Billboards Playing a Role in the Country Music Revolution

Country music is unique in how it likes to look back as opposed to forward, unlike so much of the rest of popular music whose job it is to push boundaries, break norms, and innovate. Paying homage to relics of the past and the nostalgia they can inspire is part of the allure of country.

Billboards aren’t exactly dinosaurs, like public telephones or leaded gasoline pumps. But they might be getting there sooner than later. Physical advertising on the sides of highways just isn’t as effective as online ads that can target consumers where they’re at, and what appeals to them specifically. Also, billboard are just ugly, blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind, as a five-piece band once sang. The world is slowly moving on, and billboards are becoming relics themselves: outmoded and obsolete.

Over a year ago now, I looked out the window of Saving Country Music headquarters to see a crew working down the road on a neighboring property adjacent to the highway. It was hard to tell what exactly they were erecting at first. But as the hours passed into days, it was pretty clear it was a big billboard. Yes, it was pretty disappointing this advertising blight would now be part of my landscape.

After the billboard was complete, they stretched out one of those “Does Advertising Work? Just Did!” signs on it. I’m sure you’ve seen them. In fact, at the same time this billboard was erected, a double decker billboard on the other side of the highway just a few hundred yards away was built, and yet another billboard a few hundred yards down from that one. All of them are draped with “Does Advertising Work? Just Did!” signs.

After over a year of these billboards standing completely vacant, the answer to “Does [Billboard] Advertising work?” actually seems to be, “No, it doesn’t.” It’s just a public blight.

Speaking of blights and old relics of the past, commercial country radio also feels like it’s going the way of the billboard, however slowly. Perhaps ironically, a large portion of the business of Clear Channel (now IHeartMedia) was actually outdoor advertising before they spun it off amid one of their numerous bankruptcy and/or restructuring moments.

But over the last few months and years, something has been coming to the rescue of this relic of mass advertisement: independent country music. It was a billboard just outside of Stagecoach in Indio, California in 2024 that was the first hint that Sturgill Simpson’s “Johnny Blue Skies” persona was gearing up to release music.

Earlier this year when the Turnpike Troubadours were getting ready to release their landmark record The Price of Admission, the first hint they dropped was via Billboards just outside of Stillwater, Oklahoma where The Boys From Oklahoma concerts with Cross Canadian Ragweed were scheduled.

When on The Joe Rogan Experience recently, Charley Crockett told the story of how right as the pandemic was hitting, he purchased multiple billboards in prominent places, including in Times Square, hypothesizing correctly that people wouldn’t be purchasing billboards for the next few months, and he could stretch a month of billboard advertising into thee, four, or more since there were no other billboard ads to replace them. This is one of the things Crockett gives credit to for his rise.

Just over the last few weeks, Billboards have been used in Waylon’s tiny hometown of Littlefield, TX to advertise the upcoming Waylon Jennings album Songbird out October 3rd, comprised of unheard recordings from the Waylon archive. Just like in the case of Sturgill Simpson, the Turnpike Troubadours, and Charley Crockett, despite only having to pay for local billboards, the impact is national and international as people share the images on social media—probably not a bad bang for the buck.

In previous eras, billboard advertising especially by independent country artists would have been considered ostentatious, and more vanity than valuable. What has changed? Part of it probably has to do with the emerging affordability of the platform. With so many open billboards out there, rates have fallen in certain locations.

But there’s also something tangible about advertising on a billboard. Just like a vinyl record, in some ways it’s a relic. But it’s that bygone, nostalgic feeling that it can evoke that makes a billboard more valuable than simply a digital rendering. Also, there’s a “made it” feel that is conferred by making it onto a billboard. “Hey mama, I bought me some billboards,” is what Charley Crockett bragged after his outdoor advertising exploits in 2020.

Of course, even the ol’ billboard is falling prey to technological advancement. Digital billboards are now replacing many of the old static ones, especially in urban areas, giving them a second life, and an impersonal feel. Nobody particularly likes a billboard in their backyard. But especially funny ones, or ones involving extra props and such can become like cultural landmarks. There’s something warm about them.

Outdoor advertising used to be part of Americana. Think about Route 66 with its wild, oversized roadside attractions to get people to stop and take pictures. Dare we even say there used to be an artistic notion to outside advertising that has been replaced by the impersonal, modern day billboard.

And we’d be remiss to not point out how many country songs of the past have used billboards as their inspiration, in part or primarily. Most obviously you have “Girl on the Billboard” by Del Reeves. But Homer and Jethro’s “The Billboard Song” from 1952 is another early example. This has fed into the Billboard’s nostalgic feel.

So who knows. Maybe country music can save the billboard. And maybe the billboard can help save country music. It’s certainly helped build a buzz for some of the most important projects and artists over the last year or so, creating conversation well beyond the vehicle traffic passing by them on a local stretch of highway.

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