Hey Screw Blackstone and Their Stupid Country Song
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Blackstone is far and away the largest commercial landlord in history, and now these cretins have decided that the way to entice new investors to their funds is to “go country,” dressing their executive suite robber barons in cowboy duds.
Texas Country’s “Music Fest” Announces 2017 Lineup
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It’s six days and five nights surrounded by mountains and music, including full band performances, and stripped-down guitar pulls and storytelling sessions that are like nothing else in the music festival landscape. Music Fest is also where many songs get written between different artist, and is just as anticipated by the performers as it is the fans.
Predatory Label Imposter Tries to Lure in Young Female Performers
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An especially disturbing account has surfaced out of Nashville involving an individual named Keith Messner, who was posing as a representative for Warner Music Group, including using the company’s logo, and reaching out to young girls via Twitter and email with big promises.
Whitey Morgan & Cody Jinks Embark on Hard-Driving Co-Headline Tour
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If you’re wondering where the hell all the real country music has gone, it has joined forces and is headed towards a venue near you. Texas country singer songwriter Cody Jinks, and throwback honky tonk badass Whitey Morgan have embarked on a co-headlining tour set to roll through Texas, the South, up the eastern seaboard and into the Midwest.
Album Review – Cody Johnson’s “Gotta Be Me”
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If Cowboys Like Me was Cody Johnson selling out in an attempt to garner more national attention with a super-polished and radio-friendly product, the appropriately-titled Gotta Be Me is Johnson reeling it all back in and being truthful about who he is, where his sound lies, and what his prospects are. Gotta Be Me is Cody Johnson being Cody Johnson again.
No I Said, What Kind of Bird, Are YOU?
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If someone is apt to not pay attention to female artists, whether that’s a garden variety country fan or a major label executive, bunching female artists together is probably not going to garner their attention, it’s probably going to turn them off even more, especially if the premise of putting these artists together is an attempt to break through a gender bias.
Townes Van Zandt to Finally Be Inducted Into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
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A long overdue distinction for one of country music’s greatest songwriters will finally come to pass. Announced at a press conference Tuesday morning (8-9) in Nashville, Townes Van Zant will be inducted into the prestigious Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, along with fellow songwriters Aaron Barker, Beth Nielsen Chapman, and Bob Morrison.
The Country Side of Pickathon 2016 In Words & Pictures
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There are bigger festivals. This is for sure. And there are bigger performers and headliners. But few festivals can boast the ability to not just support worthy music from a wide swath of the American audio palette, but truly launch major careers for artists that go on to have an international impact—artists that music needs.
Unreleased Waylon Jennings “The Lost Nashville Sessions” Coming
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For those who can’t get enough Waylon Jennings, or make a habit of buying anything that involves the Outlaw country music legend, there is a new collection of rare, never-released recordings on the way from Country Rewind Records called “The Lost Nashville Sessions.”
Justin Wells Sees “Dawn in the Distance” in New Solo Album
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Dawn in the Distance is Justin Wells getting it just about right. With stunning insight and honesty, Wells speaks upon the disillusion of dreams, the realization of new ones, the reality of the pitfalls of the rock and roll fantasy, and does so with cutting clarity and poetic facility.
The Flaws of Billboard’s New “Greatest All-Time” Country Charts
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To see folks like Florida Georgia Line crest the Top Songs chart is disturbing enough. But to not see any mention of Hank Williams in the Best Artist list has also solicited groans. So let’s run through some observations on these charts to help understand how best to gauge their usefulness (or not), and explain some of the strange wrinkles they evidence.
Is The Band Perry Really Trying to Say They Never Went Pop?
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Now The Band Perry is lying about things that they don’t even need to lie about. And now their using their complicit friends in country music’s fawning media to rewrite history. And for the life of me, I have no idea why. They’re tilting at windmills instead of letting their music speak for itself.
Vintage Album Review – George Strait’s “Strait From The Heart”
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What is so striking about the album listening back to it after nearly 35 years of perspective is not just the big hits, the #1’s, and the now country standards that it contains. It’s the variety in Strait From The Heart that makes it the perfect study of where country music had been, where it was in the present tense, and where it would be going.