Luke Bryan Calls Jessi Colter; Shooter Jennings Praises Luke Bryan…THE END

While we've all likely grown weary of LukeWaylonGate, I didn't feel it would be right to not post something about what appears to be the conclusion to all this.

After Luke Bryan's comments in a recent interview regarding "outlaw country" and the juxtaposition of certain words with the names Willie, Waylon, and Merle, Waylon Jennings' daughter-in-law angrily shot back at Luke, who then addressed the issue on Twitter.

Okay, so then Luke calls Jessi Colter, Waylon's widow and a country legend in her own right, to apologize for the phrasing of this comments and to say he absolutely meant no disrespect to Waylon and that he regards him and Willie and Merle as heroes.

Shooter Jennings then praised Luke for the phone call.

And I love what he said. The dude's a class act.

Shooter Jennings:

"I love Kathy for her defense of the family and caring so much for the legacy. But as my mom says, [some] people out there want things the way it WAS and nothing else. I'm not defending pop music but I am defending new music. My dad never liked labels and neither do I.”

“While I support my family obviously, personally the whole thing didn't make a difference to me. I've had my fair share of words being twisted and articles being sliced and diced. So I figured it was that….

“His music isn't something I find myself listening to, but that's not personal, I don't listen to any new country besides a few underground acts that are a pretty far reach to even call them straight country."

"My point is it’s all flush in my book. He said some [stuff] and because of the Internet it came back on him. But he went above and beyond and manned up and apologized. In the long run I believe his image has improved.”

You see, I believe that people are just a lot more uptight than ever before. It seems like an opinion cannot be uttered, one way or another, without opponents of that opinion not simply disagreeing, but getting very, very angry and suggesting that certain comments be walked back.

Luke did that when he realized what he'd said had been misconstrued.

But suppose someone had said what he said and actually MEANT it? Suppose someone had given an honest opinion about something and that opinion proved to be WILDLY unpopular.

Anymore, it seems it's not enough that we can agree to disagree. It seems we have to ANNIHILATE those with whom we disagree.

I see it all the time online and in the news. It's creating too volatile an atmosphere.

I seem to remember that in this country, we're free to state our opinions.

Yes, in the grand scheme of things, this whole Luke Bryan/Waylon Jennings thing is small potatoes, but if folks can get as upset as they have over this matter, what happens when the issue is of far greater importance?