Attending a festival is not just about the music. It’s about the overall experience. For some, they couldn’t imagine participating in a grassroots event without also participating in the production of it in some capacity. The time they donate to their music community is just as fulfilling as the music itself, if not not more.
A portion of the ticket sales will go to benefit the Music Row Preservation Fund. But most importantly the tours will help educate the public about the historical significance of the area and some of its most important landmarks, instilling visitors with their own passion for preservation of Music Row’s important places.
In the interest of equal time and giving everyone a forum to voice their grievances, Saving Country Music has decided to post the six messages received from angry Kane Brown fans via the site’s Facebook page here. These aren’t fake, and these aren’t a selection of the messages. These are all the messages presented in order.
Netflix has released the 5th Season of their hit original series The Ranch, and as per usual, the episodes are textured with lots of great songs from often overlooked and deserving country music artists, hand selected to help set the mood and theme of each scene.
Sam Hunt just needs to get out of music and start selling a signature line of flat-brimmed baseball caps, bedazzled ironic fanny packs, and fur murses. Even if he did a complete 180 in his career right here, right now, it would be impossible for him to reverse all the irreparable damage he’s done to country over the last few Godforsaken years.
Over the last few years, Lee Ann Womack has been one of the biggest firebrands and proponents for true country music out there, taking any opportunity presented to her to speak out about what’s happening to the genre, and how she feels about the country music of today. The topic came up yet again in a recent discussion.
All you have to do to turn your friends and family into Turnpike Troubadours fans is to play them the music. If there was one artist, one band out there that can bridge all gaps between your pop country friends to your hard rock buddies, it’s Turnpike. Young or old, male or female, city, country, or suburban, the music resonates with all.
Granted, you’re making a perilous decision pinning your hopes on someone like Garth Brooks to help turn the needle to the positive in popular country. But a big honky tonk song from him could give the emerging movement a big boost. We’ll just have to see.
The CMT Awards transpired Wednesday night, June 6th at the Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville. Did you notice? Most likely not. Did you tune in and follow along? Even more unlikely. But this isn’t just about ratings. This is about the overall impact of the awards, or the lack thereof.
For contestant Kyla Jade who was part of Blake Shelton’s team, the original song selected was a tune called “The Last Tear.” The reason “The Last Tear” cannot be passed off as an original song is because it’s actually a song originally recorded by Garth Brooks called “Leave A Light On.”
The punk band NOFX decided that the deadliest massacre in modern U.S. history would make for good joke fodder this weekend, and used country fans and artists as the punch line when they took the stage at the Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. Vegas was also the site of the Route 91 Harvest Festival massacre.
Can you imagine having the #1 song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the last six months—something Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, George Strait, and Kenny Chesney never came close to doing—and not even knowing about the massive present-day pop country band you collaborated with to pull it off?
An inordinate amount of people seem to be angry about Willie Nelson’s cancellation of a show this weekend in North Carolina as part of the the Outlaw Music Fest tour, even more so than normally emerge after a concert cancellation, including people who weren’t even there. But he tried. He gave all his 85-year-old body could give.
Don’t worry, there will be plenty of country artists from the early and late 90’s who we won’t retrospectively be praising as we get older and the music of today gets worse. But you’re short changing yourself as a country fan if you write off many of the big songs and early albums of Brooks & Dunn as forgettable fluff.
A Canadian songwriter named Connor Shaw wants you to consider his case of a stolen song. The Edmonton-based composer penned and recorded a demo-style version of a song called “Easy” that he uploaded on YouTube in November of 2016, and the song happens to sound eerily similar to the massive Jason Aldean single “You Make It Easy.”
I don’t think Hank done it this way. And neither did Waylon. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that this Waylon doesn’t know what he’s doing. I just don’t know what we’re supposed to do. Are we to laugh, cry, get angry, be happy? Here’s “Waylon” ladies and gentlemen.
It comes up so often in the realm of music criticism: “If you don’t like something, just don’t listen.” But they’re missing the point. The point is not just about what music you like or you don’t like. And in some respects, the point is not about music at all.
It’s easy to pawn off the fault for the inappropriate moment on Kane Brown, but Kane is surprisingly saying he wasn’t on board with the moment either, and it was the ACM choreographers and producers who insisted on it. “It was super awkward. Lauren was like, ‘Might as well go ahead and grab his butt too!'”
We’re supposed to be avoiding discussion of Taylor Swift in country music. That wasn’t just the hope of traditional country fans who were glad to see her finally come out a few years ago and say that she wanted to be considered pop and pop only henceforth. That was the wish of Taylor Swift herself and the entire point of her “I’ve gone pop” declaration.
At a show on Friday, May the 4th at Love and War in Lindale, TX, Ray Wylie Hubbard was singing his iconic, signature song “Redneck Mother.” Right as Ray Wylie was spelling out “mother,” and extending the ‘R’ for “Rrrredneck,” a real life redneck decided it was the perfect time to crash the stage.
Kayla Ray has deep Texas roots and comes by her classic country music sensibilities honestly. On Friday (5-4) she releases her sophomore album entitled ‘Yesterday and Me.’ Jason Eady is back as co-producer with Pat Manske. Kayla was kind enough to spare a little time to talk about her new project.
We’ve known for years that per capita, Europe is a better support center for independent country and roots music compared to the United States. But something is brewing in Sweden specifically that is helping to give rise to one of the strongest, most vibrant enclaves for country music outside of North America.
Artists give greatly of their personal lives to entertain us. The least we can do is not use their personal lives as our entertainment. The story of how the Evan Felker and Miranda Lambert relationship became the worst kept secret in Texas music, and how when it broke, the celebrity gossip rags got it all wrong.
“I truly believe ‘Meant To Be’ paved the way for other artists to jump into country. This is the most fulfilling thing to me more then #1,” Bebe Rexha said on Twitter. “I want more pop artists to do country collaborations, and I bet that will happen a lot more in the next five to six months. I want to pave the way.”