If an indie-rock band who keeps banging out albums for a few thousand fans is an example of streaming music's long tail, and if DRAKE represents the, what, short tail?, then ROY CLARK was a prime tenant of what you might call the middle tail. Major music and video artist from an era before the internet existed (he was telling corny jokes and promoting good music on network TV long before BLAKE SHELTON was alive). Lengthy discography on a haphazard collection of major and indie labels. One-time CMA Entertainer of the Year, a plaque in the COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME and enough fans of a certain age who would love to click through that discography whenever the mood strikes. Like today, a day after one of the great country instrumentalists and ambassadors died at age 85. But while there's a smattering of albums and budget compilations in SPOTIFY, ITUNES and elsewhere, Clark's catalog is basically a mess, with older albums and newer compilations having gone missing. There's more not there than there. This should be easy. Clark, one of country's first big TV stars and later a fixture in LAS VEGAS and BRANSON, was neither obscure nor hard to find. How difficult would it be to track down and license those albums for digital release? Whose job was it? Someone at Spotify? Someone in publishing? Someone at a label that owns the catalog of another two or three long-gone labels? Clark himself? His fans? I'm not worried about Drake's music disappearing (yet), and I'm not worried for the indie rockers who have the hunger and digital know-how to make sure their own music doesn't go away (yet). It's the music in the middle for which I worry. Music that doesn't have champions in the right offices in LA, New York or Silicon Valley. Film fans are currently in danger of losing FILMSTRUCK and its huge catalog of classic films that no one else seems interested in streaming. There's a hell of a lot more music, some classic, some less so, all worth preserving and hearing, that we've already lost. RIP to one of country's great cultural figures... Good idea for an album, in the vein of similar efforts by PUSSY GALORE, the WALKMEN, the EASY STAR ALL-STARS, RUFUS WAINWRIGHT and LAIBACH, this time with the twist that the source album never actually existed. "All I want to do right now is go back to the music I heard when I was f***ing 15," RYLEY WALKER says. "It takes me back to a place where things were very simple and I was very happy." Not that the turn of the century was all that simple. But being 15 often is. The two songs released in advance are both keepers. It's out today... Why write and produce a two hour and twenty minute biopic when you can say pretty much the same thing in two minutes and 20 seconds? Last I checked, they're going to go ahead and finish ROCKETMAN anyway. Maybe they can use some of the material that the JOHN LEWIS (fancy British department store, for anyone who needs to know) ad didn't... JORGE DREXLER wins Song and Record of the Year at LATIN GRAMMYS; LUIS MIGUEL wins Album of the Year... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from ANDERSON .PAAK, MARIAH CAREY, TYLER THE CREATOR, RYLEY WALKER, KIRK KNIGHT, SMASHING PUMPKINS, LITTLE MIX, POWELL TILLMANS, SIMMY, DEENA ABDELWAHED, MUMFORD & SONS, MARK KNOPFLER, MIKE WILL MADE-IT, PORTRAYAL OF GUILT, THE GOOD THE BAD & THE QUEEN, CITY GIRLS, BOYZONE, AZUSA, LEIKELI47, INSÓLITO UNIVERSO, MICHAEL BUBLÉ, LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III, P.O.D., ANDREW MCMAHON, CHUCK D, BIRDMAN & JACQUEES, LENNON STELLA and EIKO ISHIBASHI... And a CHRIS CORNELL box set... And Saturday will bring new JADEN SMITH music.