tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-198766972024-03-23T14:41:10.874-05:00Large Land MammalThe view from 79 inches up...Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.comBlogger315125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-82968019667632914942017-07-11T14:46:00.002-05:002021-02-28T10:40:59.918-06:00Something Rotten's Fresh Take On the Musical<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiVx3WRi1TsneutcDBoWgYx1aeG6Ob6gL3OSBPRRQuYvHckn02nLwNTqkYPCOGULeh5LHjCA229a2IvWV1eO3iQL-VW7g1YC4wLgR9xmP_yyGhlI2mmjXRNDoJnyG3LSc0n5Pcsw/s640/Photo_1.594d90e1ad176.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiVx3WRi1TsneutcDBoWgYx1aeG6Ob6gL3OSBPRRQuYvHckn02nLwNTqkYPCOGULeh5LHjCA229a2IvWV1eO3iQL-VW7g1YC4wLgR9xmP_yyGhlI2mmjXRNDoJnyG3LSc0n5Pcsw/w400-h225/Photo_1.594d90e1ad176.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.nashvillescene.com/arts-culture/theater/article/20865756/something-rotten-is-fresh" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">(Originally published on NashvilleScene.com June 23, 2017)</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you could somehow quantify the things a section of the city’s inhabitants are afraid of, Nashvillians would score high in the "phobia of the blank page” department. Who knows how many productive hours have been lost in Music City staring at a legal pad, staff paper or a laptop screen, waiting for inspiration to strike?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wayne Kirkpatrick has spent the past three decades fighting off that dread quite successfully as a prolific songwriter and producer for the likes of Amy Grant, Little Big Town, Garth Brooks, Michael W. Smith and more. His song “Change the World” (co-written with Gordon Kennedy and Tommy Sims) was a monster hit for Eric Clapton — it landed Kirkpatrick a Song of the Year Grammy in 1996. Behind that kind of success, you wouldn’t think fear of failure would be part Kirkpatrick’s work these days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kirkpatrick's first-ever Broadway musical <i>Something Rotten!</i> — which he co-created with his brother, screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick, and author John O’Farrell, all first-time Broadway creators — has seen rollicking success. The play notched 10 Tony Award nominations in 2015, including one for Best Musical, and opens at TPAC on Tuesday. But in the 15-year span during which the idea floated between the brothers Kirkpatrick, and the four-plus years of active development, some doubts did creep in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Writing a musical was the hardest thing I've ever done, times 10," says Kirkpatrick. "I feel like I've done some things that were kinda difficult, but I had no idea. I was terrified, really, especially when [I was] getting thrust into that world and realizing, 'I'm the weakest link. Everybody in here knows what they're doing.' You've got a seasoned director, seasoned producers with great track records. 'What am I doing here?'”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What he did was provide the music and lyrics to a wildly original musical comedy that bypassed the traditional route to Broadway, and opened to much acclaim at the St. James Theater in April 2015.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With <i>Rotten! </i>rolling through its first national tour, Kirkpatrick will be the first to admit the show is not only an homage to musical theater, but also both a love-and-hate letter to the process of writing itself. Set in the 1590s — smack-dab in the middle of the English Renaissance — <i>Something Rotten!</i> follows two playwright brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom, played here by theater vets Rob McClure and Josh Grisetti, reprising their roles from the play's Broadway run.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The brothers find themselves and their struggling theater troupe operating in the considerable shadow of “the man who put the ‘I am’ in ‘iambic pentameter,'” William Shakespeare. The Bard is played by Adam Pascal, known best for originating the role of Roger David in the original Broadway company of <i>Rent</i>. Nick is fed up with playing second fiddle to a man he considers a “mediocre actor from a measly little town,” and secretly takes his family’s savings to a soothsayer in order to suss out what the next big thing in theater will be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Half a case of mistaken identity later, the soothsayer tells Nick about this revolutionary theatrical form wherein “the dialogue stops, and the plot is conveyed through song,” to which Nick responds, “Well, that is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard.” Only, he’s singing now, and the first musical, titled A Musical, is underway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile, Shakespeare is having his own crisis of confidence, and having hired a spy to keep an eye on what the Bottom brothers are working on next, hears of Nick’s newly acquired information about theater’s future. He decides to infiltrate the brothers’ troupe, and hijinks ensue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I remember walking down 44th Street, and the marquee had just gone up, and I saw a bunch of tourists laughing and taking pictures of it,” McClure says. “I walked a little further and saw that it said, in this huge font in quotes, ‘We haven't seen it yet! —The New York Times.’ I didn't even know what the show was about yet, and it already had me laughing.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The play's lighthearted tone, which is set in part by director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw, has been a Rotten! constant throughout not only the show’s development but also the New York and national tour runs, something Kirkpatrick knows is rare in the pressure-cooker atmosphere Broadway can generate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Says Kirkpatrick, “I was sitting with Christian Borle [<i>Rotten!</i>’s Tony-winning original Shakespeare] one day, and I think he was referring to everybody's attitude and the joy with which they were approaching this, and he said, 'Do you realize how special this is?' And I said, "No, I don't. They're not all like this? I do get this sense that we're being spoiled.’ He said, 'This doesn't happen all the time.’"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kirkpatrick’s success as a Nashville hitmaker didn’t buy him any slack with the tight-knit Broadway community, but the show’s excellence has kept he and his brother working in it, most recently contributing to the show-opening number from this year's Tony Awards host Kevin Spacey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">McClure has seen creators try to ride into Broadway on their non-Broadway laurels and fail miserably, but he sees Kirkpatrick’s work and approach to the opportunity very differently.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I think it starts with somebody who not only writes great melodies, but also great story-songs,” McClure says. “He might have garnered great acclaim for his pop music, but you listen to those songs and they're great stories. The guy knows how to write songs based in great lyrics, not just great melodies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Wayne also has a real sense of gratitude. There's nothing jaded about him,” McClure continues. “You get this sense from both he and Karey that they are so moved by the way the community has accepted them, that they are so grateful by the way audiences are responding, you can catch them getting choked up watching it.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">True to his quiet nature that’s kept artists seeking his collaboration for years, Kirkpatrick’s favorite part of this process has been the reaction of those closest to him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“For me, the coolest thing is that my kids lived with these songs," he says. "We were writing them for four years, and I would play them the songs, and they knew them backwards and forwards. They had CDs and would listen to them on their own. We were talking about "A Musical" around the dinner table one night, and my daughter said, 'I can see it opening the Tonys,' and from that conversation to that song actually opening the Tonys [in 2015] with my whole family being there, as far as a full circle moment, what could be better?”</span><br />
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Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-71673575790625175402015-06-26T21:53:00.000-05:002015-06-26T22:00:37.611-05:00Experiencing the "Innocence"Pain and loss…and ultimately, hope.<br />
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Those seemed to be the themes radiating through night two of U2’s five-night Chicago stand on the “Innocence and Experience” tour, something that probably got lost amidst the most sophisticated live concert production I’ve ever seen.<br />
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The pain, if you were looking for it, could easily be seen on Bono’s face as he made his way through the night. The tour’s stage set-up — fairly spare main stage at United Center’s west end and circular satellite stage on the far east end, connected by a thin walkway connecting the two — allowed the general admission crowd on the floor almost unheard-of proximity to the band all night.<br />
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Via that close-up look, you could note Bono’s wincing at various parts of the night, likely result of the bronchitis he’s allegedly been battling through as the band started its Windy City residency. He didn’t miss many notes, but he didn’t swing at all of them, either, letting the crowd fill in the gap, which it was happy to do.<br />
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The flip side of the thematic coin — the loss — could be noted in the new tunes from the now-legendary (for better or worse) “Songs of Innocence” album. After a four-song kickstart featuring the “Innocence” song with the closest to a classic U2 hook (“The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)”) combined with three songs with actual classic U2 hooks (“Out of Control,” “Vertigo” and “I Will Follow”), the band slowed it way down with two of the most autobiographical songs (at least for Bono) from the new record, “Iris (Hold Me Close)” and “Cedarwood Road,” the former Bono’s lament for his mother who passed when he was 14, the latter an homage to the family home that spawned his love for what would be both his chosen profession and lifelong obsession, music.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgohno-7gBzbVTO-CemdQxKkIor6GVVhCMi8LcdWUF3uSaOeZCC5kYsY6kNCd9SFfpXkme_G3BGqyAj7DPslziFigddEc9-uXHZytbgteIwH84i4cOGb-aoowAyiMgYYopr12eoOQ/s1600/IMG_0243.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgohno-7gBzbVTO-CemdQxKkIor6GVVhCMi8LcdWUF3uSaOeZCC5kYsY6kNCd9SFfpXkme_G3BGqyAj7DPslziFigddEc9-uXHZytbgteIwH84i4cOGb-aoowAyiMgYYopr12eoOQ/s320/IMG_0243.JPG" width="320" /></a>And it’s with those two songs that the production side of the show kicked into high gear. The opening four songs were a reminder that this is still a four-piece band that will rock your face off if you give them the chance.<br />
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The back half of the first set featured the genius visual elements the team brought into play via the giant video “wall” that stretched across the length of the venue from main to satellite stage. The wall raised and lowered and displayed amazing treatments depending on who was playing on, near, under or within it.<br />
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My all-time favorite live U2 song, “Until The End of The World,” closed that first set, with the tremendous visual of The Edge playing inside the video wall’s confines, with Bono singing on the satellite stage, whilst his image and his antics — reaching out to virtually grasp his guitar genius partner, spitting water at him, essentially underscoring a certain god complex — brought the frontman’s legendary (and self-described) megalomania to projected perfection.<br />
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And then when all eyes were focused on the technological spectacle of song, down fluttered torn pages from books, more symbolism for the downfall of the world (the shard I caught was from a copy of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”…have fun with that metaphor), closing out the set in epic Irish and Italian fashion.
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A one-song intermission, bringing to virtual life the Johnny Cash-sung “The Wanderer” on the video wall (I might have been the only one on my side of the floor who cheered, but so be it), and the band was back, all of them within the wall for the new album song “Invisible.” The wall’s capabilities literally shone through again, with the video treatment revealing then hiding each band member as the song progressed.<br />
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Combine the wall’s importance with the impressive PA rig that ringed the entire arena with barely noticeable, yet sufficiently effective speakers that made it sound like sound was coming from everywhere at once, and it was easily the most well-thought out and executed production I’ve ever seen…and this is the seventh time I’ve seen this band.<br />
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Yet, this band never seems to forget the human element, especially in the three-song set that can’t be described as anything other than…sexy. “Even Better Than The Real Thing” into “Mysterious Ways” then a gathering on the satellite stage and bringing up a young woman bearing a Costa Rican flag, who then turned into their Meerkatographer for “Angel of Harlem.” The band had fun, the girl had fun (even though she shot most of the song in “tallscreen” which translated horizontally on the video wall”) and the crowd completely dug it.<br />
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After two more “Innocence” songs, the pain theme cycled back around, this time via “Bullet The Blue Sky.” Again, it was another song that found Bono up and down the room, raging against and due to the narrative, wincing visibly both with microphone and star-spangled bullhorn, shouting into the wind about the tragedies of Baltimore and Ferguson and Charleston. And it made me wonder — and ultimately tear up for him and for us — what it must be like to sing that song 28 years in, knowing and loving America as an idea as much as a country, and seeing that we just keep inventing new ways to injure ourselves as both an idea and a country.<br />
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It made me hurt, standing there in a crowd of strangers, knowing how much pain there must be in that room, including mine, not to mention ours at a nation. I was in very real danger of being crushed by it, mentally and spiritually…and then three very familiar chiming chords pulled me from the depth.
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“Pride (In The Name of Love),” reminding once again to never underestimate music’s ability to rescue us.<br />
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The crowd was back in Bono and company’s hands for the hit parade that followed, from “Beautiful Day” to “Bad” to “With Or Without You,” and the encore set of “City of Blinding Lights,” “Where The Streets Have No Name” and the Paul McGuinness-dedicated “One,” the vocal duties for which Bono handed over to the crowd, and it delivered in spades.<br />
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It was a night I needed: I traveled to Chicago by myself, had several random days meeting new friends in the beer biz as well as just seeing sights as the whims came up. As a music fan, it was great to just let go and be a fan, meet people who like me had traveled from elsewhere and were thrilled to be in the room. We yelled, we sang, we sweated, we listened.<br />
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I met another 6’7 gentleman and his family from Cleveland, his wife and three teenage daughters who were just as geeked about seeing U2 as Dad was. We stood side-by-side, probably to the chagrin of several dozen fans around us, and let the music and the experience transport us to our younger days.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpTiCsXy5epTr3k3RXFbzTtr23aOHaGC3nAoGDG8j86rIickgc2x2Hi2DgUQAIYap1aclB3rjBW7KKmo3ThG-LqnCi94gHBuPpcoQ656O5L8PwrctFYn8rwQNEO_OF9EBSGayEYg/s1600/IMG_0276+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpTiCsXy5epTr3k3RXFbzTtr23aOHaGC3nAoGDG8j86rIickgc2x2Hi2DgUQAIYap1aclB3rjBW7KKmo3ThG-LqnCi94gHBuPpcoQ656O5L8PwrctFYn8rwQNEO_OF9EBSGayEYg/s320/IMG_0276+2.JPG" width="320" /></a>The last time I saw that band in that building, it was 10 years ago, and we weren’t nearly as invested in attempting to capture the experience via our flip phones. Concertgoing in 2015 is a very different beast, with 20,000 smartphones trying (and most likely failing) to chronicle the process. Who knows what that’s gonna look like 10 years hence?<br />
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But if that band is in that building a decade from now, and a certain 13-year-old will deign to go with me, I’ll be back.<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Thanks, Chicago.
And thanks Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry. Be well and travel safe.</span>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-3391046200929204842015-05-19T13:39:00.000-05:002015-05-19T13:39:32.255-05:00Thanks, DaveTo the best of my knowledge, my grandmother Imogene Walker — my mom’s mom — never met a celebrity in her life.<br />
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She spent most of her 88 years in a tiny red house on a hill outside Carmi, Illinois, raising three kids, taking care of my farmer grandfather and the workers who’d help out as the seasons came and went, doing her crosswords and reading her magazines.<br />
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And she was as plugged-in to the world as any person I knew.<br />
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She understood pop culture (even if she didn’t like most of it), she understood politics (even if she didn’t like most of it), she understood the power of mass media, because she was an unabashed consumer living out on the Big Prairie.<br />
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If it hadn’t been for our annual family vacations to that tiny red house in the country, I wouldn’t be a writer today. I absolutely believe that.<br />
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Growing up, my grandmother and I would have long talks about whatever was interesting me that year: from Star Wars to comic books to sports to you name it.<br />
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All those interests were looping around the media landscape that was ever-present in their house, because the TV was on all the time and magazines and newspapers were everywhere. Those one-to-two-week stays outside Carmi were a bit of a refuge, because I knew I could dive into a virtually endless stack of reading materials and the time would pass by.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9i-YgQ3YEV8jG_9MBh1QxD4P7ddfWJ2NGsV3XdElofkqFty9_pZuPdcVoApYzYUr94kcHVxovi3kq5MuX3XVLrlv3ljwT3nmePa6fGHq4ptcn4KCE-hKV5SUVqL96qzHj42_5Iw/s1600/david-letterman-240.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9i-YgQ3YEV8jG_9MBh1QxD4P7ddfWJ2NGsV3XdElofkqFty9_pZuPdcVoApYzYUr94kcHVxovi3kq5MuX3XVLrlv3ljwT3nmePa6fGHq4ptcn4KCE-hKV5SUVqL96qzHj42_5Iw/s1600/david-letterman-240.jpg" /></a>So there’s an additional layer of sadness this week as David Letterman signs off from his amazing television career, because it was in that living room on the hill outside Carmi that I first discovered Dave, in the late ‘70s as a guest on Carson’s Tonight Show, then his short-lived NBC morning show (which I’m pretty sure I saw the debut of), then him kicking off his version of Late Night following his hero Johnny.<br />
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I picked up the Letterman fandom from there, with the meat of his NBC career happening while I was in college, then jumping to CBS and his Late Show not long after I relocated to Nashville for good. I remember the drama of who’d be Carson’s successor, and was always on Team Letterman.<br />
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Obviously, television watching patterns ebb and flow as you go through your 20s, 30s and 40s, and over the past decade or so, yes, if I was watching TV at all past 10pm, it was to watch Stewart and Colbert, both of whom will also change their availability this year. But Letterman was always there, always present when something happened in the world that needed a razor or blunt instrument taken to it, and even as he got grumpier and grayer, his take on the world got that much sharper.<br />
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So as Dave gets ready to flip the switch of his genius television career to the off position, you have to forgive those of us who’ve been fans. We’re losing access, however fleeting a late-night television program can be considered “access,” to somebody who’s been a constant for us for more than 35 years. It’s a tough pill to swallow.<br />
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There’s been the predicted cavalcade of stars and tributes and montages and moments as we hurtle toward Wednesday’s final broadcast, but my favorite moment from the show came not from Dave, but from his longtime sidekick/musical director/fellow genius Paul Shaffer. Starting with the four-piece known as the World’s Most Dangerous Band and wrapping up with the CBS Orchestra, Paul has been such a constant at Letterman’s side, crafting the perfect walk-in moments and backing the Who’s Who of the Who’s Who of the musical world. Say what you will about the viability of the institution itself, but a case can be made for Paul Shaffer as a member of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame.<br />
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Shaffer and the WMDB put together what they refused to call a “music video” for a Late Night prime-time special in 1985, with an original called “Dress Cool.” Does it hold up, sonically or visually, 30 years later? Don’t be silly. But it was intended to be silly, much like most of content that came out of Letterman’s orbit over the past three decades. It didn’t take itself too seriously (or seriously at all), and I think that’s what most of us liked about Letterman. He, and the supremely talented people who worked with him, knew this stuff wasn’t necessarily going to change the world, and if it didn’t, well, there was always tomorrow to try again.<br />
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After tomorrow, it’ll be somebody else’s turn to try. Thanks, Dave.<br />
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<br /></div>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-33221217722972835032014-12-31T12:40:00.000-06:002015-01-06T12:41:43.203-06:00It's not you, it's me, 2014...I think we should see other years...<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I feel like this was the first year EVER that I actually accomplished a resolution, that of spending more time with the Small Land Mammal. And my life was markedly better for it. I’ll redirect, yet again, the wish for him to be happy and healthy and for our relationship to continue to flourish.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Meanwhile, on other fronts and for so many people I know, 2014 was far less gentle than it could have been. It’s easy to sit here under the rubble of the previous 365 days and say we’re going to arise, dust ourselves off and start the new year with a clean slate. It’s far harder to actually do it.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. And that’s what I’m going to try to do.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">If you’ve spent any time with me, you likely know that my default position tends to run toward the </span>doom and gloom. My primary goal for the upcoming solar cycle is to yank myself out of that rut. In no way shape or form does that mean I’m going to completely transform from Eeyore into Tigger. </div>
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But I meant it the other day when I wrote that even the slightest shift into positive thinking can dramatically alter situations, starting with the ones in your head. And so that’s where I’m going to start.</div>
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<span class="s1">Good things are gonna happen. And the good things already in motion are gonna become great. I’m going to keep saying that to myself as often as I need, and my other hope is that it will happen for you as well.</span></div>
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“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” Goethe said that. Happy new year, ever’body.</div>
Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-76085552929577278252014-08-24T10:40:00.000-05:002015-01-06T12:43:33.115-06:00#WMH3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIHVYAovZ_hije2uHCrkhRpqD3l0r_wA_Oz5EwNWrAXlIrChxGR9eqyN6i6M8jJ_INii_b33sEsy0MtbYqadQ3EeI4G8mSVfKHP2ShSWNqVztdKDo06ZWJIKP62DfSHOToE9FoA/s1600/984181_10152294192031659_1364079912611412866_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIHVYAovZ_hije2uHCrkhRpqD3l0r_wA_Oz5EwNWrAXlIrChxGR9eqyN6i6M8jJ_INii_b33sEsy0MtbYqadQ3EeI4G8mSVfKHP2ShSWNqVztdKDo06ZWJIKP62DfSHOToE9FoA/s1600/984181_10152294192031659_1364079912611412866_n.jpg" height="320" width="276" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I've not written a lot about my abrupt entry into fatherhood. The reason is fairly simple: the two weeks between when I learned about Will's existence and his arrival into the world was the darkest fortnight of my life, and I don't really gain anything looking back on it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">August 24, 2011 was the scariest, heart- and gut-wrenching, and then supremely joyous day of my life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Many of you know I am a</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">dopted. My wonderful parents, Don and Kathy Hendrickson, never kept that information from me, and so I've never really been driven to find out who my biological parents are. I have a handful of information that I'm able to reflect on, and thank those two people for giving me a chance at life.<br /><br />But here's one of the upshots of that situation: I had never looked at a person before and known that I shared a biological link to them. I'd never knowingly seen my features on another human being.<br /><br />One of the side effects was that I really couldn't discern who people (mainly newborns) looked like in comparison to their biological relatives. It was just a muscle that I'd never really used.<br /><br />But on that late August afternoon, after all the fear and the uncertainty, after the rushing downtown to Baptist Hospital (and I don't give one whit what name's on the door...it will always be Baptist Hospital to me), after a very no-nonsense but supportive nurse helped me scrub in to the NICU for the first of what would be close to 50 times, I walked up to an incubator, gazed upon this tiny, ropy form wearing a diaper no wider than three of my fingers...and I saw my nose.<br /><br />That's my nose. There's a respirator taped to his face, an umbilical IV, a handful of other monitors strapped onto his minuscule form...but that's my nose.<br /><br />I knew two things in that moment: that he was going to be OK, and that I was no longer alone in the universe. Here, in this plexiglass womb, with doctors and nurses dedicated to making sure he would leave that environment as quickly as possible, was proof that I existed.<br /><br />I know this is a lot to put on a kid, especially one who showed up 10 weeks early, but he saved my life that day. He gave me purpose and direction and a reason to put two feet on the floor and one foot in front of the other. I'm not saying I haven't stumbled (a lot) in the past 36 months, but he's the reason I get back up, dust myself off, splash some water on my face and try to move forward again.<br /><br />So here's to my shaggy-haired, lanky-limbed, smiley-faced, tomato-lovin' super-sweet boy. Being your Daddy is the best thing I will ever do. Happy birthday, Will!</span></span>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-91722063302826263392012-11-07T08:09:00.000-06:002012-11-07T08:11:26.000-06:00The Next Fourscore YearsWe've all been asked -- some of us very recently and with a surprising amount of rancor -- if we're better off than we were four years ago.<br />
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If you can answer that simply and succinctly, I'd wager you haven't had a very interesting life over the past four years.</div>
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Mine got very interesting 14 1/2 months ago. And so today I struggle to express not so much what I want from the next four years, but what I want from the next 80+ years. For my small land mammal.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEx2QWx2xETt0Ohw954en3rqydfZ63kmsQkyRmA6XakiCeudW3bb1SB_wUQeUnNIwbyLS0CnAju4PWNctRzDfC2HfnpyHPM3a7GqGx-Qy7QcK3M-KIjjeYVAavxkjvYwWQTcm7A/s1600/DSC00311.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEx2QWx2xETt0Ohw954en3rqydfZ63kmsQkyRmA6XakiCeudW3bb1SB_wUQeUnNIwbyLS0CnAju4PWNctRzDfC2HfnpyHPM3a7GqGx-Qy7QcK3M-KIjjeYVAavxkjvYwWQTcm7A/s320/DSC00311.JPG" width="320" /></a>I want him to grow up in a country of which he can be proud.</div>
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I want him to grow up in a country where acquiring a good education isn't viewed (or priced) as a luxury.</div>
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I want him to live in a country where he knows he can speak his mind, publish his thoughts, question his leaders, worship as he chooses, and that his birthplace isn't as focused on the "under God" phrase of a 31-word pledge as it is with that pledge's final stanza, "with liberty and justice for all."</div>
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I want him to live in a country where he can marry the person he loves without hesitation or restriction.</div>
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I want him to live in a country where national debt remains a national issue, not recast as an individual financial issue. You know, in the way a catastrophic illness or accident would be an actual individual financial issue.</div>
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I want him to live in a country that has safe streets, roads and bridges, and have fewer means of destruction that deny others in different parts of the world safe streets, roads and bridges.</div>
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I want him to live in a world that, yes, recognizes there is evil living in it. But also one that recognizes words are ultimately far more effective in diffusing that evil than guns and bombs.</div>
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I want him to live in a world where fear and panic have their place, as a means to spur individuals to action, not as a wedge to keep an entire populace on edge, much less as a way to make money or get a gig.</div>
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I want him to live in a world where reason and logic and respect and science and art and music and knowledge and, yes, freedom are treasured, and to have the country of his birth lead that charge.</div>
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And I want him to see the original, non-futzed with <i>Star Wars</i> movies in a theater, box of popcorn at the ready.</div>
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I don't know how much of this I'm going to get to see happen. I don't care if this makes me naive. But there's one thing the presence of this tiny human has given me, and that's hope. I would be remiss -- strike that, I'd be a bad dad -- if I didn't acknowledge that hope and help try to make it real.</div>
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Forward.</div>
Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-51298742038420913222012-06-29T09:43:00.000-05:002012-06-29T09:44:29.878-05:00BLUE SOUL PATCHED<span style="background-color: white;">A remembrance in six parts...</span><br />
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1. Creator of note<br />
The impulse to create grows out of a sense that there’s something missing in the world.<br />
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It doesn’t have to be something big. It doesn’t have to intend to right the planet’s wrongs. It just has to emerge from an observation that something needs to be addressed, and only you can do that.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR9f1qGGudr-tFu6qqlGaUqcwbU_3p1HUMjeiQj3vyHGvz9EvACl0FtngKBrqI88-bwaLALQxkL1bPLq-53yHaQrcergI3LZZiauHCLCvQZJ8ooYmMHBnOHtnO3ndSqzgLbk5rLg/s1600/DSCN0032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR9f1qGGudr-tFu6qqlGaUqcwbU_3p1HUMjeiQj3vyHGvz9EvACl0FtngKBrqI88-bwaLALQxkL1bPLq-53yHaQrcergI3LZZiauHCLCvQZJ8ooYmMHBnOHtnO3ndSqzgLbk5rLg/s320/DSCN0032.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yvonne Smith, Kate O'Neill and Karsten <br />
Soltauer at the opening of Yazoo Taproom,<br />
March 2010. I'm in the picture inasmuch<br />
as I'm behind the camera.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://celebratingkarsten.com/">Karsten Soltauer</a> was a creator.<br />
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2. Questioner of people<br />
He would have operated just fine as a journalist, as well. He asked some of the most penetrating questions, even of people he met moments before. And he was dogged in his pursuit of getting you to tell your story.<br />
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It was Karsten’s way of tapping the essence of a person, and it was done without guile or agenda. He simply and genuinely wanted a better sense of what made you tick. It helped him fill in the gaps of where you could fit in his creation, all the while you were puzzling over this intensely curious man with the vividly blue soul patch.<br />
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3. Hugger of friends<br />
He insisted on giving you a hug. He must have rebuffed a half-dozen of my attempts at a handshake before I got the clue that when you greeted Karsten, you were going to hug him. It was part of his ritual, his connection with you, and it became something you looked forward to when you came into contact with him.<br />
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4. Lover of Kate<br />
Theirs was an interesting combination to glimpse from afar and up close. She with the pragmatic, data-loving, multi-lingual intellect infused with a liberal dash of whimsy; he with the visual, spatial, emotion-gathering ability to draw out important concepts and redirect meaning with clarity. They were complimentary of each other, and complementary to each other. They are the human embodiment of the relationship between the colors blue and orange.<br />
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5. Respecter of time<br />
His studio was his sanctuary, be it when he was in creation mode or when entertaining guests during his and Kate’s now-legendary parties. You entered said sanctuary at your own risk, because more likely than not, you’d end up revealing something about yourself, be it to Karsten alone or to others gathered downstairs, as part of the price of entrance.<br />
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But if you took a few moments to look around at the walls, at the items and images and totems that served to inspire Karsten, you picked up on a few things. One, there was a very definite sense of order, as items were neatly placed on the walls, grouped very carefully. And two, many of the images were from times gone by, not specifically retro or antique, but more from a sense of wanting to learn from the past.<br />
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Combine that with the house the studio resides within being one of the oldest in Germantown, and you get the sense of Karsten as a man without a time, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable with the age he lived in, but rather belonging to all time at once. As he does now.<br />
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6. Keeper of forever<br />
Creativity itself is an ephemeral process; to tell somebody you can describe it easily is to lie to them. I’ve spent more than 20 years around musically creative people, attempting to translate their process and their output to a general public. Trying to encapsulate creativity of visual art is an even more complex (and perhaps futile) pursuit. But it seems to come down to taking something that means something to you and expressing it in a way that means something to somebody else.<br />
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The following is the closing slice of a poem from another visual artist friend of mine:<br />
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From “Fingerprint” by Kim Thomas:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If I lay you down on my heart</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and cut around the edges</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and then give it to you,</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have given you the part of me</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>that is shaped like you.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Full of breath and spirit,</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I am calmed and stilled to have completed today.</div>
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It’s emblematic of what Karsten did for so many of us…take a piece of himself and shape it into something we will keep with us forever.<br />
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I wrote this Tuesday in a far more public, far less personal space, but I wish to say it again: Yours is a beautiful, curious spirit separated from us far too soon. We will carry it with us always, and will never see the color blue the same.Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-59929673410682652052012-06-11T11:51:00.000-05:002012-06-12T12:01:53.406-05:00Fans and their favorites are in harmony at CMA Music Fest<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/story/2012-06-10/2012-cma-music-festival/55522570/1" style="font-size: small;">(Original USATODAY.com link)</a><br />
<br />
By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA Today<br />
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NASHVILLE – One of the most welcome changes at the 41st <b>CMA Music Festival</b> was out of anybody's control: The weekend weather was gorgeous. Country fans descended in droves, and the big stars and up-and-comers turned out — even if they weren't feeling their best.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiA8HsaLBArSZj5R0dNR1UCwo8Jo9yk8n8hqFXn4uAyAoLoG9LzGoP__wVWe0mSYXeFbBTQ2mu0dzwlvBhQxguJsAWEvnBxtTuyIsSSYgraZPTS-EeUZ5W3LHUV218J7Cm7u054A/s1600/07_ladya_sign-pg-horizontal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiA8HsaLBArSZj5R0dNR1UCwo8Jo9yk8n8hqFXn4uAyAoLoG9LzGoP__wVWe0mSYXeFbBTQ2mu0dzwlvBhQxguJsAWEvnBxtTuyIsSSYgraZPTS-EeUZ5W3LHUV218J7Cm7u054A/s320/07_ladya_sign-pg-horizontal.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lady Antebellum<br />
(Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Ailing Lambert is a trouper: Miranda Lambert</b> says the nausea-delayed start of Thursday's Ran Fan club party had nothing to do with a) overindulging after the CMT Music Awards the night before, or b) pregnancy. ("We've got seven dogs, that's enough.") The Country Music Association's reigning female vocalist soldiered through a handful of songs for followers. "We don't have a job if they don't do what they do all year long — buying our records and coming to see our shows," she says.<br />
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<b>It's five o'clock (shadow) somewhere:</b> Rumble-voiced fan favorite <b>Josh Turner</b> is anxiously awaiting Tuesday's release of fifth album <b><i>Punching Bag</i></b>, featuring first single <i>Time Is Love</i>, which he played for USA TODAY in an exclusive acoustic performance. The advent of new music isn't the only thing that can make Turner anxious. That honor goes to monitoring his facial stubble. "It actually kind of wears me out to try to keep it this way," he says. "When I'm clean-shaven, my face gets irritated, and when I grow it out too long, it gets itchy and exposes gray hairs. So I have to keep it this same length all the time."<br />
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<b>Life of the party: Jason Aldean</b>'s new album is expected this fall, nearly two years after <b><i>My Kinda Party </i></b>vaulted the Georgia native to stardom. But that's not to say he doesn't think back on where he's been. "As a kid, watching concerts on TV, that was always the killer shot, that endless sea of people," he says. "And now to know those people are out there to see us, that's the coolest thing."<br />
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<b>Whole bunch of nothin':</b> Pretty much from the moment <b>Carrie Underwood</b> went on <b><i>American Idol </i></b>in 2005, her life has been in whirlwind mode. That gives the Oklahoma native impetus to shut it all down when she gets the chance. How does she decompress? "I do nothing," Underwood said Friday . "I stay home in my pajamas, I get together with friends and hang out with my husband (NHL star Mike Fisher)."<br />
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<b>The family that sticks together:</b> So how do the busy musical siblings (Kimberly, Reid and Neil) of <b>The Band Perry</b> interface with one another? "Our family interaction really hasn't changed since about fourth grade," Reid Perry says. Neil chimes in: "If one person is unhappy, then all three are unhappy, so we try to keep that in mind."<br />
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<b>Not scared to give back:</b> It's been a tough couple of years for <b>Julie Roberts</b>. The blond bombshell with the bluesy voice lost her home in the Nashville flood of 2010 and broke her ankle while being rescued — which put the fact that she'd just lost her label deal the same week into stark perspective. She continues to record (including current single Whiskey and You) on her own uniquely titled label, Ain't Skeerd Records. In college, "I'd send Mama e-mails saying, 'Maybe I should come back home,'" Roberts said Saturday, her day to perform the national anthem at LP Field. "But she'd send one back, she'd say, 'No … Remember, we ain't skeerd.'"<br />
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<b>A Sunny Sunday:</b> Fans usually trickle in for the fest Sunday morning, which suits <b>Sunny Sweeney</b>'s hippie-chick country just fine. She feels emboldened enough to premiere new music on the Riverfront Park stage, saying, "I swore I'd never do a song onstage with just piano" before doing just that for <b><i>Carolina Still on the Line</i></b>, a tune about an increasingly longer-distance breakup call. "I love seeing the same faces every year (at the fest)," she tells the die-hards. "Because it means I haven't run y'all off yet."<br />
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<b>A clash on the horizon?</b>: Country music's continued march toward a more rock-influenced sound makes one wonder how much of a looming conflict there might be between the party-rockin' new stars and still-active, hit-making neo-traditionalists like <b>Alan Jackson</b>, who got some of the weekend's biggest cheers at LP Field. The outcome will be determined by one group of people, says <b>Dierks Bentley</b>, who creates music that speaks to both sides of the equation. "It all depends on what's going on with the fans," Bentley says. "Right now, there are a lot of guys and girls 17, 18, 19 years old — the same age I was when I got into country — really pushing things forward because they like those sounds in their country music. I listen to the radio and hear something that sounds really cutting-edge, then the next song is something old-school. And I think it still really works, even though it may sound like two different stations."<br />
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<b>Two different worlds:</b> For the fourth consecutive year, both CMA Music Festival and Bonnaroo took place the same weekend, bringing very different fan bases and artists to Middle Tennessee. Only two artists had sets in front of both the country fans and the 'Roonies: the venerable <b>Kenny Rogers</b> and former BR5-49 frontman <b>Chuck Mead</b>, taking his new band the <b>Grassy Knoll Boys</b> and new project <b><i>Back at the Quonset Hut</i></b> out to the farm in Manchester, Tenn. "It's fantastic," Mead says. "Lower Broad is a great place for people who are going to Bonnaroo or CMA to sit side by side and have a great time." It wasn't the only way in which Mead was living in two places this weekend, as he served alongside BBC Radio 2's Mark Hagen as a backstage interviewer for the British broadcaster's nightly coverage. "I'm not so much a journalist as a picker talking to another picker."<br />
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<b>Some things never change:</b> Even after a decade of relocation, expansion and a name change, there are still some who are going to refer to this event as "Fan Fair." "Always," says superstar singer <b>Martina McBride</b>. "I still catch myself." Part of that is because many artists' first Fan Fair experience left such an indelible mark. "All of a sudden there were these people who wanted to meet me and get my autograph," McBride says. "I'd never been to anything like that before, so it was really cool."<br />
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<br /></div>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-43047357983286902412012-06-10T11:45:00.000-05:002012-06-12T12:02:16.878-05:00CMA Music Festival: It's not always rocking<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/story/2012-06-09/cma-music-festival-saturday/55501690/1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Original USATODAY.com link)</span></a><br />
<br />
By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA TODAY<br />
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NASHVILLE – The spotlight for the nightly CMA Music Festival concerts at LP Field shines on some of the biggest names in the genre, such as Saturday night's re-emergence of superstar Faith Hill alongside performances by nouveau outlaw <b>Eric Church</b>, fresh-faced multi-instrumentalist Hu<b>nter Hayes</b> and Bonnaroo-bound country legend <b>Kenny Rogers</b>, among others.<br />
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Yes, the big show frequently suffers from the stop-and-go nature of a television taping, but for the most part, it's about the music.<br />
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That's not as much the case during the day. To be sure, five stages around the festival's grounds are pumping out live music as quickly as they can turn artists around, but there's also a sense that CMA Fest is simultaneously a four-day "lifestyle marketing" experiment.<br />
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Mostly gone are the days of elaborate single-artist booths in the festival's main exhibition hall, replaced by what's left of major label groups rotating their rosters through the days, basic cable networks bringing their reality show stars to highly targeted groups of fans, and even long-established clothing brands hoping to latch on to the next big rising musical act.<br />
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Case in point, the North Carolina-spawned four-piece country rock act <b>Parmalee</b>, part of the vibrant indie label Broken Bow/Stoney Creek, and Wrangler, which invited the band to be part of its annual fashion show, an opportunity that may have taken one or two members aback just a bit.<br />
<br />
"I think they baited us," guitarist Josh McSwain says with a laugh. "I thought we were going to sit in the audience and look at the clothes. Turns out we're in the thing." Added lead singer/guitarist Matt Thomas, "I think it's part of the fun of (events like CMA Fest.) I love this kind of stuff. I mean, look at all these hot women around me."<br />
<br />
McSwain and Thomas, along with drummer Scott Thomas, bassist Barry Knox and a couple dozen other models, took their turns on the stage/catwalk inside the main hall at the Nashville Convention Center, before getting back later Saturday afternoon to what they know best, riling up a Hard Rock Café crowd already familiar with the party-aftermath-chronicling single Musta Had A Good Time.<br />
<br />
<b>Cracking the whip</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Little Big Town<br />
(Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)</td></tr>
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It's easy to settle into some creative rhythms 10 years into a career, especially when you're as perfection-driven as the four members of <b>Little Big Town</b>. But they knew they needed a little shake-up in their work habits for the harmonic foursome's first new music since 2010's <i>The Reason Why</i>, so they turned to producer <b>Jay Joyce </b>(Eric Church, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin) to take the helm for their upcoming full-length project, which will house the current single <i>Pontoon</i>.<br />
<br />
The first lesson Joyce imparted to the foursome? Stop thinking so much. "We tend to think you have to have it together before you get in (the studio)," says Karen Fairchild. "We had eight songs that we all agreed on as 'musts,' and we started there. And we had maybe 25 other songs we could record, but we couldn't decide. Jay said when we got there, 'Don't worry about it, when we get there, we'll figure it out together.'"<br />
<br />
Part of that figuring-out period was involving LBT's touring band in the recording process, rehearing the new songs over a four-day period, tracking the music over three days, then working on the vocals. It was an approach that kept the music organic, says Kimberly Schlapman. "He forced us into spontaneity. We like to work things out, and we'd be in the corner talking about it, and he'd say, 'Stop talking! Start singing!' and made us stop thinking about it so much."<br />
<br />
<b>Put me in, Coach</b><br />
While <b>Hunter Hayes</b> has been performing in public since the low single digits in age, and despite his proficiency on a ridiculous number of instruments and his upcoming run as an opening act for Carrie Underwood's tour, he still feels an ongoing urge to get off the bench and prove himself.<br />
<br />
"I totally feel like a rookie," says the 20-year-old Louisiana native, who's currently actively working the single <i>Wanted</i> from his 2011 self-titled Atlantic Nashville project. "There's an energy about it, a sort of combination of ignorance and excitement. There's so much to look forward to, and I feel like I'll always kind of feel that way."<br />
<br />
Hayes has spent the last couple of years on the precipice of his breakthrough, with high-profile tours with Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift on his resume, but he knows patience is sometimes the most valuable part of learning to deal with the business of show. "Nobody can tell you how it's supposed to go, because there's no real right or wrong way. There's not a set time frame on anything, so expectation can be your worst enemy," Hayes says. "But that's what keeps me going, seeing what actually happens vs. what I've always imagined happening."<br />
<br />
<b>Not scared to give back</b><br />
It's been a tough couple of years for <b>Julie Roberts</b>. The blonde bombshell with the bluesy voice lost her home in the Nashville flood of 2010, breaking her ankle in the process of being rescued from the floodwaters, all of that putting the fact she'd just lost her label deal the same week into stark perspective.<br />
<br />
Fold in a multiple sclerosis diagnosis a few years earlier, and nobody would hold stepping out of the spotlight against her one bit. But singers have got to sing, so running the gauntlet of appearances at this year's festival, including performing the national anthem at LP Field Saturday night, continues Roberts' healing process.<br />
<br />
So does giving back and honoring the places she comes from, evinced by her penning a song and creating a video for the University of South Carolina's endowment fund campaign. "I'm proud of where I'm from, I'm a Gamecocks fan, so I wrote the song Sweet Carolina and they're taking it all over the country to their alumni and raising money for the university."<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Roberts continues to work on her own music (including the current single Whiskey and You) under the uniquely titled label Ain't Skeered Records. "My last two years of college were at Belmont University (in Nashville) and I'd send Mama e-mails saying, 'I think maybe I should come back home,' " Roberts says. "But she'd send one back, she'd say, 'No … Remember, we ain't skeered.' "Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-963529243756707842012-06-09T11:34:00.000-05:002012-06-12T12:01:44.612-05:00CMA Music Fest showcases top stars, little-known songwriters<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/story/2012-06-08/cma-music-festival-friday/55478128/1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Original USATODAY.com link)</span></a><br />
<br />
By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA TODAY<br />
<br />
NASHVILLE - You know something at CMA Music Festival is different when the neon-green t-shirt-clad "fun team" volunteers can't give away artist-emblazoned mini-fans.<br />
<br />
Usually, they can't give 'em away fast enough. But with sunny skies and temperatures in the low-80s Friday afternoon, downtown Nashville was downright pleasant for CMA Fest's second full day.<br />
<br />
The favorable temps continued to pair well with the subtle changes the Country Music Association made in the footprint of the annual fan gathering, what with additional music stages added in the main exhibit hall of the Nashville Convention Center, Hall of Fame Park across the street from Bridgestone Arena (home of the Nashville Predators and Wednesday's CMT Music Awards), and at the south end of LP Field, where the big-name laden nightly concerts take place.<br />
<br />
Merge that with cover tunes blaring out of almost every storefront and honky tonk along Broadway, and the festival exists in a near-constant wash of sound. And the tens of thousands who pack Nashville's downtown streets each June like it that way.<br />
<br />
<b>Whole bunch of nothin'</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carrie Underwood<br />
(Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Pretty much from the moment <b>Carrie Underwood</b> stepped onto the American Idol stage in 2005, her life has been in whirlwind mode. The recording, promotion and touring cycle, meshed with near-annual trips to awards shows (not to mention her seemingly now-standing gig alongside Brad Paisley as hosts of the CMA Awards), and a public courtship and marriage to NHL star <b>Mike Fisher</b> gives the Oklahoma native impetus to shut it all down when she gets the chance. "I do nothing," Underwood says when asked what she does to decompress. "I stay home in my pajamas, I get together with friends and hang out, definitely trying to find time to spend with my friends and my husband." That works a lot better now that Fisher is a member of the Predators (thanks to a 2011 trade from the Ottawa Senators), but the cyclone will spin up for both members of the couple sooner than they probably wish, as Carrie heads out on an ambitious tour in support of her new record <i>Blown Away</i> (including her first dates in the United Kingdom) and Fisher returns to the ice.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
<b>“Yes, dear."</b><br />
Another artist getting used to marital bliss is <b>Jake Owen</b>, who's settling into the betrothed life with model Lacey Buchanan after marrying in early May. The rakish Owen's biggest adjustment? Pronouns. "I'm learning to say 'we' a lot more than 'I,'" Owen notes. "Like, this is not 'my' house, this is 'our' house. 'We' picked this out." While the new Mrs. Owen rounds out his personal life, the 2011-12 time frame has been jam-packed professionally for the Florida native, picking up his first two No. 1 country singles with <i>Barefoot Blue Jean Night</i> and <i>Alone With You</i>, not to mention a stellar slot on <b>Keith Urban'</b>s tour. After spending the previous couple years in a bit of a career lull, Owen is thankful for the renewed opportunities he's been given. "I've noticed a lot broader spectrum of fans that have come into my world," he says. "I kinda got demoted a bit, after a couple songs that died a slow death on the chart.<br />
But it made me work harder, so it's kind of validation for every thing I've done for the last year. Decisions I've made have brought me back to the place I wanted to be, and it's inspiring to go forward."<br />
<br />
<b>I know that song!</b><br />
Few major music festivals simultaneously celebrate the role of songwriters as publicly as CMA Music Festival, with writers who double as artists getting the chance to ply their performance wares in front of audiences who know their songs (and maybe even their names) but don't necessarily know the face. Performance rights organization BMI sponsored a stage on the grounds of LP Field not only as a way to provide music for the crowds gathering outside the gates for the huge nightly shows, but also as a way to showcase part of its artist/songwriter membership. <b>Trent Summar</b>, a co-writer on songs for <b>Jack Ingram</b> (<i>Love You</i>), <b>Pat Green</b> (<i>Somewhere Between Texas and Mexico</i>), <b>Gary Allan</b> (<i>Guys Like Me</i>) and others, brought his farm-rockin' outfit The New Row Mob out to play Friday afternoon for folks who may not have known the frenetic straw-behatted frontman, but could sure sing along to his hits. "Everything you've ever worked for with a crowd is easier at that point," Summar says of the moment when the crowd "gets" the song. "You play a song that some folks have heard, you're not fighting for acceptance any more. Here's my song, you like that? You don't like that one, well, here's a different one." And while the music business's constant state of flux has changed economic realities for the names you only see in liner notes, Summar knows he's fortunate to have the experience and success he does under his belt. "Any day you get paid to create, you're lucky and I know how lucky I am."<br />
<br />
<b>The family that sticks together…</b><br />
Spend enough time within the concrete corridors of LP Field during CMA Fest and you watch the evolution of artists from the "we're just happy to be here" phase to the "we'd really love to stop and tell you how happy we are to be here, but we literally don't have a second to spare" phase. This year's graduates to the "hurry up and hurry" mode of the nightly concerts, <b>The Band Perry</b>, which barely had time to slow down for USA TODAY's exclusive portrait room before jetting off again. But Kimberly, Reid and Neil Perry all recognize they're merely sitting atop the mountain built for them by brand new members of their clan. "Our family has grown by thousands and thousands of people, because more people know our music, and we truly feel they're more than TBP fans, they're the TBP family," Kimberly says. As far as how the musical siblings interface with each other in the wake of their success? "Our family interaction really hasn't changed since about the fourth grade," Reid says, with Neil quickly chiming in, "We do remember that if one person is unhappy, then all three are unhappy, so we try to keep that in mind." And with that, they were gone.Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-35694812332331950812012-06-08T11:25:00.000-05:002012-06-12T12:02:37.034-05:00CMA Music Festival joins fans with country's biggest stars<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/story/2012-06-07/cma-music-festival-thursday/55457386/1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(original USATODAY.com link)</span></a><br />
<br />
By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA TODAY<br />
<br />
NASHVILLE – For all the structural changes to the <b>CMA Music Festival</b> (reconfiguring the festival's footprint, moving stages around, reworking the rules for fans seeking autographs), the most welcome alteration, at least for Thursday's first full day, was something out of everybody's control.<br />
<br />
The weather was drop dead gorgeous.<br />
<br />
Which was a welcome change from years past, when it seemed the musical deities decided Middle Tennessee didn't deserve two very different gatherings happening the same weekend, and vented their wrath in the form of quadruple-digit humidity and surface-of-the-sun like temperatures.<br />
<br />
Country music fans descended on the genre's home base in droves for the 41st time, and the music's biggest stars, up-and-comers and legacy artists came right along with them. Even if they weren't feeling their very best.<br />
<br />
<b>"We've got seven dogs. That's enough."</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miranda Lambert<br />
(Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)</td></tr>
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We're going to take <b>Miranda Lambert</b> at her word when she says the nausea-delayed start of her Ran Fan fan club party was due neither to (a) over-indulging after the <b>CMT Music Awards</b> the night before nor (b) pregnancy. The two-time reigning CMA female vocalist of the year soldiered her way through a handful of songs for fans at Fontanel, the former home of country legend Barbara Mandrell, now one of Nashville's newest multi-use entertainment venues.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>If it had been any other week, the show may or may not have gone on, but "this is an appreciation event, really, from the artists to the fans," Lambert said before her LP Field main stage performance later that night. "We don't have a job if they don't do what they do all year long, they support us by buying our records and coming to see our shows, and this is our time to give them something back for doing all that." Lambert used the CMT Awards show and fan club opportunity to continue the slow-burn roll-out for her trio project <b>Pistol Annies</b> (with partners <b>Ashley Monroe</b> and <b>Angaleena Presley</b>), noting that the Annies experience gives her the chance "to say even more things that are probably offensive than I do in my own music."<br />
<br />
<b>It's five o'clock (shadow) somewhere.</b><br />
Rumble-voiced fan favorite <b>Josh Turner</b> is anxiously awaiting the release next week of his fifth album <b><i>Punching Bag</i></b>, featuring the debut single Time Is Love, which Josh was kind enough to play for USA TODAY in an exclusive acoustic performance video, coming soon. The advent of new music isn't the only thing that can make Turner anxious. That honor goes to monitoring his facial stubble. "It's actually kind of time-consuming and kinda wears me out to try to keep it this way," he admits. "What's funny is that when I'm clean-shaven, my face gets irritated, and when I grow it out too long, it gets itchy and exposes some of the gray hairs I'm starting to develop. So I have to keep it this same length all the time."<br />
<br />
<b>A factor of ten.</b><br />
Count <b>Jason Aldean</b> among those looking forward to also releasing new music. A new album is due this fall, nearly two years after <b><i>My Kinda Party</i></b> vaulted the Georgia native into a new level of stardom. But that's not to say he doesn't take time each night to think back on where he and his team have been and where they're going. "I just think about the times where we were happy to be going into a 2,500 seat theater and selling those out, and now seeing 25,000 people out there singing along, to look out there and see the sea of people," Aldean says. "For me as a kid, watching videos or concerts on TV, that was always the killer shot, that endless sea of people. And now to know those people are out there to see us, that's the coolest thing about any show."<br />
<br />
<b>'One' day at a time.</b><br />
Another growly voiced Georgia native, <b>Mac Powell</b>, has spent nearly two decades as the lead singer of the platinum-selling Southern rock-infused Christian band <b>Third Day</b>. And even though his "day job" continues (including currently working on a new project with veteran rock producer Brendan O'Brien), Powell has been itching to spread his creative wings into the country realm. He released his first country track <i>June Bug</i> on Twitter, and made his CMA Fest debut Thursday with a 30-minute set at the Hard Rock Café stage. (Note to country radio programmers: keep an ear out for <i>One Mississippi</i>. And keep a spoon handy, for you will be eating this song up with it.) Powell says he's ready to throw everything he's got into this new musical stage, even if it means taking a step back into his professional past. "It's different to think about getting in a van with a trailer and driving five to eight hours a night," he says. "It's something I never thought I would do again, but when you're driven to get this music out, you'll do it."<br />
<br />
<b>One more summer in the sun.</b><br />
<b>Luke Bryan</b> brightens considerably when it's posited that he's country's current king of the party rock anthem. Last year, it was <i>Country Girl (Shake It For Me)</i>, this year it's <i>Drunk On You</i>, and if Bryan's music and attitude livens up somebody's summer, so be it. "I just don't know any other way to go about this stuff than to try to create a fun party for people," Bryan says. "Look at <b>(Kenny) Chesney</b> through the years, look at <b>(Jimmy) Buffett</b>, look at the <b>(Rolling) Stones</b>…people want to come out and party at big, outdoor, summer day events, and it's fun. It's fun dreaming up stuff and having the ability to go do it and the fans bless it." ABC is counting on Bryan's party-throwing skills as one-half of the hosting team for this year's three-hour CMA Fest television special, premiering Sept. 17, though Bryan's still not quite sure how he got the gig. "It's funny because I talk so country, I don't know why anybody would want me hosting anything, but it's been good."<br />
<br />
<b>Unexpected times three.</b><br />
Each year in the exclusive USA TODAY portrait room at LP Field, artists are asked to do something a little different, this year's theme being autographing a piece of foam core board. The lads and lass in <b>Lady Antebellum</b> took the challenge a little differently, as you can see in the online gallery, instead penning messages to loved ones, be it a spouse (from <b>Dave Haywood</b>) or a pet (from <b>Hillary Scott</b>) or themselves (from <b>Charles Kelley</b>). Random acts of creativity keep it fresh for the group, which is experiencing escalating success the likes of which they hadn't anticipated. "I think the tour we've been out on right now has surprised us the most," Haywood says. "Even a year ago, we were selling a couple thousand tickets, but to go into amphitheatres and sell out 18,000 tickets, that's totally taken us aback. The energy when you're out there with that many people is great, and we're living the dream right now."Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-72827913272026939622012-04-26T15:07:00.000-05:002012-09-05T16:03:06.417-05:00'One of us' got it right...We’ve all done it. We’ve all characterized people as one factor or another relates directly to us.<br />
<br />
Most simply, it’s saying that somebody is <b>“one of us.”</b><br />
<br />
That little phrase got bandied about quite a bit when I was working day-to-day in the frequently maligned (and sometimes deservedly so) “Christian music industry.” My colleagues/friends and I would delight in the times when we’d meet “one of us,” because we knew we’d get better answers to questions and a broader-based look at the world, one we frequently shared.<br />
<br />
The definition went above and beyond the people we like or would want to spend some time with outside the work environment. They were the people who’ve been through some crap and come out the other side, not always entirely whole, but certainly with perspective and a desire to communicate it.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mercyland-Hymns-Rest-Us/dp/B007K7IAKI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335470005&sr=8-1">Mercyland: Hymns For The Rest Of Us</a></i></td></tr>
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Here’s a dirty little secret not often mentioned aloud: <b>not everybody who works in Christian music thinks the same</b>. Shocking, I know.<br />
<br />
Not everybody personally buys into the “God equals guns, money and country” form of <b>American Churchianity</b> (hat tip to <a href="http://www.thevillagechapel.com/">Jim Thomas</a> for that particular phrase) that seems to dominate much of the cultural landscape.<br />
<br />
The truly innovative artists in the genre aren’t afraid to ask questions, privately and in the company of other “ones of us”. But they also know their commercial lives depend upon dumbing down doubt and elevating absolute, unwavering belief in the faith their audiences have pre-ascribed to them.<br />
<br />
(It’s particularly onerous these days, this power we give audiences, but that’s a topic for another day.)<br />
<br />
So it seems increasingly rare to hear viable, outstanding art that addresses matters of faith with questions attached. Thank God for <b>Phil Madeira</b>, and thank God for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mercyland-Hymns-Rest-Us/dp/B007K7IAKI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335470005&sr=8-1"><b><i>Mercyland</i></b></a>.<br />
<br />
Phil is most assuredly “one of us,” and has been for a very long time. He’s plied his trade in the trenches of Christian music, but his talent, his skills are too vast to be contained by that narrow definition. So he has spent the last decade-and-a-half or so as one of Americana music’s (another way too simultaneously broad and narrow genre) most capable sidemen, for extended runs with <b>Buddy Miller</b> and currently with <b>Emmylou Harris</b>’ <b>Red Dirt Boys</b>.<br />
<br />
(And on a personal note, he’s the only person I’ve ever profiled who made me lunch.)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phil Madeira</td></tr>
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<br />
I’ve always known that encounters with Phil were going to leave me refreshed, be it by laughter or spirited argument or a wee bit of conspiracy — one of my favorite memories involves him stopping me in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel during the then-annual marathon grip-and-grin session known as Gospel Music Week to tell me he had a cut on an upcoming Toby Keith record titled <b>“If I Was Jesus,”</b> reciting some of the lyric and me wondering if Toby’s team truly knew what they had on their hands with the song. And when they turned it into a Jimmy Buffett-with-dobro quasi-party song, clearly they didn’t.<br />
<br />
(Then again, Phil played that dobro and the album went multi-platinum, and I’m never going to begrudge somebody a paycheck.)<br />
<br />
So when I heard he had spent the last couple of years slowly writing songs and gathering performances based on the idea of <b>“hymns for the rest of us,”</b> I knew the resulting record was going to be something special. I didn’t know how right I was.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Mercyland</i></b> is the musical embodiment of the 11th of the 12 Steps: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God <i>as we understood Him</i> (emphasis mine), praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”<br />
<br />
Everybody approaches that understanding of God differently, and I imagine that’s the case for every artist represented on this record. But the unifying theme is the reaching out, the identifying of that force bigger than us, and choosing to both rest in and act on the knowledge of it.<br />
<br />
<b>Buddy Miller</b>’s take on <b>“I Believe In You”</b> and <b>Cindy Morgan</b> teaming with Madeira for the homey, poetic <b>“Leaning On You”</b> represent that knowledge, just like the <b>North Mississippi Allstars</b>’ rescuing of “If I Was Jesus” and the record’s most impactful track <b>“Give God The Blues”</b> by <b>Shawn Mullins</b> hold up the mirror to remind us not to get too self-righteous about that knowledge.<br />
<br />
The production on <i><b>Mercyland</b></i> is minimal, the performances raw and spirited and sad and joyful exactly when they need to be. <b>The Civil Wars</b>’ kickoff track <b>“From This Valley”</b> is a touch brighter than the material on their splendid debut <i>Barton Hollow</i>, but the celebratory nature is needed to lead one into the grittier message delivered on Mullins’ track.<br />
<br />
<b>The Carolina Chocolate Drops'</b> <b>“Lights In The Valley”</b> recalls the best of strum-for-your-life campfire singalongs, which <b>John Scofield</b> counters on the instrumental closer <b>“Peace In The Valley,”</b> bringing the album in for a gentle landing while you think about the completion of the journey.<br />
<br />
In between reside standout performances by <b>Mat Kearney</b>, <b>Amy Stroup</b>, <b>Dan Tyminski</b>, the project’s spiritual and literal champion <b>Emmylou Harris</b> and Madeira himself. <i><b>Mercyland</b></i> is art informed by faith and grounded by reality, something I know so many "ones of us" have been looking for for a very long time and hope others will be compelled to make more of in the very near future.<br />
<br />
<b>Thanks, Phil.</b><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-66934916813836236812011-09-11T08:16:00.001-05:002011-09-11T08:21:01.839-05:00A remembrance in three parts...Everyone has their story about September 11, 2001. This is mine, in three parts, spread across a decade.<br />
<br />
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o<br />
<br />
<div>
<i>Here's something I started writing September 12, 2002...</i></div>
<blockquote>
The line doesn't come as often as it once did, but occasionally I do say "Words are my life."<br />
<br />
If only I could describe how many times words have actually failed me.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4kFMb1CVumvlhOXXKFkvzFZJG8KNEmk9eDkRaYWN2jTxP_pBt7yAfmwrv6CDsSsCPP14CC-X5pSgL7qkE9g0nXL9eAT6wY7_7UM4VvHqH9iR2ctMuEAhuoY6p1d40TfDmt9LxzQ/s1600-h/wtcimage.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244791976780157698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4kFMb1CVumvlhOXXKFkvzFZJG8KNEmk9eDkRaYWN2jTxP_pBt7yAfmwrv6CDsSsCPP14CC-X5pSgL7qkE9g0nXL9eAT6wY7_7UM4VvHqH9iR2ctMuEAhuoY6p1d40TfDmt9LxzQ/s320/wtcimage.gif" style="float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sept. 10, 2001 (c) Ed Rode<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Like when I was driving an SUV down the Jersey Turnpike and I hear the words over the two-way, "Guys, you better turn on your radio. Something just happened in New York City."<br />
<br />
You know how you start to use a phrase to describe someone, and it starts sticking, no matter what circumstance you're using it in, and even if the person you're talking to knows exactly who you're talking about? I'm pretty sure I've described Ed Rode to his wife as "my buddy Ed."<br />
<br />
My buddy Ed called me sometime in the summer of 2001 to tell me about this freelance gig he was going to be part of, and wanted to know if I wanted to come along. I don't remember the date, but I remember taking the call. I was on my cell phone in the middle of Hickory Hollow Mall, fresh from a haircut and sort of wandering aimlessly, as I had no particular place to be that afternoon. Such is the life of a freelance writer.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>He told me the story of the Williams Gas Pipeline Company and how they do this United Way fundraiser every year. This year, they were planning on being especially ambitious, putting together four teams to concurrently trace the company's pipelines across the country, riding the line as they called it, on bicycles. The shindig raised some $20 million-plus for the United Way, and Ed had been contracted to shoot still photography and create a website for the event. He was scheduled to shadow the ride's biggest group, some 80-plus riders, on their trip from New York to Houston.<br />
<br />
And he needed a driver, which is where I came in. Oh, sure, we finagled some extra cash for me to write a few things for the site, but mainly I was a chauffeur.<br />
<br />
As the gig got closer, Ed discovered that no one would rent him an SUV (we needed the room, and he needed to be able to shoot out the back) for a one-way trip from NYC to Houston. I jumped in with the suggestion that we rent the truck here in Nashville, I'd drive it up to New York, he'd fly in and meet me there, we'd do the trip, he'd fly back from Houston, I'd run up to Oklahoma to visit my folks for a few days and then drive it back to Nashville.<br />
<br />
It was all falling into place. The vans that were ferrying the riders and their equipment around were in Harrisburg, Penn. the Saturday before we were scheduled to start on Monday. The plan worked like a charm: I'd drive to Harrisburg on Saturday, a piddling little 12-hour drive, and meet up with our Williams contact. We'd all caravan to the hotel we were staying at outside NYC, where everyone else (riders, Williams muckety-mucks and Ed) would come in on Sunday.<br />
<br />
I remember very clearly standing in the parking lot of my apartment building, truck loaded, details taken care of (I checked the lock on my apartment door at least three times), and SUV door open, ready for me to hit the road. All that early September morning, some inexplicable feeling of dread had settled over me, and as I stood next to that door, one foot on the running board, I stopped and said a prayer asking God to watch over me, Ed and these people I was about to meet, that everybody would be safe, and the trip would be a success.<br />
<br />
I got in the car, somewhat comforted, but still had this feeling that something bad was going to happen.<br />
<br />
The ride up went without a hitch. I drove through a part of the country I'd never driven before, I listened to a lot of music, I made a few phone calls, and generally just enjoyed the ride, what with a new (albeit rented) SUV at my command and time on my side. I made it to Harrisburg in the early evening, and after hooking up with the Williams folks, running to a nearby grocery store for some last minute supplies (I had forgotten batteries, which to me is a good sign that I haven't forgotten something at home), and scarfing down a club sandwich (hotel food that never seems to satisfy) I went to bed.<br />
<br />
The following day went like clockwork as well. The drive from Harrisburg to NYC was uneventful, and I got a good idea in my head of the kinds folks I’d be dealing with over the next week by listening to the walkie-talkie traffic of the seven vans of people in front of me. I was traveling in a non-trailer laden red SUV, so I volunteered to take up the rear of the caravan, and my vehicle became known as The Caboose within minutes, a name that would stick for the rest of the trip.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
As we approached Manhattan, before veering off toward our hotel just over the river in The Meadowlands, I remember thinking, “I never thought I’d be driving a car where I could look out the window and see the World Trade Center.”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
The rest of that Sunday, September 9, was relatively uneventful. The 2001 NFL season was kicking off that day, and from the window of our hotel room, you could look out and see Giants Stadium, where the Jets were playing their home opener. Ed and I cooled our heels in the room, plotting out the trip in our heads, checking our gear, watching some football and generally resting up for the big launch banquet later that night. The sit-down dinner kinda put a crimp in our plans to grab a cab and head into Manhattan to catch our newly-beloved Tennessee Titans that night on the screens of the ESPNZone in Times Square, but we figured we should probably stay with the group, meet the folks we were going to be spending the next nine days with, and of course, being the former newspaper geeks we are, we had to adhere to the unofficial Journalist’s Credo: free food tastes better.<br />
<br />
Our wake-up call wasn’t especially welcome the following morning, especially since the Titans lost fairly spectacularly the night before. But we knew we needed to get our gear into the truck and have it ready to go by 5 a.m., because not long after that, we’d be pulling out, along with seven vans and trailers, to attempt to find parking spaces in lower Manhattan. We were kicking off the ride at the Today show, and everybody had to be there.<br />
<br />
A quick trip through the Holland Tunnel, a couple of wrong turns and the first of many overpriced parking garages later, Ed and I made our way to the 30 Rock plaza where our group had gathered. Our spot on the show wasn’t going to be until the 8:30 half-hour, but by God, we were going to be there early if it killed us.<br />
<br />
The spot went off without a hitch, Williams getting a good deal of free air time, great, let’s move on. We were due at another media event a few blocks uptown, but that still meant moving a lot of people and a lot of vehicles.</blockquote>
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o<br />
<br />
<i>September 11, 2008</i><br />
<br />
And that’s where I stopped writing that day, one year and one day after the events. Because it was just too painful. And it still is, seven years later.<br />
<br />
But the nutshell facts are these: I was in New York City the day before all this happened. Ed and I, and the 100+ people from scattered parts of the country, whom we’d just met hours before, were leaving Princeton, N.J. and rolling toward Philadelphia when it happened. We were standing on the deck of the U.S.S. New Jersey when the towers collapsed. From that deck we watched a stream of airplanes land quickly, in succession, at the Philly airport…and then nothing. We were supposed to have an event at the White House the next day.<br />
<br />
I have a different perspective than most of the rest of the people I know, not because I was in downtown Manhattan the day before, but because I didn’t watch the coverage on TV. I only heard it on the radio, picking up scattered patches of NPR stations as we serpentined through rural Pennsylvania to get to our destination outside D.C. I didn’t see the now-iconic footage until early in the evening, just before President Bush spoke and just before the meeting that determined that we would continue on that trip.<br />
<br />
And so, we became a caravan of wanderers, making our scheduled run down the east coast, along the Gulf and onto Houston 10 days later, mainly because there was no other expedient way to get home at the time. Sure, Ed and I could have veered off at any time, but we stayed, because we had a job to do.<br />
<br />
Particularly schlocky fiction writers would wrap up the story with the ride into Houston and that we all remain close-knit friends to this day, having witnessed the triumph of the American spirit together. Fact is, other than Ed (and we keep trying to shake each other but CMT, the CMA and Jack Daniels, among others, keep throwing us in cars together), I’ve not seen or heard of any of those people again, especially since Williams got Enron-ed out of existence a few years back.<br />
<br />
The fact is, I couldn’t wait to get away from the throng we’d traveled more than 2,500 miles with. Ed traveled to New Orleans to stay and decompress with friends before heading back to Nashville. And as soon as the festivities were over, I headed north up I-45, through the Metroplex, and into Oklahoma to my parents’ place.<br />
<br />
My feelings of anguish and despair over what had happened 10 days earlier dominated my thoughts as I sped through central Texas, mirrored by the torrential rainstorm that hit just outside of Dallas. The storm stopped as I approached downtown, and with the familiar skyline to my right, I remember seeing the most amazing sunset, not because of its beauty, but because of the vivid ugliness – blacks, purples, midnight blues, fiery oranges – contained within. The sky, the spirit, the soul…all had been badly bruised and were going to take a long time to heal.<br />
<br />
The specifics of those 10 days on the road have faded pretty much over time as well…mainly because I did get to witness the triumph of the American spirit, how resolve in the face of tragedy was unanimously shown in those dark days after, how denizens of small towns and big cities alike experienced and redirected grief in the exact same ways.<br />
<br />
Those memories have faded because I’ve watched that unanimity be shattered, willfully and consistently, over the past seven years.<br />
<br />
I grow increasingly weary of people saying we can’t afford to live in a pre-9/11 world anymore. And while there are aspects in which they are right, I know they didn’t see what I saw as we traveled from state to state over that week-and-a-half span. And I know we can’t afford not to live in that post-9/11 state of mind. And yet we do. Because of the bad decisions others have made for us.<br />
<br />
So today, as happens on a lot of days, my heart goes out to those who lost their lives on that day. But as unimaginable as that horror was for them, for those still around, life in America has become a much longer and more sustained type of horror. Because there remains this sense that much of this never had to happen in the first place.<br />
<br />
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o<br />
<br />
<i>September 11, 2011</i><br />
<br />
And so we complete the circle…looping around to the 10-year anniversary of the most horrific day most Americans will ever witness.<br />
<br />
Looking back on the events, from one year, from seven years and now from 10 years, I wonder what we’ve learned.<br />
<br />
The only thing I know is that <b>we’re not who we were, nor are we who we wish to be. </b><br />
<br />
Or at least I’m not.<br />
<br />
I wish we had both learned more and applied it. Again, that 9/12/01 mindset of loving and respecting and caring for your neighbors has been obliterated — willingly and repeatedly — by some whose power and influence far outstrips their humanity.<br />
<br />
Hence, the landscape of the American Dream, much like that of New York City, looks very different now than it did a decade ago. For a lot of us, it’s just about survival…keeping one’s head down and just trying to make it through the days and years, rather than looking skyward and dreaming of a better life for ourselves, our friends, our families and our nation.<br />
<br />
I’ve thought that way for a long time. And in many ways, I still do. But circumstances have changed, not quite as suddenly (though close) but certainly as dramatically.<br />
<br />
New life has come into my life, and while myriad challenges face me and those close to me, I have new impetus to act as an agent of change. So when another zero anniversary of this day comes around, I can say to those people, <b>“We’re not who we were. But we’re a lot closer to being who we wish to be.” </b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-88752351888543001142011-07-03T13:26:00.005-05:002011-07-05T09:32:00.285-05:00Things left unsaid...Or untweeted.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9QI62A8wgtw/ThC06GK4L4I/AAAAAAAAAVU/tN2T_rU_taA/s1600/DSCN0010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9QI62A8wgtw/ThC06GK4L4I/AAAAAAAAAVU/tN2T_rU_taA/s320/DSCN0010.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>I made a vow to myself that I would experience <b>U2's first Nashville show in three decades</b> through the highest-res image processors I possess...my own two eyes. OK, yes, I did have my crappily trusty Nikon point-and-shoot, but other than that, I was bound and determined not to tweet the show away, to live in the moment that was in front of me.<br />
<br />
I maintained radio silence. I reveled in the event taking place. I sweated my posterior off. And I was reminded of the simple power of rock 'n' roll, and the humanity of people who do it really, really well.<br />
<br />
That doesn't mean I wasn't thinking in 140-character chunklets. So imagine, if you will, what I might have said had the phone been on...<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-<br />
<br />
<b>(UPDATED 7/5: </b>The Gigapixel Fan Cam shot from Vandy is up. And the shot of me couldn't be any more meta if it tried. I swear on all that is holy...<a href="http://www.u2.com/gigapixelfancam/110702/1998594-lucas-hendrickson">I didn't know they were shooting the picture at that very moment.</a>)<br />
<br />
Best part of the <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23u2VU">#U2VU</a> run-up for me? Reconnecting with "Achtung Baby," a record that bridged two eras, and I'd never really been a fan.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cB-RhluZrVk/ThCtS8Ru1DI/AAAAAAAAAU4/uigDrhHOxt8/s1600/DSCN0004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cB-RhluZrVk/ThCtS8Ru1DI/AAAAAAAAAU4/uigDrhHOxt8/s320/DSCN0004.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Again, hoping the support acts on this tour realize the respect they're given by the band, because <a href="http://florenceandthemachine.net/">Florence + The Machine</a> sounded amazing.<br />
<br />
Gotta think the sweaty denizens of The Circle were thinking this thought as Florence sang "Dog Days Are Over": "Um...no. No, they're not."<br />
<br />
The main thing F+TM's set did was make me want to see them @<a href="http://www.twitter.com/theryman">TheRyman</a>. That voice in that room? Would be nothing short of spectacular.<br />
<br />
The other thing Florence's set did for was a little more visceral. I mean, come on...a statuesque redhead in a diaphanous emerald dress?<br />
<br />
(Wondering if I've sent any of you scrambling for a definition of "diaphanous"...)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGvv87YS1FY/ThCtexX-uJI/AAAAAAAAAU8/NH9pBd9cSXg/s1600/DSCN0008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGvv87YS1FY/ThCtexX-uJI/AAAAAAAAAU8/NH9pBd9cSXg/s320/DSCN0008.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>On to the headliners. "Space Oddity"? Check. Walk-up shot of the band? Check. Launching with "Even Better Than The Real Thing"? OH HELL YEAH.<br />
<br />
After the Anaheim audience and twittersphere both exploded two weeks ago, they had to have thought, "Yeah, let's keep this opening sequence."<br />
<br />
"EBTTRT" -> "The Fly" -> "Mysterious Ways" -> "Until The End Of The World -> "I Will Follow." That's a potent first act, people.<br />
<br />
And to have "Mysterious Ways" and "UTEOTW" back-to-back? They coulda said "thank you and good night" right then and I'da gone home happy.<br />
<br />
When Bono yelled "Music City!" it generated the biggest hometown pop I've ever heard. And a big stupid grin from me. I love my town.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xzLKi-qVzj4/ThCtnl7f5NI/AAAAAAAAAVA/jML4nvBvqqw/s1600/DSCN0015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xzLKi-qVzj4/ThCtnl7f5NI/AAAAAAAAAVA/jML4nvBvqqw/s320/DSCN0015.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>That's not to say there weren't moments when "music industry Nashville" showed up. But I'm going to attribute most of that to the heat.<br />
<br />
It was, by far, the cleanest sounding stadium show I've ever heard. They've got that sucker dialed in, which you'd expect after 100 shows.<br />
<br />
T'was in The Circle for the Atlanta show in '09, so didn't see all the production elements until now. They use every trick in the bag...<br />
<br />
...yet it never seems egregious. Every cue, song treatment, concept piece vs. straight video of the band...every decision is the right one.<br />
<br />
Thrilled to hear seven people I know and respect get name-checked from the stage, even if one got his quasi-iconic middle initial mangled.<br />
<br />
You knew they were going to tip their caps to Johnny Cash. I mean, you just *knew* it. And by god, they broke out "The Wanderer."<br />
<br />
For. The. First. Time. EVER.<br />
<br />
Best part was watching Bono huddle with Edge to cue it up, and then struggle over doing it a la Cash vs. finding it in his own voice.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nokkTe260qU/ThCt_GRF5fI/AAAAAAAAAVM/aeButKIo6NY/s1600/DSCN0040.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nokkTe260qU/ThCt_GRF5fI/AAAAAAAAAVM/aeButKIo6NY/s320/DSCN0040.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>The perils of a three-decade career and a much-beloved catalog of songs? Something you adore is gonna get left out of the setlist.<br />
<br />
For me, it's usually "Desire" and "Angel of Harlem." I am an unabashed sucker for the stuff off "Rattle And Hum."<br />
<br />
For others, it might have been reaching the tour-long closer "Moment of Surrender" without hearing "All I Want Is You." Little did they know.<br />
<br />
In the moment, sans any other information, I thought, "Wow, he's drunk. Why did he get pulled up?" Then he played, and the script flipped.<br />
<br />
The thought then became, "Only in Nashville can you pull a random guy up out of the pit and have him competently and confidently play that."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://media.u2.com/non_secure/images/20110703/news/nashvillefan/large.jpg">Then you get the real story</a>, which we heard from a reliable source on the way out of the stadium. Getting teary just thinking about it.<br />
<br />
Seriously, watch this. If you don't have some sort of emotional reaction, then god, Jed, I don't even wanna know you. <a href="http://youtu.be/xNZjfz8rgT8">http://youtu.be/xNZjfz8rgT8</a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xNZjfz8rgT8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
For all the flak these guys take about what they do (Bono especially), we've consistently seen these kinds of humanizing acts for decades.<br />
<br />
From pulling that girl out of the crush at Live Aid in 1985 to Saturday night, you can draw a thread of them doing stuff like this all along.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VaBwnse-3Xk/ThCuJc84LwI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/sNhjaO9Y-HM/s1600/DSCN0045.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VaBwnse-3Xk/ThCuJc84LwI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/sNhjaO9Y-HM/s320/DSCN0045.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>This band made this guy's LIFE last night. And the rest of us get a little more human by extension. Not a bad gig if you can get it.<br />
<br />
Thanks to @<a href="http://www.twitter.com/cdlowell">cdlowell</a> and @<a href="http://www.twitter.com/mattwertz">mattwertz</a>, don't have to type the setlist. Yes, technology is occasionally good for something. <a href="http://twitpic.com/5kmo31">twitpic.com/5kmo31</a><br />
<br />
(Though, if you look at the top of the setlist, it reads "Version 2.0." Somebody get on digging up v1.0 please...thanks...)<br />
<br />
Pleased to see so many people I like, love, admire and am challenged by have such a transformative experience with this show. Hope it lingers.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATED: </b>The Gigapixel Fan Cam shot from Vandy is up. And the shot of me couldn't be any more meta if it tried. I swear on all that is holy...<a href="http://www.u2.com/gigapixelfancam/110702/1998594-lucas-hendrickson">I didn't know they were shooting the picture at that very moment.</a>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-89580371152890499792011-06-29T23:29:00.003-05:002011-06-30T10:38:25.235-05:00"One day, you'll be cool."<div style="text-align: left;">A couple of threads emerged from the stories told Wednesday night at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=208903859147340"><b>“When Love Comes To Town: A U2 Tribute”</b></a> at Downtown Presbyterian Church.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/211187_208903859147340_2542438_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/211187_208903859147340_2542438_n.jpg" /></a>One, most every artist who told a story of how they came to know the Dublin quartet spoke of an older sibling or family member that introduced them to the band’s music.</div><br />
And two, most came to that music at a time in their lives when they were profoundly uncool.<br />
<br />
(The above headline comes from a seminal moment in the Cameron Crowe film “Almost Famous,” when William Miller’s older sister Anita is leaving home and leaving her music collection for him as a means of escape. She grasps him by both shoulders, looks him squarely in the eyes and dispenses this prophecy: “One day, you’ll be cool.” Which of course, because William is destined to become a Music Journalist, never comes true.)<br />
<br />
The revealing factor is that, for most people, U2 was<b> Somebody Else’s Band</b> first. Which is good. It’s a grounding thing that helps connect that music with a time, a place, a person around which one can build their own interaction and history. They just didn't stumble across it via some mass media avenue; there was a flesh and blood and emotional connection there that was carried through the music.<br />
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And, clearly, the artists who played Wednesday night have gone on to form their own connections. <b><a href="http://www.myspace.com/kateyork">Kate York</a></b> in introducing “Running To Stand Still,” told the story of her umpteenth family uprooting, settling as a 9th grader in Colorado Springs and her introspective lunchtime reverie broken by the sound of a flag whipping against a flagpole and <i>Joshua Tree</i> playing on a Walkman.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.thadcockrell.com/">Thad Cockrell</a></b> spoke of U2 intriguing him by dint of not initially understanding the band, their music and what they were trying to accomplish, before giving way to a powerful rendition of “In God’s Country.”<br />
<br />
Most of the players stuck to the band’s '80s catalog, with the exception of <b><a href="http://www.sarahmasen.com/">Sarah Masen</a></b>’s slowed-down, sliced-up “Lemon,” and wife-and-husband pair <b><a href="http://www.sandramccracken.com/">Sandra McCracken</a></b> and <b><a href="http://www.derekwebb.com/">Derek Webb</a></b> championing “Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around the World” and “Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car,” respectively.<br />
<br />
Still, that idea of Bono et. al., being Somebody Else’s Band got stood on its head via <b><a href="http://www.mikefarrismusic.net/">Mike Farris</a></b>’ story of not liking the band when he first heard them (“they were too white,” the former Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies frontman insisted), and then growing to respect them as he heard more. But it was in the urgency and insistence of his now-teenaged son watching — repeatedly, it seems — a DVD of the Vertigo Tour that rekindled Farris’ interest, which he proved with a scorching rendition of the night’s title song, “When Love Comes To Town.”<br />
<br />
The night, conceived and produced by singer/songwriter <b>Matthew Perryman Jones</b> and author/emcee <b>David Dark</b>, was also a benefit for <b><i><a href="http://www.thecontributor.org/">The Contributor</a></i></b>, Nashville’s monthly newspaper benefitting and advocating for the homeless population. That connection underscores this music’s earth-bound resonance, even in the midst of dealing with matters spiritual and political.<br />
<br />
The show was a fitting nudge down the hill toward <b>Saturday’s U2 360 show at Vanderbilt Stadium</b>. It was, most assuredly, one of those “only in Nashville” nights, an event that other cities with pockets of fans as rabid as ours would kill for and that we Music City music fans too often take for granted.<br />
<br />
Because, in our quest to be cool, we can sometimes be profoundly uncool. But not this night, not these people and not this music. <br />
<br />
Setlist:<br />
“Red Hill Mining Town” by Bulb<br />
“Running To Stand Still” by Kate York<br />
“Two Hearts Beat As One” by Stephen Mason<br />
“Lemon” by Sarah Masen<br />
“In God’s Country” by Thad Cockrell<br />
“Like A Song” by Matthew Perryman Jones<br />
“Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World” by Sandra McCracken<br />
“Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car” by Derek Webb<br />
“All I Want Is You” by Griffin House<br />
“When Love Comes To Town” by Mike Farris<br />
“40” by Julie Lee, et. al.Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-45393318092102114702011-06-26T14:13:00.000-05:002011-06-26T14:13:48.987-05:00Faraway, so close...After beginning the month with my annual immersion into the world of commercial country music (see below and thanks per usual to the fine folks at <b><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/">USA TODAY</a></b> for giving me the reins again), it's time to put thought into the upcoming extravaganza that is <b>U2's first Nashville show in nearly three decades</b>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/U2-360-tour-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/U2-360-tour-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>Say what you will about the Irish quartet...and many have, especially in the wake of their recent <a href="http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/">Glastonbury Festival</a> headlining gig. But what I saw from the video feeds coming out of Glasto Friday night were 80,000-plus faces, in the rain, waving flags and singing along with every word.<br />
<br />
So, for this week in Nashville, if you're a U2 hater, do us all a favor...<b>keep it to yourself</b>. The faithful have been waiting a long damn time for this, and we intend to enjoy every second.<br />
<br />
Which will also include an incredibly cool show Wednesday night at Downtown Presbyterian Church titled <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=208903859147340"><b>"When Love Comes To Town: A U2 Tribute"</b></a> which will include a boatload of Nashville's most talented artists covering U2 songs with the suggested cover donation going to <a href="http://www.thecontributor.org/"><b>The Contributor</b></a>, Nashville's newspaper devoted to helping the homeless. (In other words, a good time for a good cause.)<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I'm going back into the photo archives from 2009 and pulling up some shots from the Georgia Dome, the first time I took a ride on the Irish spaceship...<br />
<table style="width: 194px;"><tbody>
<tr><td align="center" style="background: url(https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left; height: 194px;"><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/105479903341332933667/U2360ATL?feat=embedwebsite"><img height="160" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9oAVnQCqdlA/SvbvTFiRxrE/AAAAAAAAAIw/nkRZYhB0YGY/s160-c/U2360ATL.jpg" style="margin: 1px 0 0 4px;" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/105479903341332933667/U2360ATL?feat=embedwebsite" style="color: #4d4d4d; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">U2 360 ATL</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-68965136698256587942011-06-13T11:02:00.002-05:002011-06-26T14:47:08.229-05:00It’s a wrap for CMA festival, 40 years young<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2011-06-13-cma-wrapup_n.htm">(VIEW ORIGINAL)</a><br />
<b>By Lucas Hendrickson for USA TODAY</b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/13/cma-wrapup-QK5PL90-x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/13/cma-wrapup-QK5PL90-x.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fans "have been wonderful," says Trace<br />
Adkins who lost his home in a fire<br />
June 4. (Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>By all accounts, Nashville’s <b>CMA Music Festival</b> is holding up pretty well at age 40. From the return of <b>Dolly Parton</b> to the introduction of <b><i>American Idol</i></b>’s <b>Scotty McCreery</b> and <b>Lauren Alaina</b>, country music present and future unfolded this weekend in Nashville in front of appreciative, if overheated, fans.<br />
<br />
<b>Ready for the ride: </b>In preparation for his <b><i>Get Closer</i></b> tour, which launches Thursday in Biloxi, Miss., <b>Keith Urban</b> invited in several hundred fans and industry onlookers for an 11-song glimpse at Municipal Auditorium, where he has been rehearsing. The new stage set, including a huge circular projection screen and roller-coaster-like rigging above and in back of the stage with rolling lights, is a far cry from Urban’s club days coming up. Back then, “I bought four sections of prefabbed white picket fence,” Urban says. “I hung them from the ceiling and put lights through them. So to go from that, to be able to put this together, there’s no shortage of gratitude.”<br />
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<b>Slow burn: </b>Georgia native <b>Jason Aldean</b> has ratcheted his game up over the past year, and with high-profile collaborations with <b>Kelly Clarkson</b> on <b><i>Don’t You Wanna Stay</i></b> and his <b>CMT Music Awards</b> turn with rapper <b>Ludacris</b> on <b><i>Dirt Road Anthem</i></b>, he appreciates the doors opening up for him. “It’s cool that those kinds of people dig what you do enough to want to come in and be a part of it,” Aldean says. “And it’s a lot easier to make it happen if they’re taking your call.”<br />
<br />
<b>Leaving off the parentheses: </b>Brad Paisley knew there was risk in titling an album <b><i>This Is Country Music</i></b> but cautions that in the end, it’s just one person’s opinion — namely, his. “I didn’t say ‘This is only country music’ or ‘This was country music’ or ‘This will be country music.’ It’s more this is what it is, for me. That’s sort of the parentheses that’s not officially on the title … ‘For Me.’”<br />
<br />
<b>Stuck like glue — in your head: </b>Artists who’ve been around the creative process long enough can pretty easily pick up on how a song will hit their fans. Hence, asking <b>Sugarland</b> if the two knew while writing monster hit <b><i>Stuck Like Glue</i></b> that the song was going to be such a relentless … “Earworm?” says <b>Jennifer Nettles</b>, finishing the question. “Absolutely! When we were listening to it the first few times, <b>Kristian </b>(<b>Bush</b>, Nettles’ partner in the duo) was saying, ‘This makes me nervous, and I kinda like it!’” Bush remembers: “No matter how many times I heard it, I felt like I needed to hear it again. It was like good candy. You think, ‘I want another piece.’”<br />
<br />
<b>Meet your new Idols:</b> <b><i>Idol</i></b>’s Final Two, <b>Scotty McCreery</b> and <b>Lauren Alaina</b>, were constantly on the go, starting with a cameo on Grand Ole Opry Tuesday night and ending with surprise appearances on LP Field Saturday night (he with <b>Josh Turner</b>, she with <b>Martina McBride</b>). The two acknowledged taking in advice as they met more of their music heroes. “Mainly just the simple ‘Just be you,’” says McCreery. “Don’t let Hollywood or don’t let Nashville get to you, and I don’t plan on changing, so that’s the advice I’m going to stick to.”<br />
<br />
<b>Hello, Dolly! </b>Sunday’s festivities marked superstar <b>Dolly Parton</b>’s return to the fan festival, signing autographs for a select group of 40 contest winners — befitting the event’s 40th anniversary — as throngs of onlookers snapped photos within Fan Fair Hall inside the Nashville Convention Center. Parton had last taken part in an autograph session at the event in its earliest days in the mid-’70s.<br />
<br />
<b>Are you ready for some football?</b> At LP Field, <b>Rascal Flatts</b> got to thinking that the NFL’s labor standoff is causing some to consider career changes. “We’re hearing that (NFL commissioner) <b>Roger Goodell</b> just got a label deal,” <b>Joe Don Rooney</b> quips. Counters <b>Gary LeVox</b>: “He and (Tennessee Titans owner) <b>Bud Adams</b> are forming a band and replacing <b>Brooks & Dunn</b>.”<br />
<br />
<b>Truly touched:</b> No one would’ve begrudged <b>Trace Adkins</b> if he hadn’t appeared, given that a fire June 4 destroyed his home while he was on the road in Alaska. The gritty-voiced superstar, whose presciently titled new album <b><i>Proud To Be Here</i></b> arrives Aug. 2, turned first to his family to make sure they were taken care of before figuring out the professional side. “All my girls are incredibly strong women, and I knew that I was OK to fulfill all my obligations.” As for the fans, “they’ve been wonderful,” Adkins says. “Just the outpouring of generosity and sympathy and well-wishes has just been overwhelming.”Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-74042751170799163892011-06-13T10:49:00.002-05:002011-06-26T14:47:30.658-05:00JaneDear girls hit the big stage at CMA Fest<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2011-06-13-CMA-Music-Festival-Day-4_n.htm">(VIEW ORIGINAL)</a><br />
<b>By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA TODAY</b><br />
<br />
NASHVILLE — Sunday at <b>CMA Music Festival</b> featured a break in the weather — if you call closer to 90 degrees than 100 a break — but hardly a let-up in the star power or array of musical styles featured within the event.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/13/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-4-115QK8K-x-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="146" src="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/13/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-4-115QK8K-x-large.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The JaneDear girls play CMA Music<br />
Festival's LP Field Stage.<br />
(Wade Payne/AP)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Everything from the return of late ’80s progressive country duo <b>Foster & Lloyd</b> to the shoot-‘em-up (meaning whiskey rather than bullets) snark of <b>Sunny Sweeney</b> to the neo-traditionalism of <b>Terri Clark</b> took its turn under the bright Sunday afternoon skies.<br />
<br />
<b>Hello, Dolly! </b>Sunday’s festivities marked superstar <b>Dolly Parton</b>’s return to the fan festival, signing autographs for a select group of 40 contest winners — befitting the event’s 40th anniversary — as throngs of onlookers snapped photos within Fan Fair Hall inside the Nashville Convention Center. Parton had last taken part in an autograph session at the event in its earliest days in the mid-’70s.<br />
<br />
<b>Gone like that:</b> <b>Josh Kelley</b>— brother of <b>Lady Antebellum</b>’s <b>Charles Kelley</b> and husband of actress <b>Katherine Heigl</b>— praised the resiliency of the CMA Fest crowd while introducing latest single <b><i>Gone Like That</i></b> during his Sunday afternoon Riverfront Park set. “You’re tanned, you’ve got smiles on your faces — and you’re hammered.”<br />
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<b>Size apparently matters: </b>Last year at this time, <b>the JaneDear girls</b> — <b>Susie Brown</b> and <b>Danelle Leverett</b> — were playing a CMA Fest stage outside Nashville’s Hard Rock Cafe. This year, they snagged one of the coveted new artist slots on the main stage at LP Field Sunday, on the strength of their hit <b><i>Wildflower</i></b>. “I have to admit, when we went on stage for soundcheck, I did a little dance because I was so excited,” Brown said. “This is by far the biggest stage we’ve ever played on.”<br />
<br />
<b>A good problem to have:</b> Three CMA Fests into his tenure as a country hitmaker, <b>Darius Rucker</b> sees the ratio of fans who know him in this sphere coming closer to the ones who know him as the frontman for <b>Hootie & the Blowfish</b>, which still plays a number of shows during the year. “There’s a lot of young people who have no idea what they’re hearing when we play a Hootie song,” Rucker says. “Then, at the Hootie shows, the country fans complain about not hearing the country hits, but we do throw a few of them in there.”<br />
<br />
<b>Don’t get comfortable:</b> Even within a musical unit made up of family members, roles change, sometimes dramatically. Such was the case with <b>The Band Perry</b>, which moved brother <b>Neil</b> upfront for a couple of fairly important showbiz reasons. “He started out as a drummer, but we pulled him to the front of the stage because he likes to flirt with the ladies and he’s a pretty good dancer,” says lead singer <b>Kimberly Perry</b>. “So he’s had to make the biggest adjustment.”Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-23672840713369071292011-06-12T10:30:00.005-05:002011-06-26T14:44:37.096-05:00Weekend adds to CMA Music Festival feel<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2011-06-12-CMA-Music-Festival-Day-3_n.htm">(VIEW ORIGINAL)</a><br />
<b>By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA TODAY</b><br />
<br />
NASHVILLE — Saturday at the <b>CMA Music Festival</b> always seems to take on a different feel, as Nashville’s regular downtown denizens have finished their workweek and the festival-goers truly take over. Music echoes constantly from block to block as eight different stages open to the public feature artists all day long. Newcomers and familiar faces alike are found on stages, in autograph booths, and sometimes in impromptu meetups, with fans’ point-and-shoot cameras further illuminating the already sunny Middle Tennessee afternoon.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/12/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-3-115PI1R-x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/12/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-3-115PI1R-x.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scotty McCreery poses for a portrait<br />
before performing at the CMA Music<br />
Festival. (Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>Idol country: </b>As expected, some of the biggest buzz surrounded country’s newest ambassadors, <b><i>American Idol</i></b>’s top two finishers <b>Scotty McCreery</b> and <b>Lauren Alaina</b>. (Check out a recap of their CMA Fest experience, including exclusive comments from the USA TODAY portrait room, at <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/idolchatter/post/2011/06/scotty-mccreery-lauren-alaina-pretty-much-everywhere-at-cma-music-fest/1">idolchatter.usatoday.com</a>.) From this reporter’s observation, McCreery brought about the most extended individual freakout witnessed in 10-plus years of covering the event. After exiting the autograph line at the Idolwinner’s appearance in Fan Fair Hall Friday afternoon, a teenage girl walks over to her waiting family, very quietly says, “I got his signature” once before shrieking the phrase at the top of her lungs four more times and then breaking down in tears. That, dear reader, is a fan.<br />
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</b><br />
<b>Always on the calendar:</b> For <b>Rascal Flatts</b>, CMA Fest is frequently the tentpole around which so much of their year revolves. “We finish a tour somewhere around March or April, and then try to head back out for the summer tour after this week,” says vocalist <b>Gary LeVox</b>. “So this is always in the plan, and it’s one of the most exciting times of the year for us.” Bandmate <b>Jay DeMarcus</b> mentioned the event’s changing role in exposing fans to new acts, especially in the music business’ changing and challenging times. “Because it’s so much more difficult to get songs on the radio or sell records, people can go out, hit it hard and do a great show and win new fans here,” DeMarcus says. Meanwhile, given their presence within an NFL stadium, the Flatts got to thinking that the current league labor situation is causing some to consider career changes. “We’re hearing that (NFL commissioner) <b>Roger Goodell</b> just got a label deal,” <b>Joe Don Rooney</b> quips. Counters LeVox: “He and (Tennessee Titans owner)<b> Bud Adams</b> are forming a band and replacing <b>Brooks & Dunn</b>.”<br />
<br />
<b>Truly touched:</b> No one would’ve begrudged <b>Trace Adkins</b> for a moment if he had not appeared at CMA Fest, given the fire that destroyed his family home June 4, while he was on the road in Alaska. The gritty-voiced superstar, whose presciently titled new album <i><b>Proud To Be Here</b></i> releases Aug. 2, turned first to his family to make sure they were taken care of before figuring out the professional side. “All my girls are incredibly strong women and I knew that I was OK to fulfill all my obligations.” Meanwhile, Adkins remains visibly touched and humbled by the interaction with fans throughout the weekend. “They’ve been wonderful,” Adkins says. “Country music fans are the best fans in the world, and just the outpouring of generosity and sympathy and well-wishes has just been overwhelming.”<br />
<br />
<b>Give country a chance:</b> Even though she has been through the roller-coaster rides of both Hollywood and Broadway, <b>Kristin Chenoweth</b> knows that the challenge for any newcomer hoping to make an impact on country fans is authenticity. So while she has been in and out of Nashville over the past year, working with world-class songwriters and musicians on her upcoming country debut (not to mention serving as a judge on the recently completed <b><i>CMT’s Next Superstar</i></b>), she hopes fans recognize this career move has been a long time coming. “I’m really not out to prove anything, I’ve just wanted to do this kind of record for 20 years,” Chenoweth says. “Not everybody knows this is how I grew up singing, so hopefully my fans, even if they’re not country music fans, they’ll say, ‘I wonder why she’s doing that,’ and they’ll come listen.”<br />
<br />
<b>Imagine what they could’ve done with a full minute:</b> With an event consisting of as many moving parts as the nightly CMA Fest concerts, plans change. When USA TODAY was told that <b>Lady Antebellum</b> didn’t have a ton of time for a backstage portrait shoot, the photo team positioned the trio on two sets and captured 31 frames in a shooting time of 38 seconds. Says <b>Charles Kelley</b>, as the group ran back out the door: “Man, I wish they could all be like that!”Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-57785828887774809332011-06-12T10:00:00.000-05:002011-06-26T15:47:55.711-05:00Yes, this happened...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.usatoday.net/life/gallery/2011/l110610_cmaportraits/07_chenoweth-pg-horizontal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.usatoday.net/life/gallery/2011/l110610_cmaportraits/07_chenoweth-pg-horizontal.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kristin Chenoweth, left...<br />
(Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>(and yes, that's the original cutline USAT photo editor Jym Wilson wanted to put on the photo...)<br />
<br />
I hope the lovely-and-talented Ms. Chenoweth realizes the magnitude of me being photographed, in shorts, after a day of wandering among the masses at CMA Music Festival, and then having it posted on the website of the nation's largest newspaper (depending on the day). She looks fantastic...I look like a schmuck.<br />
<br />
Seriously, she was a tremendous sport about it all. Jym and Bob had her run through the traditional gamut of things they do in the USAT portrait room, when Jym said, "OK, we have got to get a shot of the two of you together." He hadn't even finished the sentence when Kristin kicked off her heels and was all about it.<br />
<br />
And as I was doing my normal "lean in so there's some semblance of being in the same shot" that I do when taking photos with other people, she bellows "Don't you DARE lean over!"<br />
<br />
Yes, dear reader, a 4'11 blonde Broadway star yelled at me, albeit in fun. The things I do for a national byline...Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-66710207508756121632011-06-11T10:41:00.002-05:002011-06-26T14:45:40.714-05:00Sugarland, Urban highlight day 2 at CMA Fest<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2011-06-10-CMA-Music-Festival-Day-2_n.htm">(VIEW ORIGINAL)</a><br />
<b>By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA TODAY</b><br />
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NASHVILLE — Nashville’s status as the home of country music tends to leave people with the impression of a genteel Southern town that just happens to be a haven for the musically creative.<br />
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Which it is. But it’s also a fully functioning mid-sized American city, so when you take over a good portion of downtown with stages and exhibits and tractor trailers and tens of thousands of extra people wandering around, Friday afternoon commutes can get a little extra dicey.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/10/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-2-785OC03-x-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="146" src="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/10/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-2-785OC03-x-large.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sugarland's Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles <br />
strike up air guitars before playing CMA Music Festival.<br />
(Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Still, <b>CMA Music Festival</b>, celebrating its 40th birthday and 10 years since the move into downtown Nashville, has proven itself a well-oiled machine, programming stages and events during the day that allow fans to easily transition from one place to the next before the exodus across the river to LP Field for the nightly concerts featuring some of country’s biggest names.<br />
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Some of Friday’s daytime highlights included both debuts and re-debuts, as <b>Shania Twain</b> made her CMA Fest return to sign copies of her new autobiography <i>From This Moment On</i> before introducing Sugarland at LP Field Friday night. Meanwhile, <b>Scotty McCreery</b> and <b>Lauren Alaina</b> made their first stop at Fan Fair Hall, the artist/fan meetup hub within the Nashville Convention Center, signing and posing for almost two hours before heading off to the Grand Ole Opry to make their debut on the venerable radio show.<br />
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<b>Stuck like glue — in your head: </b>As much as today’s modern music business is reliant on numbers and research, artists who’ve been around the creative process long enough can pretty easily pick up on how a song will hit their fans. Hence, asking <b>Sugarland</b> if they knew while writing monster hit <b>"<i>Stuck Like Glue"</i></b> that the song was going to be such a relentless … “Earworm?” says <b>Jennifer Nettles</b>, finishing the question. “Absolutely! When we were listening to it the first few times, <b>Kristian (Bush</b>, Nettles’ partner in the duo) was saying, ‘This makes me nervous, and I kind of like it!’ ” Bush remembers: “The wonderful thing I remember about recording it is that, no matter how many times I heard it, I felt like I needed to hear it again. It was like good candy. You think, ‘I want another piece.’ “<br />
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<b>Taking the risk: </b>Count <b>Dierks Bentley</b> among a select group of artists lucky enough to take a leap of musical faith and have it affect them positively in the long run. Even in this run-up season to the release of a new, mainstream country record titled <b><i>Diamonds</i></b>, Bentley thinks fondly of the risks taken and course charted on his roots/bluegrass 2010 release <b><i>Up on the Ridge</i></b>. “It’s left a permanent scar on me, for the better,” Bentley says. “It wasn’t just something you do and come back away from, which I discovered trying to make this new record. <i>Up on the Ridge</i> will always be a big part of who I am and a defining moment of my career.”<br />
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<b>Tonight was a good, good night: </b>For some, CMA Fest is very serious business. For bluegrass cover outfit <b>The Cleverlys</b>, which used its time playing during changeovers at Friday’s LP Field show to roll out their version of the <b>Black Eyed Peas’ <i>I Gotta Feeling</i></b>, among others, opportunity can be found in the most unlikely of places. “It’s been awesome to be included in this show with all these great people,” says frontman <b>Digger Cleverly</b> (even though his driver’s license reads “Paul Miller”). “But also we found stickless corn dogs at the convenience store, so it’s been a gold mine.”<br />
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<b>Family tradition?:</b> More than one artist commented on CMA Fest’s role as unofficial “family reunion” for fans and artists alike. If that’s the case, then what’s <b>Jake Owen</b>’s role within the familial unit? “I’m like the annoying cousin. I’m the guy where people are, like, ‘Really? He’s coming to Christmas dinner?’ ” Owen says, shortly before joining <b>Keith Urban</b> on the LP Field stage for a surprise appearance on Owen’s song <b><i>Don’t Think I Can’t Love You</i></b>. “You never know what you’re going to get out of me. Some days I just kind of float under the radar, eat my salad at the end of the table, but some days, I’m going to be the guy who spills his wine over the place.”Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-32869197105396031592011-06-10T10:15:00.014-05:002011-06-26T14:46:37.588-05:00CMA Music Festival showcases country artists big and small<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2011-06-10-CMA-Music-Festival-Day-1_n.htm">(VIEW ORIGINAL)</a><br />
<b>By Lucas Hendrickson, Special for USA TODAY</b><br />
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NASHVILLE — By all accounts, the <b>CMA Music Festival</b> is holding up pretty well at age 40.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/10/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-1-KF5LTAP-x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/10/CMA-Music-Festival-Day-1-KF5LTAP-x.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brad Paisley performs during CMA Music Festival <br />
at Nashville's LP Field. (Wade Payne/AP)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>While longtime festival-goers and music industry folk alike can lapse and call it “Fan Fair” out of sheer habit, young talent is also well-served at the venerable annual gathering of country music fans.<br />
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From the buzz surrounding <i>American Idol</i> final duo of <b>Scotty McCreery</b> and <b>Lauren Alaina</b> to the dozens of up-and-coming artists getting a chance to showcase their talents on stages around Nashville, country music’s future continues to unfold in front of appreciative, if warm, crowds.<br />
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Thursday continued a string of a dozen straight days of temperatures above 90 degrees in Middle Tennessee, and traveling from stage to stage to check out new music meant getting your sweat on, whether you wanted to or not.<br />
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<b>Ready for the ride:</b> Many artists use CMA Fest and the opportunity to connect with fans as a way to celebrate career achievements, but <b>Keith Urban</b> used the platform to look ahead, specifically at his new <i>Get Closer</i> tour, which launches June 16 in Biloxi, Miss. Urban and his band invited several hundred fans and industry onlookers to get an 11-song glimpse of the new production at Municipal Auditorium, where they’ve been rehearsing the show. The new stage set, including a huge circular projection screen and roller-coaster-like rigging above and in back of the stage with rolling lights that provide tremendous visual impact, is a far cry from Urban’s club days coming up. “We had no money, no budget, but I went to the hardware store and bought these four sections of prefabbed white picket fence,” Urban says. “I got wire and hung them from the ceiling of the stage at unusual angles and then put lights through them, just to make them a set piece. So to go from that, to be able to put this kind of thing together, there’s no shortage of gratitude for that.”<br />
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<b>Slow burn:</b> Count <b>Jason Aldean</b> among those well aware of and thankful for the slow build of a superstar-level career. The Georgia native ratcheted his game up over the past year, and with high-profile collaborations with <b>Kelly Clarkson</b> on "Don’t You Wanna Stay" and his <b>CMT Music Awards</b> turn with rapper <b>Ludacris</b> on current single "Dirt Road Anthem," Aldean appreciates the new doors opening up for him. “It’s been such a gradual climb that’s it’s given me time to adjust to everything and be able to enjoy it and take it in,” Aldean says. “It’s cool that those kinds of people dig what you do enough to want to come in and be a part of it. I love trying new stuff, whether it be with somebody like Luda or Kelly Clarkson or <b>Randy Owen</b> from <b>Alabama</b>. And it’s a lot easier to make it happen if they’re taking your call.”<br />
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<b>Taking it all in:</b> Singer/songwriter <b>Sonia Leigh</b> is in the midst of one of those decade-long “overnight success” scenarios that make for great stories. While currently identified as a Zac Brown Band protégé, whom she joined on the main stage at LP Field Thursday night, Leigh’s been kicking around for as a performer since the late ’90s. Sporting both a gritty attitude and winning smile, Leigh was completely open about taking in everything her first CMA Fest experience was presenting. “I’m excited and blessed and bewildered to be here,” Leigh says. “<b>Alan (Jackson)</b> — and I learned to play guitar listening to his songs — came up and gave me a hug at soundcheck and told me he liked my record, and that is such …” She pauses. “I might cry. I’m really hoping to just get out there and kick some butt and rock the crowd and show these people that I’m here to rock ‘n’ roll and entertain them. I’m excited to be here.”<br />
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<b>Leaving off the parentheses: </b>Sometimes there’s danger in declarative statements when it comes to popular music. <b>Brad Paisley</b> knew there was risk in titling an album <i><i>This Is Country Music</i></i>, but cautions that in the end, it’s just one person’s opinion — namely, his. “I was self-conscious about making sure that if I’m going to call it This Is Country Music that it felt like it is,” Paisley says of his newest collection of songs, including the current single "Old Alabama," which reunites members of the seminal band Alabama. “I didn’t say ‘This is only country music,’ or ‘This was country music’ or ‘This will be country music.’ It’s more this is what it is, for me. That’s sort of the parentheses that’s not officially on the title … ‘For Me.’ It wouldn’t have been nearly as cool an album title that way, but it is implied for me.”<br />
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<b>Drawing the boundaries: </b>From very early on in her career, <b>Sara Evans</b> has been adamant about respecting the two different sides of her life: artist vs. wife and mom. “It’s not so much a separation of the two as it is always making sure the kids come first and making sure that I’m a hands-on mom,” Evans says of her blended family of seven kids with husband Jay Barker. “I say ‘no’ to a lot of things just to make sure they’re not suffering in any way, shape or form because of my career. This has been a rebuilding year for me as an artist, and I’ve had to work three times as much as I normally do, but they’ve handled it really well and we’re getting back to the normal routine of the career.” And while the kids love hearing Mom on the radio, especially with new single "A Little Bit Stronger," Evans says they haven’t yet gotten to the point where they’re weighing in on her song choices. “They’ve always been around it, it’s not a big deal to them,” she says. “Right now, they just love everything I do. Maybe it’ll be different when they get older.”<br />
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<b>Generations collide?</b> World-class guitar-slinger <b>Steve Wariner</b> found his focus a little split on Thursday. He faced a busy day with an appearance for the fundraising arm of the Grand Ole Opry, the Opry Trust Fund, as well as appearing on the bill at LP Field, where he celebrated the set of multitalented artists that have charged to the forefront of country music. “I love it that there are a lot of artists that are the triple-threats: the writer, the singer and the musicians,” Wariner says. “To see a guy like Brad (Paisley), who I’ve known since he was about 13, have this kind of impact is awesome.” But earlier in the day, Wariner’s mind was 60-odd miles south of Nashville, where his son Ross’ band <b>Uncle Skeleton</b> was one of the acts opening Bonnaroo, having won a contest sponsored by performance rights organization BMI for a slot at that festival. “He took 15 pieces to Bonnaroo,” Wariner says of his progeny’s electronica-infused prog-punk collective. “I saw some video clips and they absolutely tore it up.”Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-40501157119729664512011-03-07T16:36:00.000-06:002011-03-07T16:36:54.125-06:00Revisiting the Moments...So I'm in this musical mood again, where I'm trying out the various subscription services out there to see if they stack up...even while still lamenting the demise of my beloved Lala.com...<br />
<br />
Trying out Rhapsody (my former, and perhaps future, favorite) on their current TWO MONTH free trial. And giving Rdio another spin, mainly because of the existence of a dedicated desktop app for the Mac. But I've only got a week to figure out if I want to drop the $10/month.<br />
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However, Rdio does allow one to create embeddable playlists, so that might move the needle in their favor...<br />
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<object width="440" height="220"><param name="movie" value="http://rd.io/e/QVs9mTNeZ7w"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://rd.io/e/QVs9mTNeZ7w" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="440" height="220"></embed></object>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-89400861625238855672010-12-24T13:16:00.000-06:002010-12-24T13:16:31.409-06:00My favorite "holiday" song...Yes, I do have a fondness for the absurd...look at the name of my site, for pete's sake...<br />
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Happy Christmas and Merry Holidays to all...travel safe if you're going somewhere, enjoy the stillness if you're not...<br />
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<object height="200" width="250"> <param name="movie" value="http://listen.grooveshark.com/widget.swf" /><param name="wmode" value="window" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="flashvars" value="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&songIDs=24093984&style=metal&p=0" /><embed src="http://listen.grooveshark.com/widget.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="200"
flashvars="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&songIDs=24093984&style=metal&p=0" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="window" /> </object>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19876697.post-78061636540255287152010-11-11T15:04:00.000-06:002010-11-11T15:04:45.243-06:00Suspension of disbelief...<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0" height="245" id="msnbc884685" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" /><param name="FlashVars" value="launch=40099422^308342^367155&width=420&height=245" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed name="msnbc884685" src="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" width="420" height="245" FlashVars="launch=40099422^308342^367155&width=420&height=245" allowscriptaccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object>Lucas Hendricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10621299593049179896noreply@blogger.com0