C & W Day @ HBO

Big Kenny, Dierks Bentley, Lucinda Williams, Rivers Rutherford

My ol' radio pal and host of "CityBilly," Rene Engel used to say that there are two kinds of music, Country and Western. Well, today at HBO we had a singer/songwriter round-robin at lunchtime with four great performers of country, western and American roots music. This is our third year for this little lunchtime concert, sponsored by Karen Murphy of the Nashville Screenwriters Conference and one of our feature execs here at HBO, Kary Antholis.

Today's concert featured Big Kenny (from Big and Rich), Dierks Bentley, Rivers Rutherford and my longtiime pal, Lucinda Williams. Everyone was great. How lucky are we to hear such big stars in the lobby of our office? Even the sound was OK in our cavernous space.

Big Kenny

Rivers Rutherford

Dierks Bentley

Lucinda Williams

They were all good, but Rivers Rutherford blew me away! What a great guitar-player, singer AND songwriter! It seems that Dierks Bentley is the hot new C&W guy right now, formerly a bluegrass player. I was listening to commercial radio this morning on the way into work and Dierk's name was mentioned in the promo for the Grammy’s this Sunday. Big Kenny from Big & Rich is always entertaining It was a little early in the day for Lu to be singing, but her voice tugs at everyone’s heartstrings, that’s for sure. She is surely the best co-dependent poet of chick songs ever. Rivers threw in some impromptu tasty guitar licks on Lu’s songs.

One more plus today, HBO fed us lunch!! Yeah! I love my job!