Country Music News

THIS DAY IN COUNTRY MUSIC HISTORY

(June 11)

Patty Loveless's single "Blame It On Your Heart" goes to No. 1 (1993)

Hank Williams debuted on the Grand Ole Opry (1949)

Jud Strunk born (1936) in Jamestown, N.Y.

OF MUSIC AND MORE

Lauderdale writes the songs, Stanley gets the laughs

Bluegrass music is, in general, as blue as the blues. Forlorn loves, heartaches and death are the predominant themes.

But Jim Lauderdale has come up with a bit of humor in his latest called "She's Looking at Me," which he performs with the Grammy-winning Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys on his new album "Lost in the Lonesome Pines."

The first public performance was last month at Stanley's 32nd annual Memorial Bluegrass Festival in Coeburn, Va.

Stanley, the 75-year-old patriarch, set the mood in his puckish introduction of Lauderdale. "We've worked together a long time," he intoned. "There's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him, and there's nothing in the world he wouldn't do for me. So we go through life doing nothing for each other."

The gimmick on which "She's Looking at Me" is built is that each member of the band thinks one particular good-looking lady in the audience is making eye contact specifically with him -- and says so. It remains for Stanley -- the self-described "old rat at the barn" -- to set all the young bucks straight: She's really looking at him. Given that Stanley's current showstopper is the toxically morose "Oh, Death," this rollicking change of pace couldn't be more welcome.

Although the elder Stanley gets the laughs, Lauderdale says he wrote the song to showcase his son, Ralph Stanley II, the lead singer of The Clinch Mountain Boys. "I wanted something he could be featured in," Lauderdale explains, "because I love his voice so much."

RASCAL FLATTS JOINS TOBY KEITH TOUR

Rascal Flatts will join Toby Keith's "Unleashed Tour" in August in Louisville, Ky. and continue as the opening act through the end of the year. Keith kicked off the tour in March in Evansville, Ind., and so far has engaged Jamie O'Neal and Emerson Drive as opening acts. Rascal Flatts has a new single coming out next week called "These Days" and an album "Melt" due out in the fall.