Lyle Lovett
Photo: MCA

While country music has long been known for its cock-and-bull stories, its latest tale is hardly about the one who got away — Lyle Lovett simply wasn't that nimble.

Lovett, 44, suffered a broken leg Wednesday when a bull trampled him at a farm belonging to his uncle Calvin Klein — a Texas cattleman, not the fashion designer — according to the Associated Press. The peculiar, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter underwent emergency surgery at Houston's Memorial Hermann Hospital, where a hospital spokesperson said he remained in good condition Thursday (March 28).

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Kevin Coupe of the University of Texas, Houston, said Lovett, who also fractured his thumb in the bull bashing, may remain hospitalized for up to three days and a full recovery could take from six to eight months. He's expected to be moving about on crutches Friday (March 29).

The singer was in the cattle pen at Klein's farm in Klein, Texas, when the bull flipped his uncle, and Lovett came to his aid. Klein sustained minor rib injuries.

The country singer, whose two-year marriage to actress Julia Roberts ended in 1995, will undergo months of rehabilitation following the surgery to repair multiple fractures to the shin bone of his right leg. The bone was comminuted, or pulverized, in several places, and given a six — the highest rating — on the Schatzker scale, which measures the severity of fractures.

Lovett has released eight studio albums in his 16-year career, including his latest, the mostly instrumental soundtrack to 2000's "Dr. T and the Women."

• Lyle Lovett

Lyle Lovett
Photo: Michael Wilson

While songwriters and online music companies argued over how writers should be compensated for downloads of their songs, MusicNet — a subscription service run by RealNetworks and three of the five major record companies — got its first public demonstration in front of a House subcommittee Thursday.

RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser offered a display of the service in front of the House Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. For a monthly fee, MusicNet affiliates such as AOL will allow users to search for songs by title, artist name or keyword. Glaser typed in the keyword "love" and received a screenful of titles, including Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All" and Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)." MusicNet would allow users to download music for a limited period of time. Glaser clicked on a song he had downloaded earlier and received the message "Your license for this song has expired. Please press play to renew the license." This way, users will have to renew their subscriptions to retain access to the songs they download.

Unlike Napster, a file-sharing program that allows users to download music from any other Napster user's computer, MusicNet will give its subscribers access only to songs it stores on a central database. The only songs available will be from labels owned by AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI.

Vivendi Universal Executive Vice Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. briefly discussed Duet, the joint online music venture between Universal and Sony, saying that it would offer both music and artist information.

Bronfman said Duet will offer streaming audio and "tethered downloads," which would also be temporary. Neither service will allow users to make permanent copies, at least in the immediate future.

One committee member accused the major labels of dragging their feet on granting licenses to other online music services to build a market for MusicNet and Duet.

"Consumers obviously wish they had access online to all the music ever recorded," California Rep. Elton Gallegly said. "The online music market has not moved quickly enough to meet this demand." Notably absent from the hearing was Napster, which was not invited. Earlier in the week, Napster sent an e-mail to members of its "action network," asking them to e-mail or call committee members in support of the file-sharing service.

The main obstacle facing Duet, MusicNet and other online music services is how to compensate songwriters. The services are lobbying for blanket licensing, where a service would pay a single fee to a royalty collection organization, which then distributes payments to writers and other copyright holders. Radio stations already pay blanket, or compulsory, licensing fees.

Country singer/songwriter Lyle Lovett and songwriter Mike Stoller argued against blanket licensing, and Lovett distinguished between a radio broadcast and a download. "When a song is broadcast on the radio, it's a promotional tool to encourage people to buy an album," Lovett said. "If people are downloading it on the Internet, they won't have to purchase it." Stoller, half of the legendary songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, argued that Internet music services should pay a separate fee to copyright holders each time a song is downloaded, similar to the "mechanical" license fees that are paid on CDs, cassettes and vinyl sales.

Glaser claimed that the copies made by users of its services are no different than "copies" that are made of radio broadcasts that are relayed from one transmission tower to another. Glaser said that mechanical licensing fees for Internet copies would be unwieldy and virtually impossible to enforce.

Stoller complained that labels were trying to deny writers their fair share by asking for blanket licensing, and he countered claims that it's too difficult to keep track of individual downloads of a song. "I'm no expert on computers," Stoller said, "but I think we all agree that computers are good at counting." MP3.com President Robin Richards agreed with Glaser but said that his service's "locker" function — which allows users to store copies of music they've purchased so they can access songs without playing their compact discs — would be impossible if MP3.com had to make separate licensing deals with the thousands of publishers and copyright holders.

At an April 3 Senate judiciary committee hearing, Napster CEO Hank Barry also lobbied for compulsory licensing, to the opposition of Recording Industry Association of America chief Hilary Rosen.

• Lyle Lovett
• Marvin Gaye
• Poe
• Whitney Houston

Destiny's Child's Beyoncé
Photo: MTV News

Presidency has its advantages.

Case in point: George W. Bush assembled some of pop music's finest — including Ricky Martin, 98 Degrees, Jessica Simpson and Destiny's Child — in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to help mark his move into the White House. Country stars Lyle Lovett, Clint Black, Marcia Ball, Reckless Kelly, Asleep at the Wheel, Tanya Tucker, Mark Chesnutt, Lee Greenwood and appropriately Southern-fried rockers ZZ Top also contributed to the soundtrack for the nation's 54th inaugural.

Martin became the focus of the national press corps' attention on Thursday, offering a version of his World Cup anthem "Cup of Life" during a rally at the Lincoln Memorial. The Bush campaign used the song to cap off the then-governor's campaign appearances during the final months of the election, and Martin drew Bush out to the memorial steps for a little jig that will undoubtedly be played and replayed on "The Daily Show." But the pop-star wattage reached its peak at Friday's Inaugural Concert Celebrating America's Youth, at D.C.'s MCI Center, with the emphasis on the word "youth." Guest MCs ranging from "Jerry Maguire" cute kid Jonathan Lipnicki and "Real World: San Francisco" housemate Rachel Campos to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Bush were greeted by a crowd that might have been more at home at the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards. Each MC gave a quick speech, usually about citizenship or the greatness of the American dream, between brief musical sets, usually of two to five songs. Of course, that made for some tough segues ("Thank you, Destiny's Child! And now, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development-designee Mel Martinez!"). And while the ceremony itself felt a little like a hybrid between a pep rally and a high school dance, the pop royalty who took the stage definitely played it up for the fans.

The stage at the MCI Center, which was a simple frame of lights and an enormous screen running psychedelic animation, was unpretentious and complemented the quick carousel of performers well. 98 Degrees, who performed at the special request of one of the new first daughters, played the quickest set of the evening, burning through speedy renditions of "The Hardest Thing" and "My Everything" before scampering offstage. Meanwhile, Destiny's Child emerged as three well-choreographed balls of energy, blowing through "Independent Women, Part 1" and "Jumpin', Jumpin' ". Despite an ambitious schedule that would see the trio jet off for Los Angeles for an early-morning engagement the next day, Destiny's Child worked the crowd into a decent lather. Destiny's frontwoman Beyoncé Knowles abandoned her usual repertoire of stage banter and anthemic pep routines, instead offering the more event-appropriate "I wanna hear you say Bush!" Jessica Simpson capped off the evening's longest set by performing a version of "I Think I'm in Love With You," in which she substituted the word "boy" with "George," yielding a somewhat contrived result ("George, I think I'm in love with you! I'll be doing silly things when I get next to you").

When Bush took the stage around 5:30 p.m. to thank the "pretty good darn set of entertainers," he used the opportunity to encourage the audience to "be good citizens," a theme he echoed with much greater flourish during his inaugural address the following day. After Friday's Concert Celebrating America's Youth, the inaugural festivities became a circuit of state balls, where most of the musicians were such marquee Texas talent as Loretta Lynn and ZZ Top. Despite rumors of a protest concert filled with headliners from Nader's Green Party road show, there was nothing in the streets but an occasional drum circle.

• Ricky Martin
• Jessica Simpson
• Destiny's Child
• Lyle Lovett
• Clint Black