There were a few radiant moments during the Country Music Association awards show Oct. 2, but far too few for its three-hour duration. Some flaws were obvious, but basically it just didn’t look like anyone on the show was having much fun. More than ever, music took a backseat to production, which is quite understandable when you consider that there were 24 presenters, 15 acceptance speeches, 24 full-length musical performances, three Hall of Fame presentations, and five segue “bumpers” to fit in. So many acts are clamoring for—and getting—exposure that the CMAs have taken on the cluttered look that has so long blighted the Academy of Country Music ceremonies.
Of the two dozen songs performed on the show, only nine had an element of freshness. The others were hoary standards or heavily played hit singles from the recent past. K.T. Oslin’s treatment of Irving Berlin’s “Cuba” was tropically bright and effervescent, but the effect was considerably lessened when the singer plunged into the audience to draft a backup chorus. The only faces more puzzled than those of the draftees were those of us watching this Bay of Pigs Revisited. Whatever the context, though, Oslin’s return to country music is a cause for rejoicing. Reba McEntire was both striking and reassuringly Reba as she debuted “The Fear of Being Alone,” her newest single. But it was Trisha Yearwood who redeemed the evening and scorched a hole in the night with her smoldering, all-knowing “A Lover Is Forever.” Count this one as a classic.
Overall, this year’s CMA show looked less like a rocket ship for still fresh country talent than it did a lifeboat for survivors. If all the labels continue to insist that as many of their acts appear as can be wedged in, then the boat will eventually sink of its own weight. It’s already taking on water.
Currents
♦ Thanks to the recent release of Ernest Tubb: The Texas Troubadour, a lot of people will soon be discovering one of Music Row’s greatest scholarly treasures, Ronnie Pugh. Head of reference at the Country Music Foundation, Pugh is the man to call when memory, personal clipping files, and country music encyclopedias utterly fail you. Published by Duke University Press, his new book is the most comprehensive and understanding study of Tubb that’s ever been done. As such, it may cause a resurgence of interest in this monumental—and monumentally undervalued—figure. Gracing the illustrated book is a 76-page, minutely detailed “sessionography” of Tubb’s recording activity from 1936 to 1982. Particularly moving is Pugh’s account of how he came to love Tubb’s music. It is a love story with which every serious fan can identify.
♦ The best way to make a long evening short is to populate it with songwriters and step back while their natural eloquence speeds the clock. That’s what happened at the Loews Vanderbilt Plaza on Sept. 29, when Buck Owens, Jerry Chesnut, Norro Wilson, and Kenny O’Dell were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, an honorary organization jointly operated by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation and Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI). Although there were only the four major awards to hand out, the affair ran for more than three hours. But thanks to the uniformly high quality of remarks and music, no one left grumbling.
In presenting Norro Wilson’s award, Tom T. Hall noted that his fellow Kentuckian had gotten his start singing gospel but had quit after he realized “he didn’t understand what he was singing about.” Wilson told the crowd that he and the late Roger Miller once sold Bibles together in East Nashville; when someone asked them later why they had abandoned this honored and wholesome enterprise after only three days, Miller said, “The Lord called us out of it.” Jerry Chesnut recalled the evening long ago when a few disgruntled composers organized the NSAI in an office adjacent to his own. “I don’t think they’d mind me calling them drunks,” he said. “They were drunk.” Buck Owens explained how he became fascinated with music as a kid by listening to an old radio his father had hooked up to a car battery. “I used to think little people came in in the morning and climbed up into the radio,” Owens recalled. “And I used to hide behind the door to try and catch them. With an imagination like that, it’s not surprising I became a songwriter.”
♦ The intimidatingly gifted George Hamilton V continues his “Humpnight Hoedown” appearances each Wednesday at the Wagon Burner on Broadway. But he’ll soon be taking a break, he reports, to perform at the Oct. 23 Festival De Lille in Lille, France, where he’ll be joining The Fugees, Zachary Richard, Tito Puente, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Early this summer, Hamilton spent 35 days touring Poland. In November, he undertakes his eighth tour of Britain since 1990, this one to promote Ghost Town, his new album on Dixie Frog Records.
♦ Former Stax man Steve Cropper will celebrate his 55th birthday on Oct. 26 with a “Riverboat Casino Party” at the Opryland Hotel. Proceeds from the $300-per-couple event will go to the T.J. Martell Foundation for Leukemia, Cancer and AIDS Research. Musical entertainment will be provided by the Northwest Airlines All-Stars, a group that consists of Cropper, Felix Cavaliere, Mark Farner, Lou Gramm, and Billy Preston. For more info, call 742-0051.
♦ The Del McCoury Band—multiple winner at the recent International Bluegrass Music Association awards show—will give an in-store concert at Tower Records, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 12.
♦ Dan Gillis, formerly of 422 Management, has opened Dan Gillis Management at 1815 Division St. His clients include Steve Earle and the V-Roys.
♦ Balmur Entertainment has signed the new Warner Bros. country duet Crawford/West for management.
♦ PR by Net has set up World Wide Web sites for Mercury Records’ Keith Stegall (www.songnet.com/stegall/) and Imprint Records’ Charlie Major (www.songnet.com/ major/).
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