’re an empty vessel on a meaningless cruise through life.

This guy has got it.

Who’s going to own him?  Which TV host is gonna let him play on their show first?

The raps, the delivery, Corey Smith is fully-formed, he’s ready.

He’s paid his dues.

Sometimes something is so mainstream, that’s where you go!  Bring it straight to the heartland.

If this guy were doing this act in New York or L.A., he’d already be a star.  But those media centers ignore the south.  They just don’t get it.

But just like Republicans embraced the southern strategy and won, he who embraces Corey Smith is going to win too.

Country radio is thinking too hard.  Nashville is a club that excludes that which is truly honest and forthright, it’s the opposite of the roots of country music.

Not that Corey’s exactly country.

He’s American.

And so are we.

He’s a natural.

I’m just the latest rider on the bandwagon.  You should get on too.  IT’S A BLAST!