BILL BLOG
Thursday, April 16, 2026
Thursday morning, and it’s road trip day to Illinois. More on that later. A comfortable 78 degree high today in Nashville.
YESTERDAY
My writing session was with Alex Miller and Mark BonDurant, and both Mark and I were gifted this from Alex.
The brand-new Alex Miller album.
Mark has a song on this album, and I’m blessed to have two songs, including the title track.
Pretty cool vinyl gift to play on my little suitcase record player. When’s the last time you saw a YELLOW album? Thank you, Alex.
Alex is going to hold an album listening party at the Texas Troubadour Theater here in Nashville on Thursday night, May 14, at 6:30 pm. It’s free and open to the public. Alex will play every song on the album “live” with a full band, so it should be a very fun evening. Come if you can.
ANOTHER GIFT
Alex also told me yesterday that our song “More Country Than You”, the duet he recorded with Emily Ann Roberts, has now been streamed over a million times. That’s a lot of ears on our song. Love that. Emily Ann is also a writer on that song, and she was just nominated for “Best New Female Vocalist” by the Academy of Country Music. Good news all around.
YESTERDAY’S SONG
Alex wanted to write a Christmas song yesterday, something he might be able to release come Christmas time this year. So that’s what we did. In the middle of April. Believe it or not, artists start looking for and recording Christmas music around this time of year. We had fun bringing that one home yesterday.
THE TESLA RIDE
Mark BonDurant is a retired pharmacist from Ohio, but these days he's a songwriter.
When he retired, one of his boys took over the business, and Mark bought himself a Tesla. I had never ridden in one until yesterday, when we drove to lunch in it. Or, should I say, the CAR drove us! Hands off the wheel, the car drove us to lunch, parked, drove us back, and parked again, all by itself.
I’ve got to admit, it blew me away. The features and the visuals on the GPS were several steps ahead of any GPS I’ve ever seen.
Mark told me one of the things he loves about the car is not having to drive at night; he lets the car do that. And when he comes out of an office, with his key, he can command the car to drive to him to pick him up. I never thought I’d be interested in a self-driving car, but yesterday may have changed my mind.
SONG OF THE DAY
My friends Darin & Brooke Aldridge will be singing in the Grand Ole Circle again tonight, the wooden circle in the middle of the Grand Ole Opry Stage. They’ve now appeared way over 50 times or so, and that never gets old. I keep waiting for the Opry to ask them to become members, as I think that will happen for them. So today’s song is “Grand Ole Circle,” which the three of us wrote about that iconic place.
HEALTH NOTES
Influential analysis has concluded that “breakthrough” Alzheimer drugs are unlikely to benefit patients. Unfortunate.
Also unfortunate. A Florida surgeon has been charged with killing a man after removing his liver instead of his spleen.
Swedish researchers say that AI can identify people at risk of melanoma years before it’s diagnosed.
HERE’S YOUR SIGN
Something to “drink” about, I suppose.
BEST CITIES
Business Insider just listed the “Best Cities to Live In.” Jobs, desirability, and quality of living all went into the choices. Here are their top 5 selections, and you’ll see they like the state of Texas… a lot.
5…Nashville. (How about that?)
4…Fort Worth
3…Austin
2…El Paso
And their number one choice? Oklahoma City.
JOKE
Some husband said, “A lot of women say their husbands never listen to them. I’m proud to say that I’ve never heard my wife say that.”
NEVER TOO LATE
Philip Spevak is 95 years old. He just released his first children’s book.
Nope, never too late to do something creative. Love that.
SPEAKING OF BOOKS
My wife Kathy will have a book signing in Cincinnati for her first-ever book, “Subtle Frequency.”
That will happen on July 11 at Joseph-Beth Bookstore in the Norwood area of Cincinnati. It will be a two-hour in-store signing, and we are looking very forward to seeing some Cincinnati friends that day.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
From Samuel Beckett:
“We are all born mad. Some remain so." (An unfortunate truth)
TODAY
I’m off to the town of Anna, Illinois, this morning with several other Nashville songwriters for a Freedom Sings USA 3-day weekend event. Tonight we will meet with the veterans whose stories we will write into songs come Saturday. We will have two songwriter shows for those veterans, one tonight and another on Friday night. Then, on Saturday, we will play our veteran’s song at an outdoor concert in Anna, to honor those vets. It’s free and open to the public.
Have a great Thursday!
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