History, Progress And Top 40 Country

Loved the movie, Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood, out this week! It started out slow but once in the groove, I didn't want it to end. Loved everything about it. A real movie. Wish someone would do this to Country music and Nashville. Altman tried but to me, it didn't work. Plenty of subjects exist to create a slice of life movie about Music City. The String Bean murder case would be perfect. Hope I just gave a wannabe a great career making idea.

History is a tricky subject. Nashville developers have almost destroyed the Music Row area with all kinds of non-16th Avenue proper buildings. That may be getting under control. Better late than never.

This week Atlanta was in a situation.

A building where Country music's first hit record was made fell to the wrecking ball. They are building a new Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville hotel. Preservationists are in a huge wad.

In 1923, Fiddlin' John Carson recorded "Little Log Cabin in the Lane" in the building located now near Centennial Olympic Park. The Buffet people had no comment and the demolition crew did their thing. Bad PR could have turned into good PR if an effort had been made to promise some kind of acknowledgement inside the new hotel ... make a room ... name the dining room. Show some awareness of the area's history.

Around Music Row, two historic recording studios were torn down and not as much as a historic marker put on their sites. The Soundshop and the TV studio at 1525 McGavock that was once an RCA studio where Elvis and others recorded.

Did anyone ever go to school and take PR? It sure seems lacking at times along the music-related businesses. Meet the challenge! Win/Win! An all-too-often conflict resolution outcome.

Then there is The Bachelorette ... Not going to name his name and make him more famous, but this dude is a Nashville wannabe. He had a girlfriend he left to go do The Bachelorette to help his Nashville career. Let's see if his infamy will indeed help his career. Bachelor X lost his original girl friend and his TV girlfriend. Already a song or two about his situation ... "Trying to Love Two Women" written my Sonny Throckmorton was made a hit by the Oak Ridge Boys in the middle of 1980.

Then there's the great marketer and PR master Garth Brooks. The next Dive Bar show is at Buck Owen's Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Nice place. But I guess you can't go really and do this at a real dive bar. I remember a few in my hometown: The Spur and the C&J Lounge. But what is a dive bar? From Google and the Urban Dictionary ... Garth is right and I am too:

Urban Dictionary. "A dive bar is an informal bar or pub. Such bars are sometimes referred to as neighborhood bars, where local residents gather to drink and socialize. Individual bars may be considered to be disreputable, sinister, or even a detriment to the community."

The Crystal Palace with all that Buck Owens memorabilia is a very nice " Dive" bar.

Another piece of the Music City's tourist puzzle fit in this week. The opening of the new Johnny Cash Kitchen and Saloon. The food for the place is created by a longtime Nashville soul food institution. Swett's. The Cash complex in and around 3rd Ave. South is just around the corner from all the Lower Broadway honky-tonks and not far from the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Johnny Cash remains an iconic brand.

In Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood, to get the groove of the late-'60s Los Angeles, Tarantino used the DJs and music of radio station KHJ. One of the greatest sounding AM radio pop stations of all time.

On YouTube, you can type in search, "KHJ" or "93KHJ" and you get some jingles and airchecks of their fantastic air staff. One of them features their top songs of any given week. Songs that would soon be classics ... and there were more than a few stiffs. Mixed in with all the pop were songs like "A Boy Named Sue" and "Stand by Your Man."

I grew up in the '60s and had little interest in my hometown Country stations. I was a Top 40 fan but mixed in were songs like "A Boy Named Sue."

They even were playing Waylon Jennings & The Kimberlys doing "MacArthur Park" ... and "California Girl" by Tompall & The Glaser Brothers. My local stations sure played some Marty Robbins and the hit "End of the World" by Skeeter Davis.

Country elements have always been in the mainstream as you may or may not see in the upcoming PBS Ken Burns 16-hour Country Music series.

It starts Sunday, September 15th with the beginning of Country music. Dwight Yoakam and Marty Stuart among the folks in L.A. this week, talking to the TV Critics Association about the series.

Better get behind this show! It's may be the biggest commercial for Country music ever.