Nashville's music media are marking their calendars for October 25th,
2017- and now we know why.
A month shy of his 79th birthday, KENNY ROGERS' grand entrance at a
10 a.m. news conference precluded Rogers' partaking in a sumptuous
continental breakfast awaiting invited guests (then under a media
embargo) at WME (lead anchor in Nashville's
Demonbreun Street office tower) July 18, 2017.
Kenny, in fact, credits Dolly as having inspired the singular
celebration of Rogers' 60-year career. Noting that "it had
been 13 years since she and I had been on stage together, " Kenny said
Dolly's response was "Are you really
doing your farewell tour? You can't leave without me and you
going on stage for the very last time and singing something."
The news conference seemed like deja vu all over again since
it marked a decade since Webster PR issued an invitation to
a Nashville news conference at which Rogers announced the lineup
for Kenny Rogers: The First 50 Years.
Like theMGM Grand tribute concert
announced at the 2007 news conference, the Bridgestone event
is also being filmed in anticipation of a commitment from one of the
television networks.
The former event ended up on GAC
and it remains to be seen if a major network will see what is sure to
be a sold-out concert as a potential ratings winner. In any
case, multi-platform distribution is being planned "for distribution
throughout traditional media (worldwide broadcast,music and digital)."
And event promotion doesn't stop there: Press conference
attendees received a regulation-size playing card. While it
wasn't missing from THE STATLER BROTHERS'
"deck of 51," on one side of this delightfully
unique collectors' item was the concert's logo and website, while the face side
features a K
above a red
heart in the upper left-hand corner and an upside
down R below an upside down red heart in
the card's lower right-hand corner. In between an image of
Kenny's
upper torso is painted behind scrolls announcing the concert's date and
venue,
a guitar neck in Kenny's left hand and a couple of aces (spades and
hearts) in his right hand above the motif's reversed image of Rogers.
Proving, if proof is needed, that K(enny) R(ogers) and amiable
event host KIRT (WEBSTER)
are never "out of aces!"
Chart
positions are verifiable. Pre-SoundScan sales stats, even those
repeatedly quoted, not so much...
So should we take Robyn at her word that "the single's jump from 81 to
7 in its second week on the Billboard Hot 100 in late August 1968 was
that decade's highest climb into the Top Ten"- without looking at every
weekly chart from the dawn, to the close, of the '60s?
I ask because Collins writes that TOM T. HALL "got the idea for the
name of the song when he passed the Harpeth Valley Elementary School
in the affluent Nashville suburb of Bellevue, Tennessee."
While Tom links the idea for the song to a trip that took him past the
school, a description of Bellevue at that time as being "affluent"
would probably be true only when contrasted with the Tom's net worth
during those days.
Further, Collins credits Hall with the writing of Riley's 1984
recording of the sequel song, Return to Harper Valley.
While the melody of both the original and the sequel are the
same (i.e., Tom's), it is clear from "Return..."'s lyrics
that Riley is correctly credited on the vinyl label as
lyricist.
****
"Save the date."
So reads the beginning of BRIAN
RUBIN's
offer
of media credentials for the Academy of Country Music's ACM
honors to
be held at the Ryman
Auditorium on August 23, 2017. The event
will be taped for broadcast at a later date on CBS-TV.
However, it
seems that the restaurant chain's signature hamburger
concoction (a quarter-pound ground sirloin burger topped
with a deep fried graham cracker-crusted pineapple
ring, mayonnaise, cheese and two slices of bacon, sandwiched
within a hamburger bun) was not winning over (McDonalds?)
customers.
Financial difficulties developed in 1970 resulting in nearly all but
one of the restaurants closing by the end of 1971.
Though Twitty would go on to
invest in other businesses, he told the court the obvious; that he was
not a businessman
and that, after repaying his fellow investors with future earnings, he
didn't have the
assets with which to pay the corporation's debtors.
"I'm 99% entertainer," Conway explained at the time,
adding "That's just about all I know."
Thus, when Twitty and the
second of his three wives, MICKEY,
were sued, amid allegations of "fraud and something to do with the
security thing, " Twitty pleaded with the court, insisting his
reputation as a man of integrity within the country-music industry
was on the line (particularly if he were to be sued by Merle Haggard,
Sonny James or other investors) and, were his "fans to give up on me,
it would warp me psychologically. I couldn't function any more
because I'm the type of person I am."
BILL
IVEY testified in Conway's defense and the circling of the
wagons resulted in the United States Tax Court ruling that Conway could
write off payments he made to investors, deducting them as ordinary and
necessary business expenses incurred as a result of Conway's being a
country-music performer.
If that defense, predicated on the "motive of the taxpayer in making
the payments" and "a sufficient connection between the expenditures and
the taxpayer's trade or business," seems a little squirrelly, consider
that Ivey underscored Twitty's opinion that a country-music artist's
success is dependent on that person's image as being "morally right."
Thus "celebrity justice" was doled out for reasons that might not have
past muster in the "outlaw era" that dawned shortly after the
proceedings.
Further evidence of special treatment, not available to most
moonlighters, was provided by The Tax Court in the form of a Court
Order that included the lyrics of a song Judge LEO IRWIN penned
just for the occasion: Ode
To Conway Twitty. The song, likely not heard
most places outside the courtroom name-checks Haggard and James, which
I'm sure Merle and Sonny appreciated!
Not to be outdone, the IRS' legal reps offered their own musical
response, title "Ode to
Conway Twitty: A Reprise."
Complete lyrics to either or both songs as well as the names of
investors and the amounts they contributed are available upon
request, via the email address listed here.
Please put the information you are seeking in the SUBJECT LINE
and include your name, city, and state (or country, if outside the
United States) in the BODY
of your email.
****
On June 21, 2017, about six months
afterNAOMI JUDD committed to appearing
at a
(subsequently canceled, "due to illness," but not rescheduled,
as was the announced plan, "at a later date")
January 30, 2017 ticketed talk and book signing, as part of an ongoing
authors' series, most often held- as Naomi's was to be- at the
Nashville
Public Library's main, downtown Music City location, I
received an invitation from JANICE GRAY in anticipation of the
June 30, 2017 release of The Judds' All-Time Greatest Hits,
a 21-song set featuring "the duo's top ten hits,
as well as a 2011 recording, You Can't Go Home Again (Flies in the Butter)."
Product number B07259RB43
The invitation read "We
are organizing a virtual press conference with Naomi Judd this Friday,
June 23 at 1:30p CST. A virtual press conference is just like
a press conference, but on a telephone conference line. If
you're interested in participating, please respond and let me know so
we can send you call-in details.
"Naomi will call into the line as well and be available for questions.
We will moderate the call like a press conference. While we cannot
guarantee you a chance to ask a question, it's a great opportunity to
be on a phone call with Naomi Judd. Once the call is complete, we will
send you audio from the call so you can transcribe it or use the sound
as needed."
No offense intended, but as one of the first reporters to interview
Naomi (at an RCA RecordsVandyland news conference,
introducing the mother-daughter duo to Nashville media prior to the
release of the Judds' first recording) and one who deals in exclusives,
I have to prioritize my time. It may be "a great
opportunity" for the starstruck "to be on a phone call with Naomi
Judd," but, as this is not the first provisional invitation I've
received, at least one reporter, who regards journalism as a business,
must take a stand for allowing time for every journalist invited to a
news conference- virtual or not- to ask a question.
It's simply a matter of respect.
My question would likely be about why Naomi is only taking questions by
phone. Due to the singer's fragility, as Judd candidly
expresses in River of Time..., I don't think a truthful answer
would be forthcoming.
The legitimate phone interview takes place when the news is pressing
and the interview subject is geographically unavailable (such as when an
artist is on tour).
In my nearly half-century of covering music, I have rarely accepted
invitations to do phoners. I have often been asked to do
them- the worst are with groups.
Which voice belongs to whom? Is a comment being made
seriously- or is it to be taken in jest? (Please don't make me guess...)
After interviewing EDDIE RABBITT a few times over the
course of his career, Eddie asked me to do a phoner. I
refused, though it may have
made history as the last one he gave. (Rabbitt did not want
anyone to see him because he knew, by the spring of 1998, he had only
days to live; a secret Eddie successfully kept from everyone, other
than family and friends, throughout the progression of his battle with
lung cancer.)
