You would think that if you had more cooks in the kitchen, they would come up with something more creative. But that’s not the case when it comes to country music songwriting, and a new study corroborates what our ears have been telling us for years. As the amount of songwriters per track has increased…
For the last dozen years or so, one of the most contentious battles within the realm of commercial country music has centered around the incursion of hip-hop influences into the genre, and specifically the use of verses that are rapped as opposed to sung, and electronic beats replacing organic drums.
While on the Red Carper at the 2023 Grammy Awards if February, someone from CBS shoved a microphone into the face of Luke Combs, and asked him “What song can you not stop listening to?” Luke’s answer? “John Prine’s son, Tommy Prine, wrote a song when his dad passed called ‘Ships in the Harbor.'”
For every pleasure, there is a cost, or a consequence. Relaxation comes at the loss of productivity. A luxury comes at the expenditure of wealth. The one exception to the entanglement of weighted outcomes when it comes to the partaking in the pleasures of life is the illustrious gift of music.
Eddie Rabbitt’s career wasn’t just accomplished, it was downright Hall of Fame worthy. But you almost never hear Eddie Rabbitt’s name brought up in the context of the Hall of Fame. In fact, you barely ever hear the name of Eddie Rabbitt in country music at all these days.
Make no mistake about it. Whether you’re a happy camper with a pair of tickets to an upcoming Zach Bryan concert securely in hand or not, his effort to completely eliminate scalpers and bots from the ticket buying process was a success, … unless you didn’t get tickets/
If there were any specific spot on this Earth that you could cite as a place to go and experience the magic and majesty of country music in its most potent and shiver-inducing forms, without hesitation, the final resting place of Hank Williams in Montgomery, Alabama.
Lo and behold, when in London, England recently, Tyler Childers stopped by a local record store and was digging on the debut Jesse Daniel record while someone snapped a photo. The photo started making the rounds thanks to Vinyl Cup Records in Des Moines, Iowa.
Chris Stapleton needs no stepping stone or discovery at this moment in his career, but we all know he will slay the National Anthem on Sunday, because this is what Chris Stapleton does. He’s such a good singer, it’s one of the reasons purists love to claim he isn’t country.
For years now this organization has fleeced aspiring and up-and-coming musicians with the promise of big exposure to important people in the music industry while charging musicians an application fee simply to be considered to play, and often not even allowing them admittance.
The only thing more cool than your favorite country music performers is when your favorite country music performers come together to collaborate in a supergroup. Some of these collaborations have gone on to become just as legendary as the individual performers themselves.
Well here we are again talking about a major country music artist being nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and just like Dolly Parton in 2022, Willie Nelson will be one of the next Rock Hall members. His nomination ordains that. Voters won’t not drop a vote on Willie.
In a recent behind-the-scenes clip as part of this season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Maren Morris felt then needed to apologize to the drag queens competing on this season’s show on behalf of country music. But Maren Morris has some specific things she should apologize for personally.
This study sent to Saving Country Music is not only is it plausible and the methodology solid, it’s super interesting and in-depth with its findings, and they line up with anecdotal notions we’ve heard about these country tastes different geographic regions for years.
It’s that time of year again to consider who might be in the running for the precious few spots as the newest inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame. A secret committee commissioned by the CMA is going over their final ballots and whittling down the names.
An ominous new suite of AI options such as ChatGPT have some experts especially troubled. The tool is capable of auto generating song lyrics with extreme precision, and can even specifically tailor them to a style or a specific artist. But I’m not worried for country.
The Turnpike Troubadours partnering with a coffee company actually seems quietly awesome, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even drink coffee, and doesn’t get excited about these kinds of things ever. It’s an interesting twist on the country music brew partnership.
American folk and rock music legend David Crosby has died at the age of 81. Most famous for his roles in The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, and Nash (later ‘& Young’), he was right there in the middle of the counterculture revolution of America that very much became the mainstream culture in the mid and late 60s.
Johnny Rodriguez. Any serious fan of 1970’s country music worth their salt will know the name, the hits, and doesn’t need to be sold on the importance of this man. Six #1 songs, fourteen Top 5’s, twenty Top 10’s, including a run of fifteen Top 10 songs to start his career between 1973 and 1978…
Eric Church is a fan of country music’s “Outsiders” if you will. That is why for his “Outsiders Revival” tour, Church will be reviving the practice of featuring some of the cooler folks in country music as opposed to whatever boilerplate star the industry is trying to shove down the public’s throats at the moment.
With so many news stories coming and going each day even within the country music realm, it can be easy to forget or move on from the story of a music engineer you probably never heard of getting gunned down by the police. Let’s face it, Mark Capps was not a household name, even among country fans.
Vince Gill really is the closest thing that country music has to the five-tool baseball player. He can do it all. As a solo artist, he’s a Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry stalwart. He can throw a high harmony on any song and make it shine, or turn in a guitar solo that is good or better than any session player.
In 2022, something happened at the Grand Ole Opry that is only fair to label as historic. More so than any other year in its nearly 100-year existence, the coveted Grand Ole Opry debut was doled out to deserving artists from across the panorama, checking off bucket list items, populating glowing resume points…
For years I’ve been thinking that a cool way to present the legends of country music would be to illustrate the genre’s top artists through a deck of cards. Where to place what artist, what suit would be suited best for certain performers all seems like it would create great discussion points.