Depending on how much of a country music fan you are, you may or may not have heard the song "Murder On Music Row." It was written by Larry Cordle and Larry Shell and originally released on the current album by Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time. Then George Strait and Alan Jackson dueted a version on Mr. Strait's 'Latest Greatest Straitest Hits' and then the two of them played it on the CMA Awards show. Holy smoke!

It's a great song both lyrically and musically but I don't understand the ruckus it's causing. Here are some excerpts from a review in Billboard (March 11, 2000):

"If this isn't country music's dream team, what is? George Strait and Alan Jackson, two saviors of traditional country music in these pop-infused times, have joined forces to record a song that has tongues wagging...It immediately created a ruckus on Music Row and stirred the passions of traditional country music fans. The well-written lyric charges that someone murdered traditional country music. Such lines as, "The almighty dollar and the lust for worldwide fame slowly killed tradition and for that someone should pay" are serving as a rallying cry for fans of traditional country music and generating tremendous listener response...Musically, it's the kind of song that will make you reach for the nearest cold longneck beer. Lyrically, who can argue with the charges? ... This is more than a great record. It's a dead-on indictment of what's wrong with the country music industry today. It could just launch a revolution."

Well, it's a fun song, I'll agree. I like it. I've listened to it and sung along. But "a dead-on indictment of what's wrong with the country music industry today." Nonsense. The only way that would be true is if you agree that country music should remain forever static, never changing. And if you think that's true, then you'll have to agree that any country song more 'modern' sounding than Fiddlin' John Carson's 'The Little Log Cabin in the Lane' is pure heresy. Forget about Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn and George Jones -- they all sound too newfangled compared to real, old time country music like the shape note singing Carter Family. In fact if you subscribe to the notion that, say, The Dixie Chicks are bad for country music because they don't sound like The Fort Worth Doughboys then you have to agree it's just as true that Willie, Waylon and friends aren't real country because they don't sound anything like Roy Rogers. The whole argument is like complaining that oranges aren't any good 'cause they don't taste like apples.

There are probably a lot of things wrong with the country music industry today, but the fact that a lot of people are selling a lot of records and getting radio play with songs that don't sound like Uncle Dave Macon's 'Rabbit in the Pea Patch' ain't among them, so give it a rest and enjoy the music you like without trying to tell others that the music they like just ain't no damn good.

Another music link

I got an email one day from a guy in Hattiesburg, MS, home of the University of Southern Mississippi where I put in a little time. We'll call him Tim, since that's his name. Well Tim sent me a big ole box of CDs and a T-shirt from his record company, T-Bone Records.

I haven't listened to any of them yet, since I literally just pulled them out of the box. But the titles and the promotional copy is fun and besides, anyone who send me FREE STUFF always gets a mention on the website.

So go by www.loppy.com and check 'em out. Tell 'em Bill sent ya.

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