Arresting Officer In JMM Case Fired And Meet The Songwriters Behind Strait’s Hits

Brody Vercher | February 22nd, 2007 Email Share

  • The police officer that arrested John Michael Montgomery a little over a year ago was fired yesterday after an eight hour hearing.

    Officer Joshua Cromer was one of six officers disciplined by the police department for controversial comments posted on MySpace.com, a social networking site. In the postings, the officers discussed their jobs, commented on arrests they had made and used derogatory language about gays and mentally disabled people.

    Another article on the matter says that Cromer will appeal his firing, but I don’t think it will do him any good. From what I read 100% of the Lexington City Council agreed to the firing, and the results of a poll on the website show that 76% of the people who voted think he should have been fired.

    Read our interview with John Michael Montgomery.

  • Tracy Lawrence addresses the response he’s received from his new album so far, possibly going on a big tour next year, and setting up his own label.

    “We’re really not doing much more than we were doing as a management company,” he says. “We’ve always been fighting for our space every step of the way anyway. … I think for a little small setup, we’re doing all right.”

  • CMT announced the lineup scheduled for the CMT Music Awards on April 16. Performers include: Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride, Sugarland, and Dierks Bentley. The finalists for awards will be announced on February 28.

    Check out all the nominees and their videos on our CMT Music Award Nominees: YouTube Edition post.

  • Everybody knows about George Strait and his 54 number one hits, but most people (myself included) don’t know a whole lot about the songwriters who have written some of those hits. Strait on his songwriting:

    “I just haven’t been a very motivated songwriter,” he said. “I’m just lazy about it. There’s so many good songwriters out there …

    “If I put my mind to it, I know I could write. I’m just not inspired to do it.”

    The article from the Houston Chronicle goes on to profile some of the songwriters behind Strait’s hits.

  • Rodney Atkins got the chance to defend country music last night on The Tonight Show, when talk show host Bill Maher told Jay Leno, “The only use I have for country music is to make fun of it.”

    Atkins, who performed “Watching You” on the show, wasn’t laughing. “I take it as an honor to be the guy representing country music last night. I was proud to sing a song about family values, my life and what this format is all about,” he says.

    After the show, Leno apologized to Atkins, thanked him for coming and invited him back, saying, “You are a class act.”

    via Country Nation

    I’ve never liked Bill Maher, and this only cements my dislike for him a little more. I’m glad to see that Rodney Atkins took the high road. The only other info I could find about the incident was from Freedom Eden where he says that Maher was defending the Dixie Chicks.

  • While I was browsing around for more info on the Bill Maher incident, I came across a great ad from the Headline feature of Jay Leno. It features Dolly Parton in an ad for her theme park, Dollyworld. The ad is old, but still funny.

    Dolly Parton In Dollwood Ad

  1. Matt C.
    February 22, 2007 at 12:31 pm Permalink

    Interesting George Strait article. George has been very faithful to his songwriters over the years, a large reason for his success. George Strait would probably not be who he is today without Dean Dillon, which is one reason I wish the article would have at least alluded to their interesting and tumultous history. Strait and Dillon have reportedly buried the hatchet, but for years they did not get along and were consumed by jealousy for one another but recognized that they needed each other and kept making hits together.

  2. Linda Banks
    February 22, 2007 at 4:47 pm Permalink

    I did enjoy reading Bill Maher’s blog at Huffington Post a while back, after Willie was cited for possession of marijuana/mushrooms:

    Until we win World War III and crush the evildoers in what our president calls a “struggle for civilization” -all law enforcement people have to work on THAT, and not on busting Willie Nelson. This week, Willie Nelson, whom Donald Rumsfeld calls the “number two man in alQaeda” – was the victim of a pointless search that revealed he had with him a mere pound and a half of marijuana and a fifth of a pound of psychedelic mushrooms – or as Willie calls it, breakfast.

    That’s right, cops in Louisiana pulled over his tour bus and searched it based on probably cause, the probable cause being it contained Willie Nelson. The Fuzz then hassled Willie, demanded he cut his hair and shot Peter Fonda off his motorcycle. I mean, Louisiana, come on, your state was under water a year ago – if the man wants some of it for his bong, let him. Yes, he had mushrooms – he’s a hundred year old hippie, they were growing in his hair.

    Are we trying to send a message to other aging celebrities who might be thinking about recreational drug use? Watch out, Wilfred Brimley, Alberto Gonzales wants to know what you’re sprinkling on your Quaker Oats.

    Everybody’s got something, but if there’s one drug above all we should be cracking down on, it’s oil. Oil is the addiction poisoning our lungs, and our political system, and our foreign policy. Willie Nelson, high though he might have been, was on a bus that didn’t pollute anything, because it runs on bio-diesel. But bio-diesel threatens the profits of Big Oil, which means the only way we’re ever going to legalize pot in this country is to convince Bush and Cheney it’s a petroleum product. And it may be, all my bongs have a carburetor.

    Hemp is another product that threaten oil and timber profits, because it has so many uses, like rope and bio-fuel and textiles. The Declaration of Independence is written on it. President Bush could use it to make another “Mission Accomplished” banner. If he could only accomplish a mission.

    But that’s hard when you lose focus. Let’s focus on defending America, and leave the singers and the medical marijuana patients alone. Because, believe me, when you bite into one of their special baked goods, in about 20 minutes you’ll be saying, “You’re doing a heckuva job, brownie.:

  3. Kevin
    February 24, 2007 at 10:51 am Permalink

    Now, now. Everybody knows of the link between marijuana and violent crime. How many grocery aisles need to be raped for people to finally learn how dangerous pot is?

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