Beloved Country Singer John Wesley Ryles Has Died
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John Wesley Ryles passed away on Sunday, November 2nd at the age of 74, leaving behind a huge, if somewhat unheralded legacy from being the other singer on so many timeless country classics.
Keith Urban: “HERE’S SOME BOOBS! GIVE ME ATTENTION!”
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Good gosh, what does Keith Urban have to do to buy a break? So the Keith Urban brain trust gets together, scratches their heads a little bit and says, “Boobs. You know, there’s always boobs.” And so here we see Keith Urban resort to the same female objectification the rest of country music is suffering from in this new semi-NSFW video for his stalled single “Somewhere In My Car.”
Charges Dropped Against Alleged Rapist at Keith Urban Concert
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18-year-old concertgoer Sean Murphy was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl and was arrested on the scene. The incident ended when a woman attending the concert asked the girl if what was happening was consensual, and she said, “No,” according to the Sun Chronicle, and the woman pulled the suspect off the girl who then fled. Now prosecutors have dropped rape charges against the teen.
Kenny Chesney’s “The Big Revival” is a Big Letdown
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All we’ve been hearing from Kenny Chesney in the run up to the release of his new album The Big Revival is how badass it is going to be because he took an entire year off of touring to focus on it, at one point scrapped an entirely completed album awash in beer and tailgate songs to make it, and did some serious soul searching about the direction he wanted to take.
Video Surfaces of Woman Slapped By Tim McGraw Telling Her Side
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On July 13th, Tim McGraw slapped a woman named Jesslyn Taylor in the crowd at the at Aaron’s Ampitheatre in Atlanta while numerous cameras captured the incident on tape. A new report from Radar Online posted Tuesday shows Jesslyn Taylor recorded on camera for the first time speaking out about the incident, and saying that McGraw still owes her an apology.
The Whiskey Shivers Shine in New Self-Titled LP
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Trust me when I say if you go ambling through American college towns, you won’t find anything resembling a dearth of string bands with a bunch of young men and their banjos and fiddles stomping and shouting on stage. What you will find a dearth of are these bands that are actually worth listening to, at least outside of the context of a drunken college town barroom.
Tyler Farr Would Like To Smack Jody Rosen Upside The Head
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Hypothetically he does, or at least metaphorically. But depending on Tyler Farr’s proficiency at internet research (which I’m guessing is pretty sub-par) and his proximity to the Big Apple where New Yorker culture writer Jody Rosen—who coined the term “Bro-Country”—makes his bed, Farr will probably just have to settle for sending verbal daggers out towards Rosen in The Arizona Republic.
Album Review – Lee Ann Womack’s “The Way I’m Livin'”
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This isn’t just your average album release, or even your average album release from Lee Ann Womack. This one has a little more special meaning for Womack since it is her first release without a major label, and a release that helps rate of progress for both women and traditional country artists looking to revitalize their place to a wider audience.
R.I.P. “Bro-Country” (2011-2014)
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On Monday, September 22nd, the subset of American country music known to many by its nickname “Bro-Country,” died at its home in Nashville, TN. Though the specific cause of death has yet to be ruled on by the local medical examiner, preliminary findings appear to show that Bro-Country had been exhaustively over-utilized over the last few months and years until it finally passed away from overexposure.
Strait’s “Cowboy Rides Away” Album Butchered By Auto-Tune
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Nobody could have anticipated that a George Strait album would be the vehicle for the most excessive, and most blatantly obvious use of the pitch correction software known as Auto-Tune that I have ever, ever heard in the history of recorded music, barring projects purposefully using Auto-Tune as a special effect. The use of Auto-Tune on The Cowboy Rides Away is egregious.
Album Review – Tim McGraw’s “Sundown Heaven Town”
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I write these words knowing that many will roll up to this Tim McGraw dissertation looking for a bowl of blood as recompense for the emotional direst recent Tim McGraw singles such as “Truck Yeah” have waged on the mental state of many innocent country music fans. But the simple truth is Tim McGraw’s new album ‘Sundown Heaven Town’ deserves to be spared the most sinister strokes from the poison pen.
“Country Roads” Documentary Features Justin Townes Earle
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Acting as a guide through both the explanation of the roots of country music and the streets of Nashville, Justin Townes Earle and many others try best to define “country” for a foreign audience in the film. The Country Roads DVD also includes an entire Justin Townes Earle concert performed at Pace University on October 26th and 27th of 2012 called “The Spirit of Woody Guthrie.”
Hank3 & The Damn Band LIVE (A Photo Journal)
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On Wednesday September 17th, Hank3 stopped at the Outland Ballroom in Springfield, MO for the start of his current West Coast tour. Hank3 played three separate sets of music for the packed house representing the three facets of the 3rd generation performer: Country, Hellbilly, and Metal. Photo journalist Robert Kipness of Black Bird Creative was there to capture the event.