BILL BLOG
Friday, July 3, 2026
It’s Friday. Fire up the fireworks. It’s the 4th of July weekend. And oh yeah, it’s hot. 97 for the high today in Nashville.
It’s so hot that when you jump into your car, you need to protect your hands from the hot steering wheel. Potholder driving, I call it.
YESTERDAY
I wrote online with my New Hampshire friend Rick Lang yesterday morning. Rick always sends good ideas, and one he sent this time blossomed into a really cool tune.
Rick ran an exotic hardwood business for a lot of years with his wife before selling it, and now he can afford to be a songwriter! And he is with a list of bluegrass recordings a mile long. Hopefully, the one we penned yesterday will be another one of those.
I was blessed to be Rick’s co-writer on the song “Blue Collar Gospel,” which our mutual friend Jerry Salley recorded with the Oak Ridge Boys, which was nominated for “Best Bluegrass Song” last year.
Always great writing with Rick.
TOP OF THE AUSSIE CHART
I got the news yesterday that the French Family Band song, “Here Comes The Sun Again,” just landed in the #1 spot on this Australian Country Chart.
Love it. That’s the song I wrote with Sonny French of the band, and our mutual friend Angus Gill. Time to celebrate a little, with a #1 song on the 4th of July.
Thank you to Sonny for singing the heck out of this song, and to his Mom Camille and Dad Stuie and the family band for recording this chart topper.
SUMMER RELEASE
Today is the day. Young Spencer Hatcher has just released a summer song titled “Hot Weather, Cold Beer” that I co-wrote with him, his younger brother Connor, and Steve Dean. This will be one he’ll have the crowd singing along with at all his concerts this summer for sure. Check out this fun song at the link above. And thank you, Spencer, for recording it.
SONG OF THE DAY
I was going to make Spencer’s new tune our “Song of the Day”, but this song, “It’s For Me And You,” is more appropriate because it’s a song celebrating America, and America’s 250th year that I wrote with the talented Andrea Pearson and my friend Brian White.
The song landed on a Sirius-XM program playing all-original patriotic songs over this 4th of July weekend. Click the link, and you’ll see Andrea being interviewed about the creation of our red, white, and blue song, you’ll see the lyrics, and you’ll see and hear Andrea singing this song we’re proud of.
One of the sidebars to this story and song is the fact that Andrea is Canadian, but is now a U.S. citizen. She sings the song like she was raised here!
HEALTH NOTES
Seems unreal, but it’s apparently true. An 11-year-old in Ontario, Canada, has died from rabies after a bat landed on his face while sleeping.
A case of West Nile virus was detected here in Nashville. Health officials are warning us to protect ourselves from mosquito bites.
A cruise ship is on lockdown in San Francisco after an outbreak of norovirus affecting more than 100 passengers and 20 crew members.
HERE’S YOUR SIGN
The sign-hanger guy had ONE job!
4TH OF JULY
Be careful with your fireworks. This year, there will be between 10 to 15,000 folks visiting an ER because of firework injuries. Don’t wait to throw that firecracker at the last second. Don’t stick a sparkler up your nose. And never say, “watch this” when you’re holding a firework. That never seems to end well. And never buy your cherry bombs from a guy named “Three-Finger Fred.”
BUDWEISER BEEF?
The Facebook kabillionaire Mark Zuckerberg owns a 300-million-dollar estate in Hawaii. He’s got cows on part of that property. Mark claims he is going to produce the highest quality of beef by feeding his cows macadamia nuts and beer. Uh huh.
I can only imagine how frustrated his cows are trying to figure out how to pop a top on their beer cans.
AMERICA IS 250 YEARS OLD
And still the greatest country in the world. Don’t let the news or anyone else tell you differently. I see the best side of our country when I’m writing songs with veterans, and then looking out from the stage at American flags and crowds that turn out to celebrate those veterans.
And this patriot in New Orleans did this.
Gotta love it.
THIS JUST IN
I have not received an invitation to Taylor Swift’s wedding. Sigh. And I thought we were besties!
LUCKY FIND
How about the 19-year-old kid from Portland who paid $3 for a Wilt Chamberlain jacket at a Goodwill store, and then found out it was the jacket Wilt wore during his last season as a Laker? It’s going up for sale, and they think the jacket could fetch as much as $250,000.
You can’t make that kind of stuff up, folks.
MEMORY LANE
The first pro basketball game I ever saw was as a kid in St. Louis. My Dad somehow got tickets to see the St. Louis Hawks. They are now the Atlanta Hawks. I still remember sitting high up in the stands and watching Wilt Chamberlain play for the Philadelphia Sixers at that time against the Hawks.
And that same night, I saw the Harlem Globetrotters, who took the floor before that NBA game. And I remember laughing hard at the antics of Meadow Lark Lemon.
Some kind of magical night that was for a kid from Missouri.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
From Martin Luther King Jr.:
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
TODAY
It’s the beginning of three days off for the 4th of July weekend. But, it’s also my wife Kathy’s birthday today, so it’s all about her. Happy Birthday to her!
Have a great weekend!
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