Miranda Lambert Named Official “Texas State Musician” for 2025
13 Comments
Lindale, TX native Miranda Lambert is officially the Texas State Musician, Non-Classical” for 2025 according to the The Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA), and the Texas State Legislature.
Josh Brolin to Play George Jones in Biopic – Jessica Chastain Is Tammy Wynette
43 Comments
The cast for an upcoming biopic on the life of George Jones is starting to take shape, and the leading man appears to be Josh Brolin. He will play The Possum according to reports, as well as work in the capacity as producer for the film. Starring beside Brolin will be Jessica Chastain, who will play Tammy Wynette who was famously, and tumultuously married to George during his heyday.
You May Be Cool, But Are You “Have a Tarantula Species Named After You” Cool Like Johnny Cash?
12 Comments
PhD researcher Chris Hamilton working for the Auburn University in Alabama successfully identified a new species of tarantula in California, and decided to name it after his favorite country music star. Aphonopelma johnnycashi is a tarantula strain the had not been properly identified previously by scientists, and was one of thirteen new tarantula species designated by the new study.
Mary Chapin Carpenter Teams Up with Dave Cobb On “Things That We Are Made Of”
14 Comments
“Working with Dave felt great from the first day of our sessions,” says Carpenter. “He is always willing to try something new, believes that ‘yes’ is the only answer, and surrounds himself with wonderfully talented and generous musicians; by the end of the project, I felt as if I was a part of a new family.”
Lew Card’s “Condo Town Rag” Video Brilliantly Encapsulates the Concern
9 Comments
Lew Card then took his song “Condo Town Rag” and teamed up with Seymour.tv to create a brilliant depiction of how when a city’s identity changes, so do our memories and sense of home and place. Using historical photos matched up with modern-day perspectives, it shows the troubling way the Austin skyline has been retooled in recent years…
Album Review – Brothers Osborne’s “Pawn Shop”
50 Comments
It’s more fairly described as roots rock, and don’t worry, there’s still some of those plaintive and even painful moments that remind you that you’re listening to a modern-day Music Row release. But that doesn’t take away from the fact the Pawn Shop should be considered a healthy alternative on the mainstream music menu.
Scotty McCreery Dropped from Label, But Scotty Not To Blame
63 Comments
You could see this all unfolding when Scotty McCreery first released the ridiculous single “Southern Belle.” Even he knew it was well outside of the style he’d been known for previously. “This is probably about as far left as we’ll go,” McCreery said about it at the time. In a last ditch effort to salvage the song, Mercury Nashville released an equally embarrassing video for the song.
UPDATED: Merle Haggard Cancels Show Last Minute Due to Continued Health Concerns
7 Comments
Merle Haggard was forced to cancel his show Tuesday night (2-2) at the Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside, California last minute after he was too sick to take the stage. The show was a makeup date for a performance originally scheduled for December 3rd that Merle was forced to cancel with all of his December shows due to a double pneumonia.
Green River Ordinance Excluded from Billboard Country Charts While Other Acts Go Unquestioned
60 Comments
For the last couple of years country fans have been questioning how chart managers for Billboard and other entities could listen to certain songs or performers and consider them country in the slightest. Yet here is a band making music that’s more country than it is anything else, and more country than most of what you hear on country radio, and Billboard is denying their admittance on the country charts.
Country Music Needs to Let Go of the Radio Crutch
38 Comments
How people listen to music is clearly changing, but much of the country music industry isn’t following suit. In a town that employs scores of people just to push songs to radio, Nashville doesn’t know how to behave any differently than they did 60 years ago. Entire companies are based around trying to sell songs to country radio. The difference now is radio is no longer the only game in town.
When It Comes To Supporting Cool Roots Artists, Colbert Picks Up Where Letterman Left Off
33 Comments
With Letterman’s retirement, the concern was this once important roots music outlet on television would dry up. But since Stephen Colbert has taken the reigns at The Late Show, quite the opposite has happened. Monday night (2-1), critically-acclaimed songwriter John Moreland will be making his network television debut from the Ed Sullivan Theater courtesy of Stephen Colbert.
2016 ACM Awards Nominees, Preview, & Predictions
77 Comments
Monday morning (2-1), the nominees for the 51st Annual Academy of Country Music, or ACM Awards were revealed via CBS The Morning and ETOnline.com. The 2016 ACM awards will occur on April 3rd at the MGM Grand Ballroom in Las Vegas, and will be broadcast on CBS. Dierks Bentley, who will help host the event with Luke Bryan, also helped reveal the nominees Monday morning.
Lorrie Morgan Calls Out Blake Shelton for Not Paying His Grand Ole Opry Dues
136 Comments
“They send out a letter that says you know, ‘We are kind of demanding that you must be here so many times a year to continue your membership.’ Because it’s just not fair,” Lorrie Morgan explains. “People want to say, ‘Hey I’m a member of the Opry,’ and not want to come back. The Opry takes dedication and it takes love. It takes love.”