Daddy like

Country music gets a bad rap.

There are real musicians out there, from Dierks Bentley (pictured; we're seeing him tonight in the big city) to Miranda Lambert to Big and Rich. There are unbelievable voices in country music, from Martina to Faith Hill to Natalie Maines.

Real is the key word here. Not every song is about a truck and a beer and a steer and a belt buckle or gun rack. More often than not, the songs hit people, hard, right where they should.

So we'll be sporting the ol' cowboy boots tonight, walking around Broadway looking for a record contract, er, trying to get to the Nokia Theater as soon as we can so we can get a close enough seat to catch the chord changes.

You can go listen to your local country music station. Some of you have a lot of them. Others, not so much.

If you have neither, download Cash on your Ipods.