Who knew?

EVERYBODY!

My inbox is overflowing with messages from people who are not only aware of Ms. Jackson, but are testifying how she’s still on the road and still got it, tells great stories, is a survivor.

So, sorry to put her six feet under!

But that’s the problem with museums, you think it’s history.  You think it’s all over.

But Wanda Jackson is still alive and well.

I believe the following is the video that mesmerized me in Nashville:

Watch this.  It’s positively mindblowing.

And catch up with Ms. Jackson at her Website:

Wanda Jackson website

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!

That’s why I’m here.  In Nashville.  I’m speaking at the International Entertainment Buyers Association.  Or, I just did.  You missed it!

What a fascinating crew.  So many of the buyers are from fairs.

I just got a long lecture on the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  A bunch of ‘ropin and ‘tyin and then live entertainment, twenty nights straight!  They’ve had Rascal Flatts, ZZ Top, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift…

In other words, there’s a whole ‘nother world out there between L.A. and New York.  Which might want to see people like Phil Vassar.  Who performed just before me in the ballroom.  I’m a fan.  But he looks like a guy you’d be sippin’ a beer with down on the dock.  No harm meant, it’s just that I expected some wiry guy who barely ever saw daylight.  Or maybe it’s just that it’s a disconnect to experience someone so talented, who can sing and write, who looks completely normal.  It’s a beautiful thing.

The way the band plays.  The way Phil works the audience.

You see in country music, being able to play is not enough.  You’ve got to entertain!  You’ve got to sing for your supper.  Or, as Chubby Checker said last night, it’s all about the audience.  Yes, he was angling for gigs, but it was fascinating to see him work this inside crowd.  He got ’em up on stage twisting, singing along, laughing, having a good time.  And a good time is what it’s all about, right?

Well, I’m not sure it’s about a good time anymore.

Is it a good time buying a car?  It’s so expensive.  You’re afraid of being ripped off.  If you make a mistake, you’re not going to be back in the market for years.  Kind of like buying concert tickets.  Huh?

I just had a fascinating conversation with gentlemen who run an amphitheatre in Virginia.  They spoke of the problems outside the metropolis.

They have a deal with Ticketmaster because so many of their customers pay cash.  Ticketmaster has outlets, where they take cash.  Yup, you may hate the ticket fees, but Ticketmaster is not always the bastard.

Then again, like Live Nation in New Jersey, these promoters charge a parking fee on every ticket.  A buck.  It’s a pass through, goes straight to the city, for cops, other infrastructure.  So when customers arrive, they don’t have to pay, they just park.

But getting customers is not that easy.  Because people just don’t know about the gig!

That’s their number one problem, getting the word out.

And they said that radio, newspapers and TV don’t work.

In other words, they’ve got a marketing budget, they just don’t know where to spend the money!

The days of tying in with a radio station and having the word get out are done.  Now we’re in the murky land of social media.

Yup, these guys have been FORCED to employ Facebook and Twitter.  Because that’s where the people are.  No one’s paying attention to old media.

You’ve got to have someone under twenty five working all these angles.  He could be your number one employee!

And then there’s pricing.

They talked about a Coldplay show, not theirs, where lawn tickets were ultimately blown out cheaply.  People complained.  Sure, they were mad at Live Nation, but they were really mad at the act!

Ticketmaster may have shielded the artists for a while, the public may have been too stupid to know performers have been scalping their own tickets, but the artists are now taking the hit for discount tickets.  If you paid thirty dollars to sit on the lawn and somebody else paid ten, you’re pissed!  You may never want to see Coldplay again.

So who’s going to fix this problem?

It’s got to start with the acts.  The days of exorbitant guarantees are done.  The acts can’t afford the blowback.  I can’t get the tickets I want, they never went on sale, and now someone paying less than me is sitting closer than me?  Huh?

So far, promoters have been taking the hit.  Live Nation is selling discounted tickets to fill their buildings while the artist has sat on the sideline and laughed.  No longer.

That’s the story of 2009.  How the act suddenly has less power.

Kind of like the movie business.  The $20 million paydays are through.  There’s just not enough money left.  DVD sales have tanked.  If Live Nation, if no promoter can survive, who is going to pay all these acts?

We don’t have a promoter crisis, we’ve got an act crisis!

Sure, the promoters have issues, but the acts are not immune.  They’ve got to give promoters tools to work with.  Like lower guarantees and a share of the upside.

The major problem is getting people in the building.

Some day there might be a site telling everybody who’s in town.  But so far, no Internet location has broken through.  Because every listing site is about money first and the customer last.  Too much advertising, too much focus on profit.  The Google way used to be the music business way.  Build it first, figure out how to monetize it last.  Be a great band first, figure out how to make all the dough last.

Speaking of dough, these Virginia promoters had multiple jobs.  The days of grand slams in concert promotion are done.  The margins are too thin.  One of these guys is both a promoter and a manager!

The glory days of the music business are history.  They’ll only return when the glory days of music come back.  That’s in process.  But it’s going to take a very long time, especially if the usual suspects have their way…baby boomers who focus on getting rich first and care about the consumer last, if at all.

"In Color"

If it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should have seen it in color

You can watch a movie where they’ve got an overpaid teenager trying to play scared, you can dial up a book on your Kindle and read a memory of someone who probably wasn’t even there, or you can listen to a record and know exactly what was felt, in an instant you can be right there yourself.

Sitting on the hard benches of the Ryman Auditorium the curtain went up on Jamey Johnson, standing there in his jeans and boots, like he just came in from doing chores, like when he was done he was gonna be in a bar fight, or sit on the couch, pop a beer and watch the Titans, and when he started picking that guitar I felt like I’d grown up in Alabama or Tennessee.  This was a story not from the keyboard of Diane Warren, not a concoction made for the hit parade, but straight from the heart.

It was a revelation.

Jamey Johnson is no longer a secret.  But the power of seeing the man live gave me goosebumps.  Even after visiting the history of country music in the display cases behind the Ryman’s seats.

You can see Patsy Cline’s outfit, even the murdered Stringbean’s, but what truly blows one’s mind is Johnny Cash’s boots.  Seemingly tall enough to go right up to his underpants.  There are pictures talking about his TV show, his challenges to the network, standing up for what he thought was right.  No one stands up for what’s right on television anymore, you don’t want to fuck up the marketing opportunity.

In other words, music meant something once, can it mean something again?

Chubby Checker got a lifetime achievement award.  Seeing him do his act, he deserved it.  Those were genuine hits, and he got the audience twisting like they did last summer.

And performances by Randy Houser and Jessie James were very good, and the dancing YouTube sensation was a hoot.

But Jamey Johnson…  As agents are prone to saying, he was the real deal.

I said, Grandpa what’s this picture here
It’s all black and white and ain’t real clear
Is that you there, he said, yeah I was eleven
Times were tough back in thirty-five
That’s me and Uncle Joe just tryin’ to survive
A cotton farm in the Great Depression

Times are tough here in ’09, that mansion you bought has been repossessed by the bank and you’re out of work.  You’ve put on a happy face, but how long is that gonna last?  You’ve been lying to yourself, your children, you’ve got more questions than answers, what are you supposed to do?

Watch rich people debate how you shouldn’t have health care?

Watch nimrods and nitwits act inanely, like no one you know, on television?

Or dance like a fool to the ungodly beats of people telling you their lives are better than yours?

You’re looking for some truth, and a salve.  You’ll ultimately have to lift yourself up, but isn’t there someone on your side?

The music used to be on your side, that was its power.  But that was long before MTV allowed not only the acts, but their handlers to make so much money that they were no longer middle class, they were supporting their private jet lifestyles, they didn’t give a shit about you.  Making their evanescent crap.  Which we must buy.

Hogwash.

And then you see someone completely real and you get it, this is the way it used to be!

In a legendary hall, with just his guitar and his voice, his intelligence radiating through, Jamey Johnson was more powerful than a team of dancing idiots, had more sound than turntablists synching to canned beats.  He wasn’t telling a story from streets that don’t exist, he was singing a story about life.  Which folds out behind you, which you hang on to with regrets as it slips from your hands.  You desire to make sense of it, but it’s nonsensical.  How some get cut down by disease and others live to one hundred.  You feel emotions, which are displayed nowhere but in music.

When done right.

Last night Jamey Johnson hit the ball so hard, so long, that it still can’t be found.

I hope and pray you can see him one day.

Randy Rogers Band

"We ain’t had no Top Ten hits, but we’ve played 1500 shows."

We went from the Ryman to the Stage, on NashVegas’ main drag, Broadway, where I ran into Vinny from the Trailer Choir after midnight.

My goal was to see Miranda Lambert.  Which I got to do, up close and personal in this club.

But the highlight of the evening was the Randy Rogers Band.

Randy’s visage is not TV-friendly.  He doesn’t look ready to make it in L.A. or New York.  But in Texas he’s a star.

Playing two hundred nights seven years in a row, the Randy Rogers Band is honed to perfection.  When the fiddler and the lead guitarist trade licks, they make it look easy.  Like the Allman Brothers learned how to do this before kindergarten.

But you only get this good after years on the road.  When you know your band members better than brothers.  When you can play stoned, drunk, half-awake, because you’ve got the material down in your head, it’s almost reflexive.

Not that the Randy Rogers Band played without power.  It’s just that they were so well-oiled, you’d figure this American machine could compete with Europe’s finest, Ferrari and Lamborghini.

It was like the New Riders Of The Purple Sage.  But better.  Even better than the Dead usually were.  The Dead were sloppy, the Randy Rogers Band was clean.

But dirty.

Yup, the accumulated crust of a million miles.

Malcolm Gladwell says it’s about practice.  About the hours you’ve got in.  Desire counts, but it doesn’t make you good.  The Beatles played twelve hundred shows before they broke.  Today’s acts usually don’t play twelve hundred shows in their careers.

It’s all about the road.  It’s a new era, akin to the old.

Acts like Randy Rogers are the future.

I was whoopin’ and hollerin’.  Not because it was shitkicker music, but because it was so right on, in the pocket.

Didn’t make me want to go out and get a record, but did make me want to go see them wherever they appeared, made me want to hear live music not only every week, but every night.