Yes, I read the Billboard cover story about Miley’s new music, and I walked away feeling confident that this will not be Miley’s big “gone country” moment. When she’s saying things like “My main concern isn’t radio,” then the least of our worries is that it will be country.
Country music legend Loretta Lynn is expected to make a full recovery, but fans of the 85-year-old Country Music Hall of Famer are worried after news broke early Friday evening (5-5) that she had suffered a stroke in her Hurricane Mills home, and is in the hospital in Nashville.
The biggest adversity to independent music is success. Independent fans score higher grades in so many categories compared to their mainstream and passive listening counterparts, but their one failing is their need for a sense of exclusivity. As soon as something they like becomes popular, it no longer seems to have the same magic.
Not to criticize any other artist or bands no matter where they are from, but if the City of Austin wants to see more support for their local music, why is no support flowing to local artists through an event held in a local park, using local resources, receiving local tax breaks, and includes the name of the city right in its title?
To us, it’s a sad state of affairs that Guy, Susanna, Townes, and so many more that made up the core of the alternative to country in the 70’s and 80’s are gone, but to Rodney Crowell, these weren’t just distant stars on some stage that perhaps he got to see once or twice in his life, these were his close personal friends.
Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry member Charley Pride will release his first album in over six years when Music In My Heart hits the shelves. It will be released via Music City Records. “It was fun getting back into the studio,” Charley Pride says. “My goal was to record the best traditional country album possible.”
And now for something entirely unexpected, but in a strange and sad way somewhat plausible and curiously intuitive, John Mayer and his label Sony have made a full on play to court country radio with his song “In The Blood” from his recently-released record, ‘The Search For Everything.’
‘Corners’ feels like an important project in country music, and in Texas music specifically. Dalton Domino is bringing influences to the region that are not entirely foreign to roots music, but do feel lost in the viewshed in the otherwise expansive and diverse Texas scene. It also announces Domino has a creative force
Ever had a smoke alarm, or maybe one of those crazy blooming birthday candles from China that even after you remove the batteries and take a sledge hammer to them they have the uncanny ability to keep chirping away no matter what manner of holy hell you inflict upon their plastic existence? Well that’s Billy Ray Cyrus and his song “Achy Breaky Heart.”
Texas music artist Sam Riggs was kicked out of last week’s Larry Joe Taylor Festival for lighting his guitar on fire and smashing it on stage. On Tuesday morning (5-2), Sam Riggs released a statement about the matter, after saying there was, “Lots of untruths and BS out there right now.”
Jason Isbell and his band The 400 Unit are readying the release of his latest record The Nashville Sound on June 16th, and his live calendar has just been bolstered with a bunch of new tour dates in support of the new album. Amanda Shires and Frank Turner support the new tour dates.
As Sam Hunt’s new godawful and indisputably non-country single “Body Like a Backroad” rockets up the charts and looks to make him an established major music superstar, the sychophants are coming out of the woodwork to glam on to his success and hope perhaps some of that attention will rub off on them.
One day, and maybe not too far off in the distant future, you will be bragging about how you lived in the time of Willie Nelson. Whether you’re an oldtimer and remember buying his records new on vinyl, or you discovered Willie in your college years as a back catalog artist, you lived on Planet Earth at the same time as Willie Nelson.
Texas music artist Sam Riggs was kicked out of the Larry Joe Taylor Festival for lighting his guitar on fire and smashing it on stage on Wednesday night (4-26) of the annual music event. Furthermore, Saving Country Music has confirmed that the Sam Riggs camp was told expressly to not use fire on stage, and that they lied to stage managers.
Just making music that sounds “country” is not enough. Just because something is real country doesn’t mean it’s real good. As alluring as the steel guitar, the twang, the cut of the fiddle and the yodel in the voice is to traditional country fans, these things in themselves are not enough to keep the music alive forever.
The Sadies are the mod country band from Canada offering some of the most strikingly rich soundscapes in all of roots music. Justin Townes Earle is the second generation songwriter from alt-country royal blood who’s made a legacy all his own. And they have joined forces to tout new albums on a tour that started in California earlier this week.
As first reported by Saving Country Music in January, Steve Earle’s newest album will be called So You Wanna Be An Outlaw, and feature an appearance by Willie Nelson on the title track. The album is said to be unabashedly inspired by Waylon Jennings and the other original country music Outlaws.
See, don’t feel excluded. Being a Texas music fan can be embarrassing too. And after all the work people have done to plead with folks to not look at Larry Joe Taylor Fest as a drunken dudebro convention in a field no less. I don’t think Waylon done it this way. Or Sturgill.
The second song from Jason Isbell’s impending album ‘The Nashville Sound’ all but certifies what we had suspicions of before and what Isbell has been saying in the media previously, which is the June 16th release will be a much more rock ‘n roll affair than some of his recent efforts, and the title is more tongue-in-cheek
Stupid list thing going around the innernets these days asking music folks to list off then bands they’ve seen live, but one is a lie. As a similar exercise to get your country music brain muscles firing and to test your true acumen on the genre, let’s see if you can navigate this difficult intellectual exercise.
Are we just so happy to hear a mainstream record that doesn’t alienate us or let us down that we can construe a few good songs into a strong effort? Maybe that’s the case, but any work is only fair to judge beside its peers, and right now Paisley is one of the few setting the pace for decency in popular country music.
Uncaged, unhinged, and at times even inappropriate, Wrangled is Angaleena Presley making the record she wants to, be damned of the bridges left aflame and the apple carts upset. It is an unusual record, in both sound production and theme. But it also remains solidly country, Angaleena country, where no recess of the unsettled mind is off limits.
Whether you consider it country music getting more cool, or country music losing its historic hold on the squeaky-clean, family-friendly spot on the radio dial, popular country music songs now carry more references to drugs than the lyrics of any other major American genre, even more than rap.
American music radio as it is currently constructed will implode, and likely in the next 12 to 18 months. No amount of headlines and recent news should be needed to influence anyone’s opinion on that. If you’ve been paying attention to the quarterly numbers of America’s two largest radio station owners, you would know this already.
