It should come as no surprise that country and rock singers came together last week on the Country Music Association awards show and on a tribute to Johnny Cash, both aired on CBS.
After all, it was country musicians such as Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Johnny Burnette and The Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee who in the 1950s created and launched what became today's rock music market.
The 39th annual CMA Awards show, broadcast from Madison Square Garden in New York City, featured memorable crossover duets by Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles and Jon Bon Jovi singing Who Says You Can't Go Home Again, and by Dolly Parton joining Elton John on John Lennon's Imagine. The pairing of Willie Nelson and Paul Simon, however, came off sounding unrehearsed, with Mr. Simon seeming to strain on Mr. Nelson's classic composition Crazy.
I Walk The Line: A Night for Johnny Cash, taped at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, featured duets with Kid Rock singing with Jerry Lee Lewis on I Walk the Line and Norah Jones joining Kris Kristofferson to sing Guess Things Happen That Way.
Mr. Kristofferson said during the show that he worked as a janitor cleaning up the Columbia Records studios in Nashville, Tenn., and tried repeatedly to get Cash to record his songs. He said his life and career changed forever when Johnny finally recorded Mr. Kristofferson's ballad Sunday Morning Coming Down. Then Mr. Kristofferson performed the song with the Foo Fighters.
Here are some of my observations from those two TV specials:
- There are few entertainers who can excite an audience like semiretired Garth Brooks. He made an energetic public appearance with his band live from Times Square during the CMA Awards, performing his musical tribute Good Ride, Cowboy, about his late friend Chris LeDoux. All entertainers should take lessons from this guy on how you should give an audience your all.
- You'd think that some of those country superstars would have looked a little better going uptown to New York City. What is with millionaire Alan Jackson always wearing torn blue jeans? Could somebody please buy that drummer for Big & Rich a shirt, or at least a gym membership?
- The award for best effort in attempting to dress uptown in New York City is a tie between Eddie Montgomery with his rhinestone jacket that spelled out "Broadway" in huge letters, and Bill Anderson in that bright-yellow jacket. The runner-up would be honky-tonk girl Gretchen Wilson in that killer black dress.
- In all the years of watching the CMA Awards shows, I can't recall a winner thanking his bus driver by name, as Dierks Bentley did in accepting the Horizon Award. Mr. Bentley also graciously thanked his band members by name.
- Do you think that if Kenny Chesney kissed Rene Zellweger as enthusiastically as he kissed CMA Entertainer of the Year winner Keith Urban, he might still be married to her?
- Jerry Lee Lewis looked puffy-faced on the Johnny Cash tribute show. What is really sad is that he is the only one still living from that Sun Records Million-Dollar Quartet photo of him and other then-Sun artists Cash, Elvis and Perkins.
- Didn't that Cash tribute show - although full of great performances, including Sheryl Crow playing autoharp and singing Ring of Fire - come across like an infomercial for the new movie Walk The Line with all those film clips?
- As expected, the CMA voters ignored bluegrass, gospel and independent artists. The big record company-backed artists took the awards.
- The CMA continues to treat its Hall of Fame inductees poorly. Last year, they had the new Hall of Famers wave from the audience. This year, they cut off Alabama's acceptance speech to go to a commercial.
- The quote of the night at the CMA show came backstage when Entertainer of the Year Keith Urban was asked whether he and Nicole Kidman were engaged. He didn't say no in answering, "I'm grateful for the award, and I'd hate to take up time discussing my personal life." Which leads everyone to believe that they really are engaged.
- Can someone explain to me how that boring Toby Keith music video As Good As I Once Was beat out the sensitive Rick Schroder-directed Brad Paisley-Alison Krauss video Whiskey Lullaby for CMA Music Video of the Year award?
- Finally, where was Little Jimmy Dickens, the senior member of the Grand Ole Opry?
Don Rhodes has written about country music for 35 years. He can be reached at (706) 823-3214 or at don.rhodes@morris.com.
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