BOBBY KARL WORKS THE ROOM
Chapter 467
This is the 50th anniversary of the Academy of Country Music, and what better way to celebrate than with the publication of a commemorative book?
That was the agenda at the Country Music Hall of Fame on Wednesday (9/10). The book in question is titled This Is Country, a sumptuous coffee-table tome loaded with photos and souvenir “stick-ins” like ticket, program, newsletter and award-certificate reproductions.
For you music-industry folks out there, a “book” is a thing with paper pages that you turn after reading collections of words on them that are longer than tweets. I doubt that there are more than 100 of you who have read one in the past year. That’s why the sentence, “I have written a book” has a status on Music Row that ranks just below, “I am the hair stylist for Gloriana,” or “I have a line of dialog on this week’s episode of Nashville,” or “I had a cut on the last SheDaisy album.”
Those of us who value book authorship beg to differ. For one thing, it means you’ve brought forth something that will last forever. For another, it demands a helluva lot of creative labor.

“It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done,” said author Lisa Lee. “It’s like giving birth….This is one of my proudest moments.”
We applauded her long and loud in the museum’s ACM Gallery. “She came up with the idea for the book,” said the ACM’s Bob Romeo. Not only that, “Years ago, we didn’t have a staff. I said, ‘Lisa, you’re going to have to build one.’ She has met that challenge. In seven years, Lisa has built a great department.”
Lisa joined the ACM in 2007. She soon realized that the 50th anniversary was impending, so she sought out the ACM’s four founding figures. Two of them – Chris Christensen and hit songwriter Eddie Miller – have died. So she began in 2009 by interviewing survivors Mickey Christensen, then 91, plus Tommy Riggins. Tommy, a West Coast performer and radio promoter, came up with the idea for the ACM while on the golf course. Mickey, who has since passed away, owned the Red Barrel nightclub, which she offered as the host venue.
D.J. country awards for West Coast artists were staged in 1963 and 1964. Then the first official ACM meeting took place on Feb. 17, 1965. The first ACM awards presentation was on Feb. 28, 1966 at the Hollywood Palladium. The book notes that the CMA had been formed in Nashville in 1958, but had not yet mounted an awards show.
Founders Tommy and Mickey, “were so excited [about the book idea],” Lisa reported. “They lit the fire.” They also led Lisa to early ACM honoree and champ yodeler Janet McBride, who had saved a treasure trove of memorabilia. Lisa made that contact in 2012.
“It has just been in the past year that it has really been a crunch,” the book’s mastermind commented. “We saved the last few pages, because we knew we wanted to include the 2014 awards show.”
She is especially proud that all of the living Artist of the Decade awardees participated. Garth Brooks and Randy Owen of Alabama wrote their own essays. Lisa interviewed George Strait and Loretta Lynn for theirs. Marty Stuart wrote eloquently about Marty Robbins. Other essay contributors include stars Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and Reba McEntire.
Essays or not, it is a coffee-table collectible. “This is for the fans,” said Lisa. “It is 50 years of country-music history and 50 years of this organization’s history, [but] it is for the consumers.”
It is certainly for the readers who attended. More literate than the rest of you were Wes Vause, Regina Stuve, Sherod Robertson, Suzanne Gordon, Jay Frank, Rod Essig, Chuck Aly, Ken Tucker, Teresa George, Paul Moore, Paul Barnabee, Mike Kraski and Ron Cox.
Attending ACM staffers Tiffany Moon and Taylor Payne presented Lisa with a framed first-proof of the book jacket, plus its Library of Congress registration certification.
The Hall of Fame’s catering, as usual, was tops. During the cocktail reception, we snacked on mushroom caps stuffed with sausage, chicken-salad wontons, hummus, tabbouleh, tzatziki, lavosh (it’s a flat bread), pita points, crostini and marinated grilled vegetables.
“I can’t thank you enough for coming,” said Bob Romeo. On behalf of book lovers everywhere, the pleasure was all mine.

It’s hard to categorize new Texas duo The Roosevelts, who blend soulful harmonies, acoustic music and deft songwriting. “Our music is a good crossover of folk, rock, Americana, Country and soul,” says The Roosevelts member James Mason. “There are elements of all of those styles. The closest thing that might describe it is organic pop. We are still trying to figure out what you call it. No matter what kind of music audience we play for, they seem to like it. There is so much genre-blending now in music, anyway.”
The process for determining the duo’s distinguished band name was similarly organic. “The first day we went into the studio, it was President’s Day,” says Mason. “We were throwing out names to our producer, and we couldn’t believe no one had come up with that band name yet. So it stuck.”
Houston native Mason and Birmingham-bred Jason Kloess met after each moved to Austin, Texas,  in 2008 to pursue music. They met through a mutual musician friend, and found Jason’s harmonies and songwriting sensibilities complemented James’ rugged lead vocals. Countless bar performances and wedding singer gigs solidified their tight-knit harmonies and genre-bending sound–as well as their extensive repertoire of cover songs. “We did a lot of Motown and hip-hop, mixed with “Last Dance with Mary Jane” and Coolio. It’s was a bit of everything,” says Mason.
In 2013, they recorded the six-song EP, Cold Sheets, at Matchbox Studio in Austin.
The duo performed three songs during their MusicRow visit, including “Don’t Wanna Let You Go,” “Baby You Can Break My Heart,” and the current single, “Cold Sheets.”  They revealed more of their soulful influences on a cover of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours).”
The video for “Cold Sheets” debuted this week on CMT. The clip was filmed near Houston, Texas, with director Brad Linton. Kloess and Mason take on leading roles, portraying army soldiers whose relationships are torn apart by war. The video marks the first time either acted in front of a camera, though Mason says he drew on his previous theater experience for the role.  “It’s just learning to forget the camera isn’t there,” he says.
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