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Copyright 2023 Stacy's
Music Row Report All Rights Reserved
While Allen's legal team is preparing its Response to the accusations (see earlier coverage
below) against him amid Jimmie's music industry management, booking agency,
record label, publicist et al having jumped ship, at this writing,
according to Allen's website, Jimmie's May 26, 2023 Peppermint Concert Hall
appearance (with tickets priced from $64- $114) has yet to be canceled.
However,
the handwriting appears to be on the wall: "Tickets for this event are
not on sale" reads the disclaimer below the listing, while the venue's website, lists upcoming concerts featuring other artists in the absence of any mention of Allen's gig.
If increasing complaints from electric car owners about their
vehicles' motors' interfering with the automobiles' AM radio
signal (resulting in fading signals and annoying buzzing sounds),
result in gridlock created by manufacturers' plans to cease including
AM radio stations in new cars amid efforts to pass legislation
preventing that from happening, does the outcome impact the future of WSM Radio and The Grand Ole Opry?
In the midst of all the subsequent shoddy cut-and-past reporting, much
of it from "bloggers" who are not Nashville-based and have no idea of Music Row culture as it has evolved over the last half-century, the
reluctance to question and line up respective narratives as they relate
to the respective timelines and to ask the natural follow-up questions,
I'm holding feet to the fire and will have much more to report "for the
record" when I am able to do so responsibly despite an atmosphere where
"Jane Doe" anonymity (as well as the identity of the woman she
replaced) is erased with a Google search. (Variety and Page Six, are two of the few entertainment web
sites that still retain a
comments section, but, ironically, Variety
deleted comments I posted May 11, 2023, calling the trade out for its
inability to withstand criticism of its "reporting.")
While Stacy's Music Row Report doesn't provide space to
leave comments (I'd have no time for paid
subscribers, if I had to moderate others), I welcome fans
and critics alike and quote them in this space whenever they want me to
do so. In return, I only ask that they identify themselves to me.
If they request it, I
will withhold their names when I print their comments with their with
permission- and only with their permission.
As for the others, those who dish it out ought to be able to
take it, as I indicated to Variety
when I wrote, in part, "At this time
these comments are the first to appear, assuming Variety has not excised any others
for reasons that tend to discourage the the discourse Variety supposedly seeks.
"In that Variety deleted my
comments re: a request for correction to its reporting on Tom T. Hall at a time when Billboard made its own correction, with proper
attribution, I won't be surprised if my comments here disappear.
"That said, some editorializing, abundantly missing from most Music Row reporting, is clearly in order.
"For example, how long before- dare I say it?- the racial component
becomes part of the narrative in a cast of characters including,
apparently, only a "token" Black man?..."
In
the Allen matter, I begin with my examination of prepared
statements. They are no
substitute for availability and candor. Likewise, lurid accounts
give rise to questions of judgment, even as, depending on the
evaluator's own life experience and/or interpretation, the allegations
and the responses to them thus far, either sicken or
titillate.
That the serious charges are civil rather than criminal, if they are to
be believed, require
an explanation as the only currency (pardon the pun) of civil
litigation is money. Civil litigation of this nature suggests a
monetary settlement.
With ASH[LEY] WALTON
BOWERS, WIDE
OPEN MUSIC and "JOHN DOES 1-100" as the other defendants in
the lawsuit targeting Allen, the battle of the attorneys features ELIZABETH
FEGAN (who has repped clients who brought down HARVEY
WEINSTEIN) and JOHN
SPRAGENS for the Plaintiff versus ANDREW BRETTLER (whose clients have included ARMIE HAMMER, PRINCE ANDREW, CHRIS NOTH, BRYAN SINGER and DANNY MASTERSON) for the Defense.
It's long past time to put Music Row on trial. Twenty years ago I
exclusively reported on BILL IVEY's behavior and, more recently, set the
record straight about the miscreants (yes, that's plural) in the KIRT
WEBSTER
controversy. Threats galore, in both instances from those the
reader would suspect when names are named, but when factual information
is just that, irrefutable, lawsuits do not follow (though, as long as Teflonexists, the
guilty will continue to be embraced by Record Row).
Even looking at it from the other side, I find it interesting, but not
surprising, that innocent until proven guilty outside the courtroom
does not apply, at
least not to Allen. Accusations ideally subject to proof have
been sufficient, as Allen, instantaneously persona non grata beginning
with his being axed from the May 11, 2023 Academy Country Music Awards (with JESSE
KNUTSONstill standing), awaits trial with the ACMs
triggering the domino effect of industry support no longer there for
him.
****
Music Row is wondering what SONNY JAMES, who died in the loving care of
Nashville's Alive
Hospice, would make of the current controversy
in which Middle Tennessee's only nonprofit hospice currently finds
itself. Like financial donors, such as yours truly, I don't
imagine entertainers, notably RIDERS IN THE SKY
(who were among the first country-music artists to champion and raise
money for an organization dedicated to the work of tireless and
compassionate healers, who offer personalized care as well as grief
support) are too happy with media speculation about its future, either.
****
If you were
thinking about buying JOHN PRINE's Oak
Hill
home, you're too late. With the settling of the Prine estate, the
late singer/songwriter's Overton Lea Road abode has been sold.
Sales price: $4,261,000.
But possibly thanks to Price, Representative Johnson was saved from
expulsion, in a rare demonstration of a
"crossing the aisle" vote of bipartisanship
(the motion to expel Johnson failed by one vote; a 65-30 tally)following
this "live" locally-televised
exchange:
In response to a battery of attempts at "gotcha" questions from
Tennessee Representative GINO
BULSO, following the national
coverage of a protest at the Tennessee State Capitol March for Our Lives after
the Covenant School shootings,
ending with "Are you the person who brought the bullhorn into the
chamber?," Representative Johnson responded "Thank you so much
for
that question. I am so happy you asked that.
"I absolutely did not. A lot of you folks passed a lot of gossip
around about where that megaphone came from. And let's just talk
about it right now, because a friend of mine came in the morning and
walked with me through the tunnel and she didn't know if the
protesters were going to be inside or outside.
"Her name is Margo Price.
You might have heard of her.
"Anyway, we got upstairs and the protest was not indoors, so she said
'I want to go outside where the protest is' and I said 'Here.
You're going to want your megaphone out there.'
"So, at the doors, I handed her her megaphone and she went
outside. Later, she messaged me and said she's coming back up. 'I
know I can't bring my megaphone in. Can you put it in your
scooter?'
"And I said 'Absolutely.'
"And so we put the megaphone in the scooter. I talked to two
troopers who watched me do it and they said to me 'Would you please not
get that out the rest of the day?' and I said 'Absolutely' to them...
So
much for the gossip That megaphone never left my scooter.
It's in my office now. Anybody who would like to go down and look
for prints- it will have my prints and Miss Margo Price's prints on it."
The only "surviving" lawmaker of what, with apologies to JOHNNY CASH, is being referred to as "The Tennessee Three," Representative Johnson has
proven that it pays to be Caucasian, a friend of Margo Price's- or both!
