This is one hell of a concept for a concept album: eight old-time fiddle instrumentals as tracks one through eight, one of them, the first one, being STEPHEN SONDHEIM's "SEND IN THE CLOWNS," which, at 47 years old, is a tad young as old-time music goes, not to mention a tad coastal elite—it's from a Broadway musical based on an INGMAR BERGMAN film—but the thing about old-time fiddle music is, if the fiddles sound good, nothing else really matters, and the fiddles sound exactly as sad and lonesome on that one as they do on the Texas-circa-1900 "MIDNIGHT ON THE WATER," which is track five, so anyway, eight of those, some upbeat, some mournful, followed by the album's lone vocal track, a new honky-tonkish country tune that looks at the America-circa-2020 BLACK LIVES MATTER movement, empathetically, through the eyes of a very non coastal elite "white boy from Hickman." "Could you imagine," the singer asks his fellow Appalachians, "just constantly worryin' / Kickin' and fightin', beggin' to breathe?" And then: "How many boys could they haul off this mountain / Shoot full of holes, cuffed and layin' in the streets / Till we come into town in a stark ravin' anger / Looking for answers and armed to the teeth?" That song—the language is so colloquial, so specific, so purposeful—is called "LONG VIOLENT HISTORY," and it's the title track and centerpiece from the stunning album Kentucky singer/songwriter TYLER CHILDERS' surprise-released Friday morning. Childers wrote the song in June, then decided he needed the eight traditional tunes that precede it on the album to set the table and provide context, and then decided he also needed this six-minute video message to provide context for the context. The video message is stunning, too. Together, all of this material makes for one of the most unexpectedly powerful Black Lives Matter musical documents in a year that's had so many of them, and the only one, as far as I know, teeming with fiddles and banjos. The video message is an explicit plea to "my white rural listeners" to put themselves in the shoes of Childers' fellow Kentuckian BREONNA TAYLOR and other Black victims of police violence, as well as the people protesting on their behalf, and it's argued so skillfully, patiently and clearly that you don't want to imagine anyone disagreeing with it, so feel free not to read the comments under the video on Twitter. Just listen to Childers ask, "What if we were to constantly open up our daily paper and see a headline like ‘East Kentucky Man Shot Seven Times on Fishing Trip?' and read on to find the man was shot while fishing with his son by a game warden who saw him rummaging through his tackle box for his license and thought he was reaching for a knife?," and then hear how that imagery, and the history and the pain behind it, is reflected in those American instrumentals and in the words Tyler Childers has chosen to sing today. More context on those old songs courtesy AMERICAN SONGWRITER. More details on the project itself on Childers' official site: click on the "Read the Introduction by DON FLEMONS" button. And a great review, from a Southern perspective, by NPR MUSIC's ANN POWERS. Childers is donating all profits to underserved Appalachian communities... BILLBOARD is keeping a running list of Venues Closing Across America... And Billboard's DAVE BROOKS reports (paywalled) that, when the live circuit eventually opens up again, promoters LIVE NATION and AEG are planning to transfer some risk from themselves to artists, with "lower guarantees [and] earnings tied more closely to ticket sales"... KANYE WEST continues his recent streak of making complete sense on TWITTER, except for the part where he seems to think no one else has ever thought or expressed or even done some of this stuff... A booming BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Rolling Stone cover story (also paywalled) by my friend BRIAN HIATT, in which we learn, among many other things, that Springsteen didn't demo any of the songs for his upcoming LETTER TO YOU album because he wanted the E STREET BAND to sound like itself instead of trying to copy him, and in which STEVE VAN ZANDT says it's about time his Boss came around to that way of working. "He's a little slow," the band's consigliere says. Springsteen also reflects on his own experience coming to terms with white privilege and the truths of Black Lives Matter... JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG loved opera more than JOAN JETT loves rock and roll, and she really loved her NOTORIOUS RBG t-shirts, which she used to hand out as gifts. Here's a list of her favorite records, with a bit of commentary. RIP... RIP also PAMELA HUTCHINSON, LEE KERSLAKE, TAY WAY and DAVE KUSWORTH.