For “country comes to the White House,” there was a vast array of self-identified country talent to turn to. He sang “Witchita Lineman,” fergodzsakes–and not that well; Darius Rucker, or Lyle Lovett, who were on hand, could both have handled that a lot better.

Look, Jon, if it had been Bluegrass Comes to the White House, and they said, now here’s this guy who’s a friend of the Grammy guy who did the history lecture today to represent it, the real Mr. Billy Joel, who had that 4-minute relation to bluegrass once years ago, you might not be quite so accepting of him as a rep. Maybe ya would be, but my guess is not so much, because they could have had somebody more on point, easily. They could have done better in representing the music. It was actually a fairly boring and tossed together show overall, I thought. The Band Perry did pretty OK.

The only President in my lifetime who ever convinced me he was inside the roots music for more than political purposes, btw, was Jimmy Carter.

I’d say they could have done a lot worse than James Taylor.

Now, if I want to get controversial, I have a different question about this week’s White House country show, namely, what the heck is James Taylor doing there at all? It’s an insult to country music and a kiss up to wimps that they go to him fir this–and not even with Bartender’s Blues.. Well, decorum has been maintained–and not in a good way.

Right–when I hear Jimmie Rodgers sing

Will there be any freight trains in heaven
Any boxcars in which we might hide
Will there be any tough cops and brakemen
Will they tell us we cannot ride
Will the hobo chum with the rich man
Will we always have money to spare
Will they have respect for a hobo
In the land that lies hidden up there

I can’t help but figure that if Jimmie were around today, he’d be an advocate of the death penalty and doing away with Social Security, etc. Or maybe Jimmy didn’t have enough branis for you, either.