CMA Music Festival

Country music has always been home to a spectrum of personas, with rebels at one end and wholesome figures at the other. Not that they’ve been equally represented all along. The stalwarts of upright living have ruled the roost for quite a while, amassing themselves a sizable suburban audience. But the lineup for this year’s CMA Music Festival may mark the beginnings of a return to balance. There are “good” guys (and girls) and “bad” ones, and the two sides don’t break down along gender lines like they once would have. Three acts fall into the latter category: Miranda Lambert, Ashton Sheperd and Jamey Johnson. Johnson—with his steely intensity and bottom-scraping narratives—is one of the biggest feathers in country’s cap this year; he claims critical praise outside the genre, the respect of his country elders and the ability to rouse a beer-swilling crowd. Lambert reached a similar point a couple years back with the songs of a heat-packing, self-respecting loose cannon. Sheperd—whose drinking songs are a way of rejecting demure female roles—is the least known of the three. The festival lineup offers plenty of clean-cut acts, too, and none are bigger than Taylor Swift, the author of sensitive, youthful songs about crushes and fitting in. A recent Rolling Stone cover story confirmed that she really is as poised and well-behaved as she’s made out to be. Then there’s Josh Turner, the possessor of a voice as deep as Johnny Cash’s (without the craggy texture) and a devoutness like Cash’s (without the scars of dark and wayward years). And Wynonna, the full-throated veteran, is back this year. Landing somewhere between the poles are good-natured—but still a little rough-edged—male singers like Eric Church and Randy Houser and serious, established writers and pickers like Dierks Bentley and Brad Paisley. Thanks to CMT’s Can You Duet? competition, general nostalgia or something else entirely, harmony-singing families are also represented, most of them—like Joey & Rory, Carter’s Chord and Jypsi—on the smaller stages. The Judds, though, are playing LP Field, but only during a portion of Wynonna’s set. It’s also a year for rising bands—not just vocal groups, but genuinely self-contained units—some of them from Texas, and the majority of them named for their frontmen: The Zac Brown Band, The Randy Rogers Band and The Eli Young Band. Like everybody else, the country-music industry is wondering how to keep people showing up and buying records—to the extent that anybody still does such a thing—during these lean and sobering times. And the good news? There are more spots to hear music for free this year: the Sommet Center Plaza Stage, the Riverfront Park Daytime Stage and the Music City Zone in front of the courthouse. The stadium just isn’t one of them.
Thu., June 11, 11 a.m.; Fri., June 12, 11 a.m.; Sat., June 13, 11 a.m.; Sun., June 14, 11 a.m., 2009