High gas prices bring the pain to Nashville acts big and small: “To illustrate the situation touring artists now face, [booking agent Keith] Case recalls a recent Ralph Stanley swing into Texas. ‘It was just a straight run, not a lot of geography,’ he explains. ‘He went from home [in southwest Virginia], played three dates that were all closely routed in Texas. He came back and his [roundtrip] fuel bill was almost $2,000.’” [CMT]