As Dwight Yoakam’s lead guitar player, bandleader, and producer, Pete was fundamental to forging the revitalized Bakersfield Sound that put a neotraditionalist like Yoakam at the top of country starting in the mid ’80s.
Johnny Cash could have just cast the song off as a dud and moved on. But Cash believed in the single so much, he took out a full page ad in Billboard that was published on August 22nd, 1964.
We all know what the perfect country & western song is, because David Allan Coe told us what it is. He also told us why it was the perfect country & western song, and who wrote it. There’s no reason to debate…
It’s one of the saddest and most compelling stories in rodeo history. And with the way country & Western music is so synonymous with the rodeo, it’s no surprise country music has taken a large share of inspiration from it.
Just a short boat ride from his home, Jackson partnered with Edgar Evins State Park, erected a stage some 12 foot above the water, and invited everyone to come to the free concert. It took place on Saturday, July 23rd, 1994.
It’s often the songwriters and side players who never get their fair share of credit for their contributions to music. But if there was one side player who most every country music knew during his era, it was Don Rich.
It was supposed to have been called “Inside The Walls.” But despite a big budget audio production and camera crew being involved, and plans to make it into a television special as well, it was never officially released.
Whenever you delve deep into the history of many of the greatest artists in music, there is often a person or a moment in time that goes on to define their very being and how their life and career unfolds.
10 years ago today on May 13th, 2014, Sturgill Simpson released what many people consider his magnum opus, and perhaps one of the most important records in the long history of country music.
Though Duane Eddy definitely influenced many country guitar players too, the “twang” we refer to today is somewhat of a different thing, though similar. It’s utilizing the sharp and flat space between notes to enhance the sound.
Conway Twitty was one of the most successful country music artists in history. With forty #1 songs on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, only George Strait secured more #1’s over his career.
One of the most common misunderstandings when it comes to Black performers in country music is the legacy of Ray Charles. Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022, his legacy is regularly diminished.
Over the last 20 years, there are a few specific albums you can select out of the crowd and give credit for critically reshaping country music into what it is today, and specifically for re-instituting the roots of country.
It’s rare that a fake commercial in a cartoon becomes so iconic that it embeds itself into popular culture, but that’s what happened when Hank Williams Jr. teamed up with long-running animated series “The Simpsons.”
Using this current event as a jumping off point, numerous outlets and now viral social media posts have proclaimed that the Black influence and contributions to country music have been stricken from the history of the genre.
It’s in the Grammy Hall of Fame. It’s in The Library of Congress. It sold Gold. It sold Platinum. Chet Flippo once said it was one of the most important albums that ever came out of Nashville. “Will The Circle Be Unbroken…”
“The Grand Tour” was very significant for the career of George Jones, and for country music. Similar to “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “The Grand Tour” put George Jones back at #1 on the country charts.
There are only a few instances in the history of country music when a song and a songwriter came along and released something so revolutionary, it changed the possibilities of what country music could be.
There is perhaps no artist, no performer in the history of country music whose impact, influence, appeal, and footprint so far outpaced the recognition he received in life and death than Gary Stewart.
Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Don Felder, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmit all agreed to show up to a bar in Los Angeles on December 6th, 1993 and appear in the video—shooting pool, hanging out, and cutting up as cameras rolled.
There are concerts. Then there are concerts that go on to be so iconic, they become etched into the consciousness of music indelibly and forevermore. On December 3rd, 1993, Johnny Cash played one such concert.
On this day fifty years ago, November 10th, 1973, Stringbean Akeman frailed his final phrases on a Vega #9 five-string banjo, did his signature hand wave and hat flip one last time, and stepped off the Opry stage.
It’s a bit ironic that it’s a band from Alabama that most famously explained the importance of the fiddle to music from Texas, but few if anyone will complain how they did it, and 40 years ago today.
Jimmy Buffett may have died one of music’s few billionaires from the empire he built off the success of his song “Margaritaville.” But it was another song where it all began for Buffett as a songwriter and performer.