TVSquad

Country music is known for storytelling, much more than other genres of music. And over the years, there have actually been some pretty good short tales in those ditties. So when the news broke a few days ago that Clint Black is looking to produce an anthology series with the stories of country music adapted into hour-long dramatic presentations, I was actually too stunned with how obvious it was to react at first.

As someone who grew up on rock, hip-hop and pop music primarily, it took me several years to open up to country music. When I was exposed to it, the first thing that stood out was that there was more than just booty-shaking and sex going on. Long before Ty Pennington was manipulating the heartstrings on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, country music was doing it every four minutes or so.

I don't have the country music background or expertise to immediately list off all the songs that would make great short stories, but I know enough to say that this might be the best shot at succeeding an anthology series has had in a long time.

It's hard for a lot of people to remember this, but country singer Porter Wagoner had a syndicated variety show, The Porter Wagoner Show, that lasted for 21 years. It came on the air in 1960 and ended in 1981. That's a lot of television.

He wore rhinestone suits all the time, but somehow he didn't become the Liberace of country music. He still looked real, and when you're wearing a rhinestone suit that's not easy to do. His hits included "Company's Comin," "Carroll County Accident," and "Green Green Grass of Home." He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame five years ago, and he helped launch the career of Dolly Parton, among others. He released his last album this past June.

Wagoner died over the weekend of lung cancer. He was 80.

(S32E13) I'm not very familiar with Forest Whitaker's work, but I'm well aware of his new-found status as one of the biggest actors in Hollywood. He recently won multiple awards for his performance in The Last King of Scotland, so I knew that he could act. Whitaker didn't do such a spectacular job on SNL. He was good, yeah, but not spectacular.

However, the writing this week was really something else. It was a lot weirder than usual, I thought. For the most part, I liked it. I see that they've cut down on a lot of the more formulaic recurring character sketches, which is a massive improvement. Plus, none of the those recurring sketches are accompanied shitty little theme songs! Remember the days of "Debbie Downer" and "Carol"? Thank goodness those are over.

Toby Keith, country star and supporter of the rectally-inserted footwear approach to terrorism, recently starred in the movie Broken Bridges, about a country star who returns home to his high school sweetheart and a sixteen year old daughter he's never met. The movie also stars Willie Nelson, Kelly Preston, Tess Harper and Burt Reynolds. CMT Films produced the movie along with Paramount, so if you missed it in the theaters you can catch it on CMT Friday December 15 at 8 pm before the DVD comes out on January 9. CMT will also be airing several specials centered around Toby Keith, just in case you have a deficiency in your Toby system and need to get re-energized. Remember, the surgeon general recommends four servings of Toby a day. At least that guy at the bus stop claimed he was the surgeon general. I was somewhat suspicious since he was telling this to a half-eaten can of peas with his pants around his ankles. Still, one must respect his elders.

The music video for the late Johnny Cash's song "God's Gonna Cut You Down" will debut tomorrow evening on CMT, MTV and VH1. It will first appear during the CMT Top 20 Countdown from 4 pm to 7 pm. Later that evening, it will air on both MTV and VH1 at 11 pm. The video will also debut tomorrow on the Web sites for all the aforementioned channel, as well as on MTVU.com and Urge, MTV's music service.

Several musicians and actors will appear in the video, including Iggy Pop, Chris Rock, Dennis Hopper, Patti Smith, Johnny Depp and the Dixie Chicks. Justin Timberlake helped with the concept of the video, which to me is like having a two year old paint a tribute to Leonardo DaVinci, but whatever. As much as they're hyping this video, I think simply popping in a copy of American V: A Hundred Highways and listening to the track is a better option than watching the video.

However, you should tune into CMT at 8pm tomorrow night to catch a re-airing of Johnny Cash in San Quentin, the 1969 film that covered his famous and controversial performance.

Former Sex in the City and Northern Exposure heartthrob John Corbett is joining the cast of Showtime's comedy pilot Manchild.

Based on the BBC series of the same name, the show focuses on four guy friends experiencing the mid-life crisis rite of passage that, for better or worse, we'll all be going through some day if we haven't already.

Corbett will be playing a former Deadhead pot smoker who has made an art form out of sabotaging his own life.

You can check out Corbett's own mid-life, wish-fulfillment strategy via his country music outing with the John Corbett Band.

Listen up, Dixie Chick fans: it's time to spit shine your banjo, lace up your poo steppers, slap on your lucky velvet rhinestone cowgirl hat and step into your mechanical leather underpants with the built-in harmonica cause VH1 Storytellers will be featuring the famous country trio October 28 at 9 pm. VH1 Storytellers is a series that only airs intermittently, and next to the defunct Sessions at West 54th and the PBS series Austin City Limits, it's one of the better musical showcase series on television. Concerts are taped in an intimate setting, much like MTV's Unplugged series, and features bands and musicians talking about their songs and what inspired them while also answering questions from fans in the audience. Fans can watch clips from the show on VH1's VSPOT right now by clicking here.

Singer Jewel is the next in the revolving door of celebrities who take on hosting duties for Nashville Star. Last season, it was Wynonna and Cowboy Troy (he's returning as co-host), and before that it was Leann Rhimes and Nancy ODell. Even though I swear she had gone pop, the press release from USA says Jewel grew up on country music so I guess that's all it takes. Plus she's a songwriter and musician just like the contestants on Nashville Star are supposed to be. It's an interesting career move, anyway.

Season 5 of Nashville Star premieres on Thursday, January 11th at 10 pm on USA.

It's time to hike up your overalls, dust off your cornballs, pluck your chicken-ducks, tweedle-dee your slap happy banjo monkey, and come up with other assorted country-fried colloquialisms that don't make any sense because CMT will be hosting a Hee Haw marathon on July 29 that'll air from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. According to Sitcoms Online, this is the first time reruns of the long-running variety show and musical showcase have been on television in nearly a decade. Also, the last two episodes of the marathon will be repeats of episodes shown earlier during the marathon, which is kind of a gyp, considering they only had like eighty-billion episodes to pick from. Future showings of the popular series will cover every episode that aired from 1969 to 1991.

This week's American Idol competition is going to feature country performances from our nine remaining contestants. While this seems like a choice assignment for Bucky, Kellie and probably even Taylor and Chris, how are others such as Mandisa and Ace, who's just barely escaped being voted off twice now, going to fare? Is this going to be their shining moment, or perhaps their swan song?

Join me tonight for TV Squad's live American Idol chat to talk about the show as it happens. Check back here to this very post at 8pm ET, when I'll unveil the location for our super secret chat room. As with all of our chats, you must have AIM (AOL's Instant Messenger) or a compatible program (GAIM or Trillian) to access the room. I'll be in there under the id of TVSRyan and some of your other favorite TV Squadders will probably be stopping by as well. I'll see you at 8!


Update:
Come one, come all;  here is the super secret location for our American Idol Chat! Look for me (TVSRyan) in the chat room. See you inside.

Disclaimer: All or parts of the discussion in this chatroom may be posted in a later column on this site.

I'm going to come right out and admit to you lovely people that I watched the first season of Nashville Star. I voted for Buddy Jewell and I was glad to see him win. What I like about Nashville Star, is that the singers are required to perform their own, original songs. That's right. It's not all karaoke. They are also required to write an original song during competition and perform it (at least, that's what happened during the first season). Many of the performers also play their own instruments. Despite being a genre of music that I'm not especially fond of, I really enjoyed the originality of the performers. Especially compared to a certain singing competition that is huge right now.

So, tell me. Do you watch Nashville Star?

Following in the footsteps of MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, and Comedy Central, country music network CMT will soon be launching an online broadband channel that will feature both original and new video content. The new venture is being called "Loaded." I assume that's because you have to be "loaded" to enjoy country music. But I kid, of course. Actually, there's not a lot of information on this just yet. In fact, there's not really any information at all. Still, if you like yourself some of that down home toe-tappin' banjo pop, then you've got something to look forward to.

[via Lost Remote]

The producers of Nashville Star have gone all out with their website. First, you can download individual audio performances immediately after they air. Unfortunately, they don't like Mac users, so I can't tell you how much they cost. But, I do know that there is a charge for each song.

Plus, you can upload your own photo to the Nashville Star website and put yourself in a music video. Kinda corny, I know. But it's the kind of corny that kills time in the cubicle.

How many of y'all watch that there country music singing contest?

[Via Lost Remote]

Even when he played Aidan on Sex and the City, John Corbett has always been a little bit country. That's why he gave up acting in 2005, headed to Nashville, and grew out his chops. He spent the last year writing and composing songs for a country album with guitarist/friend Tara Novick. Now he has a self-titled album and a video, which you can see on AOL. The video is for a song called Good to Go, and it features your usual country stuff: hay bales, horses, tractors, and dirt. Oh yeah, and it also has a few cameos by Bo Derek, John's real-life girlfriend. You can hear samples of all the songs on his debut album over at his official website. Corbett isn't signed on with a record label because he didn't like their recommendation of waiting a year to create a "marketing strategy" for his album. It's his first album, but it's also a life-long dream for him, so he probably wanted to start the country music part of his life as soon as possible. Even if you don't like the style of music, you've got to admire the guy for walking away from it all to pursue his dream.

[Via Pop Candy]