Country Mike Blog

Daniels in Opry

Mike Sudhalter  |  November 21, 2007

I was glad to see that Charlie Daniels recently got an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry. It's good to see that long overdue artists like Daniels and Mel Tillis finally get their due by becoming part of country music's greatest institution.

Who will the next Opry inductee be? It's hard to tell, but many people are saying Carrie Underwood.

Finding independent country artists on itunes can be difficult, but you may surprise yourself sometimes. There's a website, Country Music Pedia that predominantly features independent artists. On the site, there's bio information about the different artists. I searched many of their names on itunes and found them there. Here's some of their names, although I haven't had time to listen to music from all of them - Julie Burton, Ryan T. Briggs, Peter Brandon, Candy Coburn, Dave Jorgensen, Shevy Smith, Rebecca Frederick, Rebecca Lindsay, Sara Lynn and Rustie Blue. If you know about any of these artists or could tell me their top songs, e-mail me.

It's great to know that even a large corporation like Apple has a service that doesn't forget the little folks, independent artists.

I'm running in my first 10-kilometer race (6.2 miles) on Thursday morning, and country music will be on my earphones every step of the way.

Some songs that I'd like to have on there are: "My Tennessee Mountain Home" by Dolly Parton, "The One That Got Away" by Jerrod Niemann, "Want To" by Sugarland, "International Harvester" by Craig Morgan and "A Perfectly Good Heart" by Taylor Swift.