Good but Mostly Generic Songs at the 56th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards
by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2021 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved Thanks to various pressures, mostly due to an unusually stressful couple of weeks at work, it’s been taken me nearly a week to have a chance to comment on the 56th annual Academy of Country Music awards, aired April 18 on CBS-TV “live” from various stages in Nashville, including both the current Grand Ole Opry (where a group of nurses and other health-care workers were rewarded for their services during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by being allowed to sit in the balcony, even though the main floor was devoid of audience members as has become customary in this crazy era) and its venerable original home, now known as Ryman Auditorium. It seems like every time this place is shown on TV people get all gooey-eyed and reverential – and, given me, I remember, “This is where Grand Ole Opry manager Jim Denny told Eivls he should go back to driving a truck.” Oddly, the show opened with a quote from Lauren Alaina’s