The 2025 Independent Country Festival Guide (Updating)
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Welcome everyone to the inaugural Saving Country Music independent country festival guide. This will be the aggregation point throughout 2025 for information on festivals that include a majority of independent country.
Acclaimed Songwriter and Performer Bap Kennedy Has Passed Away
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Not known by every country, blues, and Americana fan, but cherished deeply by the ones who did, songwriter and performer Bap Kennedy took his cross-Atlantic enthusiasm for roots music and became one of the most well-respected musicians and songwriters by his peers ranging from Nashville to Belfast during his nearly 40-year career.
Miranda Lambert & Her Fans Should Be Fine Not Winning 2016’s CMA for Female Vocalist
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Miranda Lambert has won a record-setting six straight CMA Female Vocalist of the Year awards. But there may not be a seventh. When it comes to awards and recognition, nobody has been as heavily decorated as Miranda Lambert in recent memory, male or female. But it has been time for a breather, and Miranda Lambert’s last year has been a pretty quiet one, at least from a musical standpoint.
Travis Tritt to Release Live Acoustic Album “A Man and His Guitar”
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For years Travis Tritt has been touring the country playing acoustic shows, and the naked context of his music has done nothing but elevate his legacy in the minds of those who’ve attended. Nothing against seeing Tritt with his band, but it takes something special in an artist to take the stage with nothing more than a stool, a guitar, and a water bottle, and entertain a large crowd.
Meghan Linsey Needs To Name Names in Her Groping Accusations
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Meghan claims that in 2010 at the beginning of Steel Magnolia, a “very powerful man in the music business” reached under her skirt and groped her, and then tried to pick her up by her butt while numerous other important people in the music industry watched. The context of the revelation from Meghan Linsey was the release of Donald Trump’s off-camera comments.
“He Stopped Loving Her Today” Songwriter Curly Putman Has Passed Away
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Putman had a prolific songwriting career, including writing such songs as “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “My Elusive Dreams” by Tammy Wynette, “Dumb Blonde” by Dolly Parton, T.G. Sheppard’s “Do You Want To Go To Heaven,” and a dozen other successful charting singles. But two songs would go on to define Curly Putman’s contributions.
Song Review – Yelawolf’s “Shadows” feat. Joshua Hedley
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Memory is the human mechanism that helps us learn and grow, while also being a rich place of positive emotions through recollection. But for many, the mental scars they hold are their greatest burdens, and only through sheer willpower can they hope to break the cycle of bad choices that many times span generations.
Album Review – Wayne “The Train” Hancock’s “Slingin’ Rhythm”
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Neotraditionalism has given way to plain old traditionalism as a trend in country music, Hank Williams III is nowhere to be found, and many of those fans from the 90’s and early 00’s now have kids and mortgages and can’t make it out to every show. But “The Train” rolls on just like he has for over 20 years now.
Saving Country Music’s 2016 Halloween Playlist
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From the beginning, there has always been a dark, Gothic side to American country and roots music. From murder ballads to ghost stories, to tales of struggle and lunacy, Gothic country never gets its due credit, nor do the dozens of artists and bands who keep these traditions alive with new music bathed in the darkness and depression…
Sturgill Simpson’s Out to Prove He Can Be The Biggest Artist In Country Without the Industry
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We’re living in historic times in country music, when the resurgence of more traditional, and more substantive music is taking hold like never before, and receiving more recognition for the industry than any period in recent memory. And it’s hard to not look at Sturgill Simpson and give him at least part of the blame.
The Writer of the “Perfect Country & Western Song” Was Also the World’s Biggest Cubs Fan
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Steve Goodman. Even if you haven’t heard the name, you’ve most certainly heard the music. And if you’ve ever heard David Allan Coe’s country music classic “You Never Even Called Me By My Name,” you know that Steve Goodman (with an assist from John Prine) is the writer of this “perfect country and Western song.”
More Traditional Country Star Power Added to 50th Annual CMA Awards
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The amount of older talent announced on the presentation so far is quite unprecedented. According to Saving Country Music’s calculations, of the announced performers so far, 16 performers who could be considered either country legends or artists whose careers started before or during the “Class of ’89.”
If You Can’t Be Happy as a Country Fan Now, You Never Will Be
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When Saving Country Music started in 2009, the biggest artist in country music was Taylor Swift. Now, it’s arguably Chris Stapleton. Independent artists are finding support like never before, allowing them to be able to completely sidestep the pitfalls of the mainstream industry and still have sustainable, and in many cases, very successful careers.