On The Split of Country Duo Maddie & Tae
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You can’t say you didn’t see it coming, and you can’t really say you blame them. It’s hard in country music for women, for duos, for mothers, for performers who want to keep their integrity in tact.
Saving Country Music’s 2022 Essential Albums List
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Welcome ladies and gentlemen to Saving Country Music’s most comprehensive guide to music in a given year, known as the Essential Albums List. Starting with the first 20 albums that are deemed the “Most Essential”—meaning they were right on the bubble of being Album of the Year nominees…
Canadian Country & Folk Pioneer Ian Tyson Has Died
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When your music has been covered by the likes of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Judy Collins—and when your legacy is so vast that the folk, country, and Western worlds all vociferously claim you for their own—you know you have forged a legacy that will withstand the rigors of time.
Newest Adds to Saving Country Music’s Top 25 Current Playlist (#112)
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The Saving Country Music Top 25 Playlist is built to keep you informed on all the best songs and albums coming out right here, right now in country and roots music. It’s available on most all streaming formats, or you can just use the song, artist, and album recommendations.
The Saving Country Music 2022 Song of the Year
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Picking the Saving Country Music Song of the Year winner has been especially excruciating here in 2022. Not only was there a strong field of initial nominees, no less than four songs emerged as front runners in the voting and discussion, with all of them basically receiving similar counts in the comments.
Taylor Swift Can’t Save Us From Ticketmaster. Zach Bryan Can.
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It is a new day in country music, and in live music in general. Tired of the Ticketmaster monopoly? You can continue to shake your little balled up fist in their general direction, or you can get busy building your own networks and infrastructure to circumvent them, and eventually (and hopefully), undermine them.
Album Review – Wylie & The Wild West’s “Bunchgrass”
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Sometimes you stumble upon a great song, album, or artist, and boom, you have some tasty musical morsel to enjoy henceforth. Or sometimes you fall so far down a musical rabbit hole, an entire new world of music unfolds right there in front of you, with decades of material to go back and listen through.
The Saving Country Music 2022 Artist of the Year
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The Saving Country Music Artist of the Year is not about who sold the most tickets or left the biggest footprint, or who shattered the expectations and possibilities of independent artists that are not played on mainstream country radio. It’s about the artist who most embodied the spirit of of the idea…
George Strait Is Prepping for a New Album
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‘Tis the season to get titillated about all the potential new albums we may receive in 2023. Strait’s last installment Honky Tonk Time Machine came out in March of 2019, so he’s about due for a new one. Of course radio and awards mostly ignore Strait these days, but the last album still debuted at #1.
Cody Jinks Signs Erin Viancourt to Late August Records
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Cody Jinks has some big things cooking for 2023, and not all of them will have his name on the front. Jinks formed his own record label called Late August Records back in 2021. Now it’s been announced that Cody Jinks has partnered with distribution company The Orchard, and signed Erin Viancourt.
Album Review – Memphis Kee’s “Wimberley”
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Memphis Kee out of Austin is looking to revitalize that approach of taking the robust songwriting of guys like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, and applying it to music that’s just as much akin to grunge as country. Memphis Kee calls it “Shred Dirt” in tribute to the Red Dirt sound of the Texoma region.
Saving Country Music’s 2022 Single of the Year
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It was in the hills and hollers of Appalachia where country music originally came into being, and it’s those same hills and hollers of Appalachia that are birthing old souls with young bodies that are rising up to save country music. They’re fulfilling the hunger for honesty and authenticity that is lacking.
This Zach Bryan vs. Rich O’Toole Thing
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On December 18th after Zach Bryan had three of his songs featured on Season 5, Episode 7 of the Paramount series Yellowstone, singer and songwriter Rich O’Toole took to social media to say that Zach’s song “Motorcycle Drive By” had borrowed/stolen the guitar/melody part from his song “Take My Heart” released in 2014.