Artists Discuss Impact of “Yellowstone” Series on Their Career

It’s really hard to over-emphasize the impact the TV show Yellowstone and all the Taylor Sheridan-produced shows have had on independent country music. When the history books are written about how independent country turned the tables on the mainstream, circumventing corporate radio’s gatekeepers to gain exposure through the most popular show on television will be a big part of that story.

The show’s Music Supervisor Andrea von Foerster has been one of the big power players in this dynamic. During Wednesday of this week’s AmericanaFest in Nashville, Foerster hosted a two-hour event featuring some of the artists who’ve had their songs featured on the show talking about how much it’s meant to their careers, and performing the songs for the audience.

Participants in the event included Cleto Cordero of Flatland Cavalry, Robert Earl Keen, Brent Cobb, Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris, Gethen Jenkins, Aubrie Sellers, Uncle Lucius, Dani Rose, Eliot Bronson, and Myron Elkins. Shane Smith and the Saints closed the show out with a full band performance at Nashville’s City Winery.

“We have a pretty specific thing we use in Yellowstone and the Taylorverse in general,” Andrea von Foerster said, “Americana, country, not super produced. We like it rough.”

Some of the performers said they’d never seen the show when they got a song placed in it. Others were already big fans. But no matter their knowledge level with the show, they all received a big boost by being featured in the soundtrack.

“It made me the cool aunt to my nieces and nephews,” Mary Gauthier said. “It amazing to me how many people come up to me and know my music because my song was placed in that show.”

For the Texas-based band Uncle Lucius, it actually factored in their reunification after the band broke up in 2018. During the pandemic and due to the Yellowstone placement, their song “Keep The Wolves Away” exploded in popularity.

“The placement helped, obviously,” said frontman Kevin Galloway. “The song went Gold when we were not a band. And so we got together to celebrate and decided to like each other again and started to talk. A few years later, we got back together.”

For the soulful voice of young songwriter Myron Elkins, having a song featured in Yellowstone helped him become a hometown hero.

“Everyone up here is from Texas or someplace cool,” Myron Elkins said about his fellow panelists. “I’m from Kalamazoo, Michigan. I’m really popular in the restaurant now.”

Perhaps the greatest success story of Yellowstone is Whiskey Myers, who exploded in popularity when not just their music, but the band itself made an appearance in an episode. After that happened, Taylor Sheridan and Andrea von Foerster tried to figure out who else they could help out in a similar capacity. They landed on Shane Smith and the Saints.

“We had been touring as a band independently for over 11 years. We hadn’t been featured in a local car commercial,” Shane Smith explained. “We had nothing up to this point, and then we got featured on the largest TV in the Universe at the time. What happened is everything essentially doubled or tripled for us almost immediately. It’s been the biggest godsend, and it’s been such a layered domino effect since then for us. So we’re just beyond grateful.”

Shane Smith told the story of throwing a watch party before one of their shows in Virginia Beach when their first song was used in the series. They set up a big flat screen and the audience watched with the band. They went through almost the entire episode, and the song still had not played. They were worried they had their wires crossed and had the wrong episode, or weren’t featured at all. But then it finally played at the very end, and the fans erupted.

Andrea von Foerster has also been conducting songwriting camps to workshop songs for the series. Taylor Sheridan has a new series on the way called Landman starring Billy Bob Thornton, which according to Von Forester, “Has more music than Yellowstone by far. It has six times more.” This means six times more opportunities for cool country artists to be featured.

The final season of Yellowstone premiers on November 10th, followed by the debut of Landman.

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All photos by Kyle “Trigger” Coroneos. For more photos and media from AmericanaFest, follow Saving Country Music on Instagram.