Recently signed to Concord Music’s Fantasy Records, Tanya Tucker is readying the release of her first record in 17 years called ‘While I’m Livin.’ Rumored and talked about in bits and pieces over the last few months, we now have all the details for the record co-produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings.
Country fans from Texas, Nashville, and beyond are sending prayers and thoughts to the family of country artist Granger Smith after he revealed on Thursday (6-6) that his 3-year-old son River Kelly Smith had died in an accident. Saving Country Music has been able to confirm that River Kelly Smith died in a drowning accident.
So if anyone was wondering if Billy Ray Cyrus was the secret ingredient to Lil Nas X’s success, or if signing up with the young man would result in a resurgence in Billy Ray’s career, you have your answer. And the sad part is that ‘The Snakedoctor Circus’ is not a particularly bad album at all.
Zac Brown brought the class of country music’s “also ran” awards show down yet another notch when he decided to drop an F-bomb on live television, and in a prepared statement, and on a show that was rated by the cable network as family friendly.
The positive news for the Texas-based Southern Rock band Whiskey Myers just keeps coming. Announced Wednesday (6-5), Whiskey Myers has been bestowed the opportunity to open for The Rolling Stones on their massive and recently-rescheduled “No Filter” North American tour. Their music will also appear again in “Yellowstone.”
The Texas Panhandle-based duo Shotgun Rider consisting primarily of singer Logan Samford and guitarist Anthony Enriquez have announced they have decided to go their separate ways. The were one of the most promising up-and-coming acts in Texas music.
Kenny Rogers is not on death’s door, despite misleading reports to the contrary, and some continuing health problems. The 80-year-old Country Music Hall of Famer has been hospitalized for dehydration in Georgia, and continues to remain in medical care to undergo physical therapy.
It’s been some 12 years since Travis Tritt released a proper studio album, but he’s been tiding fans over in the interim with releases from his dynamic live performances that have been keeping fans quite satiated. The latest is a new live video performance with his full band called ‘Travis Tritt: Homegrown.’
Texas singer and songwriter Dalton Domino has emerged from a tumultuous time with a new set of tunes under the title Songs From The Exile set to hit the streets on August 23rd. Where some performers leave their personal issues to public speculation, Domino has always been up front about his struggles with addiction.
The breakup rumors are untrue, but the upcoming touring commitments by the Turnpike Troubadours will not be met, and the band has announced they are going on an indefinite hiatus as frontman Evan Felker continues to battle through personal issues that have resulted in numerous cancelled performances.
Artists, fans, and independent music industry will come together once again in Nashville this September for AmericanaFest. Part music conference, part fan festival, it combines scores of venues across Nashville for hundreds of performances and showcases. The 20th Annual festival will include some 300 total performers.
If you’re a fan of old time music, then you’re a fan of Leon Redbone. The last of the pure Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley performers who mixed together blues, ragtime, jazz, and other roots styles that would have fit perfectly on the early vestiges of the Grand Ole Opry stage, he was a living, breathing, musical preservationist.
You’ll have to wait all the way until September 27th to hear Jon Pardi’s new record “Heartache Medication” in its entirety. But we now have the track list, cover art, and songwriting contributors for the new record, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff to unpack.
It wasn’t just your average Grand Ole Opry presentation Tuesday night (5-28). When you saw country traditionalist Kelsey Waldon was scheduled to perform in the same segment as John Prine, and that Sturgill Simpson was given his own extended set to close out the show, you had a sense something special was in the air.
“I don’t want to put out an album. I really don’t,” Blake Shelton says. “I’m sure that at some point my record company people are going to pressure me into it, but as of now, I’m not putting out an album this year. I know that.” According to Shelton, he didn’t even want to record “God’s Country,” or go into the studio at all.
It’s honky tonk and heartbreakers coming at you hard and heavy in the latest additions to the Saving Country Music Top 25 Playlist. Charlie Marie and “Rodeo” don’t relinquish the top spot, but nipping at her heels is Tyler Childers with his much-anticipated lead single off his upcoming new album.
Shane Morris—the former Sony music employee who became a national media celebrity and Twitter star after supposedly exposing the systemic racism in country music—has just exposed himself as a serial liar. Subsequently, his Twitter account has been either been deleted or shut down by the the social network.
Mere hours ahead of a scheduled appearance at the White Oak Music Hall in Houston, Texas Friday night (5-24), the Turnpike Troubadours have canceled the performance, their other performances this weekend, and perhaps all future performances, as the future of the band is left uncertain in a troubling statement by the band.
Information is still scant to come by, and it is still very early in the process, but the word has come down to Saving Country Music headquarters for fans of surging independent country star Cody Jinks to “expect the unexpected” when it comes to how Texas native’s new album will be released.
Ever since the tragic health issues of Randy Travis took his Hall of Fame voice from us prematurely in 2013, it’s been a struggle to get by without any new music from the country legend. But unexpectedly and with no fanfare, a brand new song from Randy has surfaced. Called “One In a Row,” it comes from the archives of Warner Music.
Hank Williams Jr. is on the search for a missing family heirloom in the form of a Remington Model 11/48 16-gauge shotgun. “Growing up, I spent a lot of time in South Alabama with my Granddad Sheppard. Now I’m looking for his shotgun,” Hank Jr. says. “I want to pass that old Remington down to my children and grandchildren.”
If you want to voluntarily succumb to some culture shock and the strange clashing of two worlds, then try on for size pop star Selena Gomez buying a Sturgill Simpson CD from a local store amid an impending zombie invasion. What’s this all about? The scenario comes from the twisted mind of director Jim Jarmusch.
Featuring three days of live performances, local organizers didn’t take their chances booking expensive mainstream names with dodgy talent and tired acts. Instead the festival is doing what many regional festivals all around the country are doing, which is drawing their entertainment from the riches of the Texas and Red Dirt.
New music is coming from traditional-leaning mainstream country artist Jon Pardi, and he promises it will be loaded with fiddles and steel guitar, and exactly what country music’s twang lovers crave. “When I wrote that song, I knew the fiddle was going to count it off and we’re going to have a fiddle intro…”