Stacy’s Music Row Report- Music Row Report

JAY BARKER has an 8:30 a.m. March 22, 2022 court date following Barker's arrest on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on SARA EVANS. Barker's January 15, 2022 arrest on the felony charge was likely precipitated by Evans' August, 2021 divorce filing.

Barker, who posted a $10,000 bond, will appear before Judge ALLEGRA WALKER at the public hearing in Birch Building Courtroom 4C.

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Thanks to HEATHER BLANKENSHIP for the media invitation to attend the January 21, 2022 performance of Midnight Rodeo in Springfield, Missouri. featuring performances by CHANCEY WILLIAMS and AARON WATSON.

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RANDY HUSTON fans will want to check out Randy's latest album, a 14-song collection titled TIMES LIKE THESE.

Randy wrote, or otherwise had a hand in the writing of, every song on the collection. From the poignant to the wryly humorous to the philosophical, Huston draws his listeners into a shared "cowboy way" experience, enlisting co-writers KRISTIN HARRIS, DUKE SUNDT and JIM JONES for good measure.

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I "met" RALPH EMERY when, as a suburban Minneapolis teenager listening through the static to a certain Nashville clear-channel radio station, I called into Ralph's late-night radio show, chatting with him "live" on the air.

I got to know Emery while hanging out at WSM Radio and TV during the early '70s. Given my Radio-TV degree, at a time when college graduates were scarce among WSM hires, I hoped to land a daytime air shift on the former or an entertainment reporter position with the latter's news division.

At the time women weren't even considered for such positions, though Ralph put me to work during Opry Star Spotlight, answering the request line on those nights when JOHN RIGGS (a/k/a "Ralph Emery's John") wasn't available.

I have many fond memories of stayin' up with Ralph and having a "front row seat" when country-music's A-listers came to Knob Road to plug their latest recordings.

I remember one occasion during those years when Ralph agreed to an interview. It would be on Emery's clock, which meant after Ralph signed off from his overnight radio shift and before he signed on to the early-morning WSM-TV show bearing his name.

One of my (less than) brilliant questions concerned what Ralph did between those (ungodly) hours.

Emery's response? "I wouldn't ask you that question."

Then there was the Opry Star Spotlight farewell party (where I joined CONNIE SMITH, TOM T. HALL and JEANNE PRUETT) following Emery's retirement from late-night radio, a Ralph Emery roast, the Nashville Now re-enactment at the Nashville Public Library- tons of memories really.

Ralph's kindnesses were legendary. He not only served as a reference, he wrote a letter of recommendation on my behalf at a time THE TENNESSEAN had an entertainment reporter opening.

There was also a time when Ralph granted me access to his syndicated radio archives. (I was researching an article on MEL STREET and assisting Street's biographers, DENNIS SCHULER SR. and LARRY J. DELP.)

Most recently, Ralph graciously contributed a blurb for a book for which I served as TOMMY CASH's ghostwriter, he (along with Tom and Tommy) was a reference for my 2021 Country Radio Hall of Fame nomination and, of course, Ralph and I were in touch in the wake of Tom Hall's death.

Much more to say- but this is not the time.

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No reaction (so far) from LUKE BRYAN following a December, 2021 presidential assassination threat that resulted in JASON LAWRENCE LIND being held on a federal warrant in the Metro Nashville jail.

Lind is alleged to have called the FBI's National Threat Center, boasting of his threat to the Center's operator, indicating Lind's intention was based on the fact that "I just sold my soul to Luke Bryan."

According to United States Secret Service Agent Special Agent GRIFFIN WILCOXON's Statement in Support of Criminal Complaint, the suspect, insisting he had no interest in harming President JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. unless directed to do so by Bryan, indicated "I will shoot (President) Biden if Luke Bryan asks... I will commit treason for him."

Wilcoxon notes "Based on the content of the conversation... it appears that if Lind was contacted [sic] by someone claiming to be Luke Bryan" or, "if Lind felt that he (Lind) heard a voice which he interpreted as Luke Bryan, he would act on those orders."

The additional explanation, rationalization or excuse for such deviant behavior may stem from a September 17, 2021 Luke Bryan Miller Family Farm concert in Baltimore, Ohio where, after initially grinning from ear-to-ear when inexplicable chants of "F (spelled out) Joe Biden" rang out, Bryan told the chanters "Well, that's not nice," plucking his guitar to the beat of the chants before adding "Oh, I love you all."

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RICHARD COURTNEY reports that a seven-bedroom, 13,831 square-foot home- complete with a commercial elevator, vault room, sauna and putting green - on land once owned by EDDY ARNOLD closed in December 2021 for $10.3 million! (The price tag represents the sale of the home alone- not the lot on which is sits, one of several lots overseen by Arnold's grandson/record label owner/ real estate developer SHANNON POLLARD.)

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Does VINCE GILL know that his wife, AMY GRANT and JOHN KENNEDY JR. were both born on the same day in the same year- November 25, 1960?

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UPDATE: As I previously reported here, I have been withholding some information that I confirmed to my own satisfaction in August, 2021.

Now that I have the official results, I am sadly (with a mixture of frustration, anger and disbelief, though, honestly, not shock) the first journalist to confirm that TOM T. HALL's grisly cause of death was a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head (via the mouth).

Suicide runs in families, including Hall's, but there were other reasons for Tom's decision. One of the biggest, in my opinion, was Hall's beginning to lose his mobility.   (Tom died less than three months after his 85th birthday. I wonder if Hall was aware that, according to the most recently available data- compiled in 2017- from the Society of Actuaries and the Social Security Administration, the average life expectancy for a person who is alive at age 85 is 92 years of age.)

Beyond that, if you're looking for reasons, there were any number of them stemming from Tom's acknowledged history of mental illness. Hall's depression, in turn, impacted the way Tom lived his life. He chose to surround himself with a host of sycophants who apparently saw him as a meal ticket affording them "bragging rights" and, in their estimation, nothing more.

There were others in his life to whom Tom chose not to listen (including approximately a handful of well-meaning, caring people, some of whom should have put themselves first long before they did) that had me relying on my intuition (my having known Tom, one of my mentors- though he preferred to introduce me to others as his "friend"- all of my adult life and the majority of his) before I received the facts. (Efforts to do what Hall's enablers did best- hide- in this case, what turned out to be the first hints of Tom's slowly-developing mild cognitive impairment- began during the 2015 LOUISE SCRUGGS Memorial Forum, before a diagnosis could be confirmed. Again, given Hall's peculiarly unexplained absence, and my presence, at the event that featured a video of an interview Tom granted for the occasion, replete with jump cuts, I was on to the staging secrecy, if only that, and so noted publicly at the time.)

Then there are those uninvestigated (for what seems like obvious reasons) thefts from the Country Music Hall of Fame Library's Tom T. Hall vertical file...

Here is a G-rated summary of nine (9) pages of otherwise lurid, disgusting and graphic details (and methodology sadly familiar to Tom and what remains of his family), that Report readers would expect from a thorough investigation, and to which I am privy: The 911 call was placed at 11:15 a.m. on August 20, 2021 and paramedics arrived 18 minutes later.

The toxicology report suggests that at, at the time of his death, at least one (metabolizing) drug designed to aid in alcohol withdrawal and anxiety management was in Tom's system. (I earned Hall's ire nearly a half-century ago when, naive and otherwise barely out of my teens, I wrote him an ill-advised, but well-meaning and heartfelt letter, beginning "It's not my place to tell you this but, since those whose place it is will not do so, you are an alcoholic.")

As if I was giving Tom information he didn't already know and he would abstain forevermore as a result. Right?

Hey, no one knew what an "intervention" was in those days, let alone how to plan one. And I'd never heard of Al-Anon nor suspected a Vitamin B-12 deficiency, not to mention the relationship between chronic anxiety and the buildup of amyloid plaques.

As I noted, apparently erring, in a Legacy.com remembrance (ever mindful of posting guidelines, with which, given the delay in publication of the post, I thought I had unintentionally violated, I posted another memory), I thought Tom had succeeded in recovery. It never occurred to me that he may have lapsed decades later, and, even though I knew Hall had been on hunting trips in the distant past, that he owned a gun.

Those who did know about such a lethal combination should have sounded an alarm.

That said, as those who knew him best would expect, Tom left no note.

I never believed that the 2012 incident (not to mention earlier, suppressed incidents at his former Brentwood, Tennessee office) occurred as it was reported and subsequently adjudicated, given Hall's organization's prior history with the Williamson County Sheriff's Office. (I was very public about my feelings in my reporting of the Fox Hollow shooting at the time. Had that incident, and prior incidents, been responsibly handled, sans enabling, Tom would have been forced to make better decisions.)

As a 2021 graduate of The Davidson County Sheriff's Office's Citizens Academy, my skepticism has been reinforced by the WCSO's evasion and lack of responsiveness in its handling of Tom Hall's death, beginning with an unwillingness/inability to explain why, given the findings I have reported (which it does not dispute) as it informed me, most recently on November 24, 2021, the investigation remains "open."

It must be noted that there is a possibility that Hall was aware of an informal (and subsequently botched) investigation (having nothing to do with the WCSO) that was underway in the months prior to his death, the details of which will likely surface during an upcoming election cycle, perhaps as opposition research. If that is the case, voices more powerful than my own will establish that there are bungling enablers with (if only figuratively) blood on their hands.

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Reaction continues to roll in re: the explosive revelations detailed in KIRT WEBSTER, THE DEMISE OF WEBSTER PR: AN UNPRECEDENTED INVESTIGATION, SEX SCANDAL & UPDATE : The Status of Austin Rick's Book, Venmo Prostitution?, A Leaked WTVF-TV Internal Memo, Veiled Threats...

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