As some of you may know, Music City has been gearing up all day for the CMAs tonight; coincidentally, I had scheduled a luncheon meeting with a friend downtown. Well, when I arrived on Lower Broadway this morning, it resembled one of those 30s boomtown oil well movies; in addition to the CMAs and the seemingly constant construction of high rise condos downtown, there is a HOCKEY game tonight: Ticket Scalpers mixed with C&W fans here for the big show; there was a huge TV screen mounted on some sort of vehicle screening a bunch of CMA related stuff, and oh yeah, Robin Roberts of Good Morning America was stalking Lower Broad with a camera crew trailing behind her, trying to remain incognito...they were live from here this AM, and who knows what else they were looking to shoot... I made my appointment, at which time my friend advised me that we couldnt meet at the appointed time--something urgent and work related had come up...so I wondered the streets of lower Broad aimlessly, killing time until his meeting would end; hoping perhaps to gherm Ms. Roberts, a tough lady and Im told, a heckuva basketball player in her time. At one point, I found myself half-listening to a two man band on the corner across from The Merchants Lunch while Ms. Roberts waited for the light to change. It changed. I looked around for another way to kill time on my side of the street, and what to my eyes should appear but the grizzled visage of Marty Brown the next big thing of a year long ago, so proclaimed by no less than Harry Reasoner, as I recall, on 60 Minutes or a similar newsmagazine TV show. His appearance was of more than passing interest to me for a couple of reasons: a friend who produced an independent album after his major label deal had run its course (he was the real thing when that wasnt a particularly good idea) had mentioned him to me via Facebook, and...he has recently appeared on Americas Got Talent , where no less an expert than Howard Stern proclaimed him Authentic. I doubt that Howard had any awareness of Martys career, but Marty has been on my mind. Marty, I asked querulously,lis that you? Indeed it was; he was playing all over, he said, but not on lower Broad because you can get trapped down here. I told him of my conversation with my producer friend, he said that was one of my favorite records, and showed me one of his homemade CDs, the ones in skinny plastic cases with no label info because, well, there is no label. He accompanied me to a money machine because I didnt have the cash to buy it, gave him a $20, he gave me $5 back. He even signed it To Randy Pitts, God Bless, Marty Brown...and I was all prepared to make it Randogs Pick Of The Day if it was good, and how could it not be good. Well, it doesnt play in any CD player on the place, but there may be a happy ending yet...and then youll know The rest of the story. And Ill always have Martys autograph, no matter what.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:44:58 +0000
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