Can you be fabulously famous and a new face at the same time? If your name is Jennette McCurdy, you can. Known by millions of teens for her role as sassy “Sam” on the Nickelodeon TV comedy series iCarly, 18-year-old Jeanette can’t go out to a restaurant without being mobbed. But in country music, she is a newcomer.
Welcome to Country Radio Seminar. You registrants are going to be hearing a lot of great new music this week. Alas, very little of it was on my desk today. There are only a few real highlights.
Music City is Boys Town today. The ladies are evidently taking the week off, since every platter here on the reviewing desk comes from a solo male. Let the testosterone festival begin.
WAMB radio show host Danny Winchell has died at age 84. He was also a pop singer, magazine publisher, record producer and music promoter.
Contemporary country music sounds wildly diverse this week. We have bluegrass flavored The Roys, outlaw sounds from the George Brothers, rollicking pop-country by Kenny Chesney and southern, guitar-slinger rock via Frankie Ballard. How’s that for variety?
This week, we have two superstars at the peak of their powers and two newcomers vying to rock your world.
The superstars in question are Ronnie Dunn and Keith Urban. The understated, restrained performance by the latter won my heart as the Disc of the Day. The two rocking first timers are Bridgette Tatum and actor-singer Christian Kane. Despite my reservations about his using a rock producer, Christian Kane’s songwriting ability and undeniable vocal talent led me to crown him with a DisCovery Award.
Country music’s major labels seem to be slumbering in winter doldrums, but Nashville’s pop/rock community is livelier than ever.
The lesson in today’s stack of platters is that there is life after major labels. Elizabeth Cook, Jeff Bates, Josh Gracin and Jason D. Williams are all here to tell us they’re still standing tall. So is singer-songwriter extraordinaire Lori McKenna, who wins the Disc of the Day with a stunning album that dropped just yesterday.
Lamar Fike, an enduring member of Elvis Presley’s so-called “Memphis Mafia,” as well as a Music Row businessman, has died in Arlington, Texas. Mr. Fike was 75 years old. Born in Cleveland, Mississippi on Nov. 11, 1935, he was briefly a radio disc jockey at KEBE in Jacksonville, FL. He joined Presley’s inner circle in […]
Let’s do a little Grammy gazing, shall we? For starters, let’s look beyond the stunning and well-deserved six nominations for Lady Antebellum. What Nashville act has the second most? Surprise! It’s the quintuple nominated outing by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Which, by the way, wins our Disc of the Day. I’d also like to give a shout-out to Darrell Scott, who not only has a Country Instrumental nomination, but is also a crucial component of Band of Joy, the twice nominated CD by Robert Plant.