The CMA Awards 2016

The CMA Awards were this last week (I swear it's like every year!) Wednesday night as a matter of fact which means only one thing to someone like me...traffic getting home would be a bitch.  And to top it off, as if that weren't enough, on a Wednesday night, when my wife makes her famous Chicken Fajitas.  (Yes, every Wednesday. Yes, I know you're jealous.) One of my favorite meals, postponed due to a bunch of rich folks patting each other on the back for making a music video which made them more money.

Here in Nashville, you'd think that most employers downtown would let their poor employees off early to get ahead of that traffic, but you'd also be wrong, at least at my office. This is nothing against my boss, it's just that Country Music is nothing new and this is a usual occurrence in Nashville, so we learn to roll with it. Expect late buses, postponed dinner (rats) and hot tempers.  

So, I left work at the usual time, and made my way to Music City Central, the main Bus station which is just a couple of blocks from my office.  Oddly, no traffic.  That's ok, I says to myself, all the traffic must be a few blocks the other direction from work, over at the Bridgestone Arena, where the CMA Awards are being held.

Now, things take a strange turn. The bus, usually late due to CMA Traffic, is - on time? Our bus is known to be late because someone had a hangnail on the I-24 corridor (and no, it goes nowhere near the I-24 corridor.) We get on the bus and leave - on time! Getting through downtown only takes a few minutes extra and I'm home only about 5 minutes later than usual. Even the traffic along the way seemed ...well...normal.

It's enough to make one wonder at the strangeness of it all.

And then, after dinner, things get a bit stranger as my rocker-chick wife with the skull tattoo on one leg says we should watch the opening of the CMA awards and I'm really wondering if I've entered another realm. My wife is not one for Country music. She says it makes her want to drive her car off a cliff, so this was a  monumental moment.

And it was surely a moment to watch.  You see, this was the 50th Anniversary of the CMA awards and they brought out a seemingly endless parade of country legends and contemporary chart-topping stars to sing a massive medley of country classics.

Vince Gill was the first to take the stage, and he was joined by Ben Haggard, son of late country icon Merle Haggard, to sing the immortal "Mama Tried." After that, Roy Clark and Brad Paisley paid homage to Buck Owens, who died in 2006, by singing "I've Got a Tiger By the Tail." Over the next few minutes, Carrie Underwood sang "Stand By Your Man," Charlie Daniels delivered "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," Dwight Yoakam sang "Guitars, Cadillacs," Charley Pride crooned "Kiss An Angel Good Morning'," and Reba McEntire sang "Fancy". But that wasn't all. There were song segments from Alabama ("Mountain Music"), Ricky Skaggs ("Country Boy"), Alan Jackson ("Don't Rock the Jukebox") and Clint Black ("Killin' Time"). At the end, they all took the stage together to sing Randy Travis' "Forever and Ever, Amen." Travis himself -- who suffered a stroke in 2013 -- took the stage to massive applause and sang a line of his 1987 classic. If you know anything at all about Country Music and it's stars, this was the medley to see.

And when that opening medley was over my wife said change the channel, that's enough of that!  Ah, good, all is right with the world.  My world anyway.