Maybe he needs to get out of the Beltway...

Twitter is one of those interesting aspects of modern life that sometimes makes me wonder if it's just another excuse to waste time.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Twitter is a good way to find links to news stories you might otherwise miss, blogs, coupons, traffic tips, weather updates and amusing one-liners. I use it to plug my blog and my newspaper column. And I also follow a few celebrities, mostly news types.

Somewhere along the way I started following Luke Russert. I like his take on sports. I liked his dad, Tim, and still miss Tim's steady presence on "Meet the Press." Luke is a young man (born in 1985) who covers Congress for NBC.

Luke has made me give my Twitter feed a double take a couple of times, though. During one of the Republican presidential debates earlier in the year, he tweeted something like, "Where the hell was gas $1.59 a gallon in late 2008?" after one of the candidates mentioned it.

Well, I knew quite well that gas got that cheap here in Knoxville, so I told him so. He didn't reply.

Today he tweeted: "The entire #Bills bar including myself just went 'Who the hell is Michael Buble?'" No doubt they'd just seen one of CBS's previews for tonight's "60 Minutes" story by Lara Logan on the popular Canadian singer.

Dang, Luke, get out of the Beltway every now and then!



Buble is a Grammy Award-winning pop singer (granted that doesn't mean what it once did) who has sold more than 30 million records. He had a huge hit in 2005 with "Home" and his Christmas CD has roared to the top of the charts. I first saw him 11 years ago in the film "Duets" and enjoyed his concert at Thompson-Boling Arena in 2008.

(He's also hosting a Christmas special on Luke Russert's own network on Tuesday night.)

I can somewhat give Luke a bit of a pass on this one. I don't know much of anything about modern day music. But I do know Buble. He's a throwback in a lot of ways. He wears a coat and tie on stage and has a stronger vocal range than Frank Sinatra did. But he croons in that same style and actually has talent, which is more than one can say for most of what passes for popular music.

I will say that I did shake my head when I saw Logan was going to be profiling Buble on "60 Minutes." But, heck. It's Christmastime. And he can ring-a-ding-ding almost as well as the Chairman of the Board.

I hope you know who that is, Luke.

A night to remember

I never will forget where I was the first time I heard it.

Beaver Creek Road, Powell, 2004, coming back from a doctor's appointment.

"Another summer day has come and gone away in Paris and Rome, but I want to go home..."

The voice hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn't Sinatra. It wasn't Dino Martin. But it sounded like them, and yet it also had a contemporary edge.

Enter Michael Buble.

This phenomenal Canadian talent brought his big band and quirky, charming personality to Thompson-Boling Arena tonight. You will accuse me of hyperbole, but this proved to be one of the best shows I've ever seen.

Buble swung and danced his way through the Great American Songbook, paying homage to Frankie ("I've Got the World on a String") and Dean ("You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You") and all the greats. And he threw in some classic soul (Billy Paul's "Me and Mrs. Jones") and some Eisenhower era groove (Peggy Lee's "Fever") and a little something for everybody.

And he joked with the crowd, made fun of us in a good-natured way and promised to come back to Knoxville. He even shook hands with UT basketball coach Bruce Pearl.

It was old-fashioned entertainment in the best sense of what that word used to mean. What a treat to see so many young faces in the crowd, too. It gives me hope that good music might just stand the test of time after all.

The best part? Well, one special moment had to be "Home," Buble's first American No. 1 single, the song that almost caused me to have a wreck on the highway four years ago. Perhaps the best of his original tunes, though, is the simply divine "Lost," which became one of my favorite songs tonight.

But, no, the best part, the "sends chills up the back of your spine" moment, came when Buble brought out his opening act, Naturally 7 (check these guys out NOW!) to work magic on Hoagy Carmichael's great contribution to popular music, "Stardust." He said the song is going to find its way onto the next album; I wish I could buy it on iTunes tonight.

Wow.

Then Buble closed with Leon Russell's "A Song for You" ("And when my life is over, remember when we were together...") and none of us wanted to find our way back to the car.

We knew we'd been in the presence of pure, raw talent, the kind that only comes around once in a blue moon.