CMT Blog: 2008 April

Rampant reports around the Web indicate that Miley Cyrus has had a moratorium on public appearances and media utterances placed on her. Reports say that Disney has decided the Hannah Montana star has reached a no-win situation with the media frenzy surrounding her recent Vanity Fair magazine photo shoot and its somewhat revealing results.

So she seemingly will stay buttoned up and in the Disney cocoon for awhile, until the hubbub dies down. That’s probably the smartest thing she could do. The media monster is blaming her, blaming Billy Ray, blaming Vanity Fair, blaming the publicity machine. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but there’s still a valid argument to be made that this is a tempest in a teapot. Millions of words written and spoken over … what? Remember, despite all of her superstar success, Miley Cyrus is just a 15-year-old child.

Another day, another celebrity book. But this one’s for a good cause. Brad Paisley’s wife Kimberly is trying to get kids to eat their veggies with Henry and the Hidden Veggie Garden.

It’s true. Mindy McCready did have a sexual relationship with Roger Clemens, despite their 13-year age difference.

A Seventeen magazine cover and a triple platinum album both in one day? It sounds too good to be true, so it must be happening in the life of Taylor Swift.

Even dentists think that Carrie Underwood is all that. Her smile, anyway. They’ve named hers the Smile of the Year.

If you’ll be near Los Angeles on May 15, you might want to throw your name in the hat to see Dierks Bentley on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Merlefest is probably the world’s largest Americana and roots music festival. I was at the very first Merle Watson Memorial Festival (as it was called in those days) 21 years ago. The first concert featured jams with Chet Atkins, Doc, Earl Scruggs, Mac Wiseman, Jim Shumate, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Grandpa Jones, Marty Stuart, Newgrass Revival, John Hartford, Mark O’Connor and others inside the Walker Center and outside on a flatbed truck stage. I remember sitting on hay bales outside watching the whole thing go down. A few years later, I was playing Merlefest as a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station. One particular year was memorable because the mainstage show consisted of us and Ronnie Milsap, who just murdered the crowd with a solo guitar version of “Knoxville Girl.”

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5:30 a.m. That’s a hard hour to get up when you know a long day at school lies just beyond your rising! Especially when you’ve just spent the last three days at Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C. — one of the most exciting festivals I get to attend all year. This year’s Merlefest was indeed a very busy one, but a total blast of many sorts!

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Josh Turner loves playing basketball on the road with his band and crew – but not as much as he used to. “We try to play as much as we can,” he says, “but here lately, everybody’s been getting hurt, so it’s slowing us down.”

Turner sprained his ankle in early April, but he’s ready for another try, now that he’s able to walk without lingering pain. “I was on defense and my lead guitar player had the ball,” he says. “I was guarding him, and I went to try to steal the ball, and when I did, he went to drive past me. I tried to change direction really quick, and my ankle gave way. I just flipped over and laid there on the floor for a little while. But luckily I walked it off and played three or four more games.”

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Festival season has started in full force, and our conditioning for outdoor venues, coupled with multiple consecutive dates, has begun. Our weekend started with our departure from Nashville to Ladysmith, Va. Though rain had pounded the festival grounds just days before, it turned into a perfect sunny day. We performed two shows, our last being the festival closer, before we boarded the Martha White Bluegrass Express, en route to Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C. Merlefest is completely different than any other venue we ever play, and even more so this year. Read more…

With the new MySpace Karaoke site, you can record or listen to amateur versions of the country hits you love. Like a pitch-challenged interpretation of a Martina McBride hit.

Spend two minutes under the stage at Nashville’s Sommet Center with Bon Jovi, courtesy of The Tennessean newspaper.

Glen Campbell’s staging a California comeback. He’s getting ready to debut brand new songs at this weekend’s Stagecoach Festival.

Check out what everything the bloggers at The 9513 have done to celebrate Willie Nelson’s 75th. You could even win braids.

Steve Earle’s son, Justin Townes Earle, recalls the do-or-die night in the ER when he was forced to face his drug addiction.

A lot of people get a new dog and just assume he’s going to know how to behave — like staying in the yard and coming when called are natural behaviors. The most important training to most people is teaching the dog that the house is not his own giant, nicely furnished urinal. But professional trainers say it’s important to teach your dog to obey, especially to come when called. It’s a potentially life-saving behavior: Stories abound of dogs preoccupied with the thrill of chasing each other, ignoring their owners’ calls and running in front of cars.

Taking time to train your dog doesn’t have to be a chore. It can be an enjoyable bonding process. Luke Bryan works with his dog Maggie to keep her hunting skills sharp. “I’ve worked with her in the yard a bit trying to teach her a couple of things,” Bryan says. “She’s got all the sit and heel down, but if I’m dove hunting and there are some birds coming in, I don’t want her running all over the field. I just have to work with her to make sure she doesn’t break. She’s one of the sharpest dogs I’ve ever seen.”

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Merlefest is one of those festivals that is sort of addicting. It was my very first music festival back in 2005, and I have not missed a year since. Set in the hills of Wilkesboro, N.C., at Wilkes Community College, Merlefest is a celebration of all types of roots music. It’s an absolutely beautiful place for a festival, and a very nice get-away from the hustle and bustle of Music City.

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Nick Lowe writes right up to the brink of being a smart-aleck, but I never want to smack him because I fear we see the world the same way. I’m not exactly what you’d call a hopeless romantic, so I gravitate to songs like “People Change” and “Lately I’ve Let Things Slide.” Yet, I am constantly impressed how he can write about frustration, and still keep a good groove going. He played a solo acoustic show in Nashville earlier this month to promote his new album, At My Age, and he captivated the audience with his melodies as well as his dry English humor. He can write a heck of a love song, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.

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