Country Music Blog: Jason Aldean

In the end, it's all about who wore what. For some Web sites, anyway. Miley Cyrus, Carrie Underwood and Faith Hill and others get critiqued for their attire at the 2008 CMT Music Awards. But Hill's rep says a flowing tunic topic doesn't mean the singer is pregnant.

In more post-show news, Jason Aldean gushed over Snoop Dogg, remarking that when he calls you a pimp it's the ultimate compliment. Seriously?

And Taylor Swift gives her play-by-play commentary of the entire night, up until the part where she is FREAKING OUT.

Determined not to be pigeon-holed as just a singer/songwriter/actor, Tim McGraw has written a children's book due out this fall. And his latest greatest hits package is due out later this month.

Yes, Kenny Chesney is known for his stadium shows. But what if you could see him in a small room with only a few hundred people? If you live in Chicago and listen to radio station WUSN you can.

And Billy Ray Cyrus tells OK magazine he's trying to be Miley's BFF. Get in line, dad.

It was completely unintentional. It's not like I went into rehab to kick my country-music habit. What I did was go away for 10 days and didn't hear any country music. Not one single solitary song. No fiddle. No banjo. No stories about drinkin' and cheatin' and fishin'. It never occurred to me how hard the withdrawal symptoms would be.

When we arrived in California (alive and well despite my fears), I realized I'd forgotten my iPod. Surely there would be some good country stations out there, I thought. But since our rental car had two major drawbacks -- no DVD player and no third-row seat -- that meant all three of my kids were about four inches from my head with their own portable DVD player blaring. That was the one thing that kept them quiet on our excellent adventure driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. So, no country radio.

Still, I assumed the beach towns we visited would be filled with a little Kenny Chesney or some other tropical-leaning country. By the time we got to San Francisco, I saw a man busking with a violin and I thought I'd finally hear some good, down-home stuff. But he had different stuff in mind, like the entire soundtrack from Phantom of the Opera. Nice, but not when you're craving Keith Urban, Sara Evans and Jason Aldean.

The minute we got home yesterday, I turned on our local country radio station. Trace Adkins, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Jack Ingram coursed through my veins and instantly cured me of my symptoms and put me back into a state of country euphoria. That certainly must qualify me as an official addict. I'm totally OK with that. Of all the things to get hooked on these days, country music's probably the healthiest one.

Jessica Simpson may be moving into a $3.5 million home in Nashville, where she's planning a country album. Looks mighty nice from the air.

Randy Travis is heading to California for a William Shatner charity event. Wonder if he got a good deal on Priceline.com?

An American Idol finalist's dream duet is with her favorite male singer, Jason Aldean.

Two of Nashville's finest citizens, Emmylou Harris and mother, Eugenia, talk about pet adoption in this new public service announcement.

"Foggy Mountain Breakdown" is turning 50, so Gibson is building a new, limited edition Earl Scruggs banjo, with the first five signed by the man himself.

In two separate bits of industry news, Craig Morgan has signed with Sony BMG Nashville, and former Lonestar lead vocalist Richie McDonald's first solo album will be a contemporary Christian project. Lonestar left the Sony BMG roster last year, and McDonald confirmed shortly thereafter that he was leaving the band.

Morgan recently announced that he had decided to leave the independent Broken Bow label, where he enjoyed a string of hits that includes "Almost Home," "Redneck Yacht Club," "That's What I Love About Sunday," "Little Bit of Life," "Tough" and "International Harvester." Broken Bow remains Jason Aldean's label home.

Morgan had previously recorded for Atlantic, and there was speculation on Music Row about where he would land after exiting Broken Bow. That speculation ended Thursday night (March 6) during the Sony BMG's annual party on the General Jackson showboat, an annual event during Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. No word on which Sony BMG label -- Arista, BNA, Columbia or RCA -- will be releasing Morgan's upcoming music, but an album is expected this fall.

As for McDonald, the contemporary Christian album probably comes as no surprise to his former bandmates in Lonestar. In several interviews, they blamed him for the decline in the band's record sales because of his insistence in releasing a series singles centering on family values. Two of those, "My Front Porch Looking In" and "Mr. Mom," are frequently cited as prime examples of what has become known in the music industry as "sippy-cup songs."

McDonald's solo album, I Turn to You, was produced by songwriter Frank Myers. Distributed by Lucid Artist, it will be available at retail outlets nationwide.

Well, I’ve said it before: Only an idiot makes predictions on awards show winners. So that well qualifies me. Without further adieu, here are my selections for the winners in the major categories of the 41st annual CMA Awards.

• Entertainer nominees: Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, George Strait, Keith Urban
  Pick to win: George Strait
• Female vocalist: Alison Krauss, Miranda Lambert, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood
  Pick to win: Reba McEntire
• Male vocalist: Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, George Strait, Josh Turner, Keith Urban.
  Pick to win: George Strait
• Horizon award: Jason Aldean, Rodney Atkins, Little Big Town, Kellie Pickler, Taylor Swift.
  Pick to win: Taylor Swift
• Vocal group: Alison Krauss and Union Station, Dixie Chicks, Emerson Drive, Little Big Town, Rascal Flatts
  Pick to win: Little Big Town
• Vocal duo: Big & Rich, Brooks & Dunn, Montgomery Gentry, Sugarland, the Wreckers.
  Pick to win: Sugarland
• Single: “Anyway,” “Before He Cheats,” “Lost in this Moment,” “Ticks,” “Wrapped.”
  Pick to win: “Wrapped”
• Album: 5th Gear (Brad Paisley), It Just Comes Natural (George Strait), Long Trip Alone (Dierks Bentley), Love, Pain & the whole crazy thing (Keith Urban), These Days (Vince Gill).
  Pick to win: These Days
• Song: “Anyway,” “Before He Cheats,” “Give It Away,” “Lost in this Moment,” “Stupid Boy”
  Pick to win: “Give It Away”

Years ago, Tom T. Hall had a hit called “Country Is” that built its lyrics off the difficulty in establishing a perfect definition of country music. A Dolly Parton record that turns 30 this week ends up demonstrating the problem perfectly. Released on Oct. 6, 1977, “Here You Come Again” was the record that took Parton from a respected singer in the country ghetto to an ambassador for the genre across all pop culture. She expected it to generate controversy. She’d already dropped her Nashville management in favor of Hollywood representation, and the song -- written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, also responsible for “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” -- had an overtly pop melody. Parton was so sensitive about its reception that she asked her producer to throw a steel guitar in the background just so she could say one was there.

For all the predictable hand-wringing the song generated among country traditionalists, the public at large loved it. “Here You Come Again” topped the Billboard country chart for five weeks and peaked in pop’s Top 5, right between the Bee Gees and Rod Stewart.

At the time, I was a high school student who loved pop music and I resented hearing Dolly Parton’s country junk on my station. In time, of course, I grew to love the record, and country music too, but I can still see why traditionalists were unhappy. It didn’t sound anything like older Dolly Parton records, and certainly nothing like the honky-tonk-steeped music of George Jones or Moe Bandy.

Today, a lot of traditionalists are mad about current country; it sounds too rock to their ears. If you compare Keith Urban and Jason Aldean hits to old George Jones or Moe Bandy records, or even “Here You Come Again,” they’re right. But they’re also living in a vacuum. If you listen to those songs next to Nickelback or Maroon 5, Urban and Aldean are undeniably country. As a Country Music Hall of Fame member probably should, Parton ends up a good teacher: A country song is defined not by history, but by the era in which it appears.

Photo by Keystone/Getty Images

Fifteen years ago, Garth Brooks was hands-down the biggest thing in country music, so when he did a three-night stand at the America West Arena in Phoenix, he naturally sold out each show. Little did he know that one of the people watching him that first night would later end up at Capitol Records, the same label for whom Garth recorded at the time.

“He just gave every ounce of energy when he was out there, and when he walked off stage, he staggered,” Dierks Bentley told me in 2005, recalling that concert. “It blew me away how much energy he put in his show. I learned a lot from him and he became an influence in that way.”

Dierks picked up influences from a lot of different areas -- he played the bluegrass circuit when he first moved to Nashville, built his band with the same instrumentation as Buck Owens, but has also dropped in an AC/DC riff in his live set. In that way, he’s like Garth, who cited Kiss and Queen alongside George Strait among his influences. George likewise picked up on artists as diverse as Bob Wills, Merle Haggard and Frank Sinatra. Meanwhile, Merle has paid homage to country pioneer Jimmie Rodgers and pop singer Bing Crosby as major influences.

It’s kind of funny when you hear critics say that modern country music doesn’t really sound country anymore. Newer artists such as Jason Aldean, Cole Deggs & the Lonesome and Little Big Town are indeed allowing a lot of pop and rock influences into their sound, though when you line them up against current hit-makers such as Linkin Park or Beyoncé, their country roots are clear. I doubt that either Garth or Dierks were thinking about those issues when Dierks went to the arena on July 19, 1992. But it turns out they were both at a different place in their process of stepping into a country music tradition: salting the genre with a little outside flavor.