Mile 0 Fest 2025: Ground Zero for Big Moments

What happens at Mile 0 Fest in Key West doesn’t stay in Key West. It resonates throughout the Texas/ Red Dirt world, into Americana, and throughout independent country for the rest of the year.
What happens at Mile 0 Fest in Key West doesn’t stay in Key West. It resonates throughout the Texas/ Red Dirt world, into Americana, and throughout independent country for the rest of the year.
This Rolling Stone list of the 25 Best Country Soul Albums has so many holes you could strain your spaghetti with it, while simultaneously including some titles that have no business being there.
Along with being a founding member of the band since its inception in 2000, Brit Turner was the actual brother of Blackberry Smoke bass player Richard Turner, and was also considered the big brother to everyone in the band.
What happens in Key West doesn’t stay in Key West during the annual five-day Mile 0 Fest. As one of the first country music events on the calendar each year, it helps set the table for everything else that will transpire.
There have been busier release days in the past year or so with 20+ albums on the Saving Country Music radar hitting the shelves all at once. But it’s who is releasing albums, and what those albums are that makes Friday, February 24th feel like an especially important release day that is worth highlighting.
Mile 0 Fest has established itself as one of the premier destination events in all of country and roots music, especially if you’re into the Texas/Red Dirt side of things. Now after six years, Mile 0 Fest has its own traditions, it’s own nucleus of loyal patrons and regular performers, and a heap of fond memories.
In 2022, something happened at the Grand Ole Opry that is only fair to label as historic. More so than any other year in its nearly 100-year existence, the coveted Grand Ole Opry debut was doled out to deserving artists from across the panorama, checking off bucket list items, populating glowing resume points…
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…
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.
Adam Hood is a songwriter’s songwriter, doing it for the love of the craft as opposed to the commercial application of whatever he comes up with. Similar accusations can be made of his buddy Brent Cobb who came on as a producer. Add Blackberry Smoke to the cast as the album’s backing band.
Things in country music are changing, and across the board, even at an old relic like the Grand Ole Opry. Of course, it’s days of launching stars overnight are long gone. But you ask any artist in country music, and they’ll tell you that making their Grand Ole Opry debut is a lifetime bucket list achievement.
The final months of 2022 are here, and just like the first portion of the year, it is jam packed in an increasingly cluttered environment for new releases. Instead of being overwhelmed, use this guide to help you navigate through the crush of titles, with the first 20 albums listed considered some of the top releases.
this is like getting a new Adam Hood album, and Adam Hood/Brent Cobb collaborative album, and a Blackberry Smoke side project all rolled up into one. Many people in the Adam Hood orbit who respect the songwriting of the Opelika, Alabama native answered the call to make ‘Bad Better Days’ a career effort.
There are now two consecutive country music festivals planned for Key West, Florida for the Winter of 2023: The 6th Annual Mile 0 Fest featuring Red Dirt, Texas, and Americana, and the 90s-centric Key Western Festival, happening the very next week.
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. New songs just added.
Instead of weighing down good songs with excessive production and stylistic shifts in attempts to appeal to disparate constituencies, Dispatch to 16th Ave. strips it back, slows it down, and lets the weight of the moments, and the strength of the writing get exposed.
Rep. Matt Gaetz has sent an open letter to Ron DeSantis claiming that the festival is requiring “vaccine passports” from attendees, which would be against Florida law that forbids such requirements. But no such requirement is being made by the festival.
Certainly, when you first dive into ‘Mercy,’ there is sort of a Groundhog Day feel to it all. But the deeper you listen, and the more times you cycle through, the songwriting and the passion behind Mercy begin to reveal themselves more definitively, as does the album’s appeal.
It’s not that Luke Combs is ideal, because he isn’t. Hell, who is? And for many independent fans, he will never compete with the likes of Cody Jinks or Tyler Childers in their hearts. But who would you rather have being the face of mainstream country at the moment?
“Set In Stone” feels like a really solid and inspired mid career selection from Tritt, well-produced by Cobb, with some great instrumental performances, and no signs of rust or heavy wear from the time away. Undoubtedly though, this is a Boomer record, and in more ways than one.
Along with picking one of the hottest and most well-respected producers from the independent side of country for his comeback record, Tritt has also called on some of the best songwriters and performers at the moment. Don’t expect a dated retrospective from Tritt.
Ha! This is great. So at some point during the last installment of Mile 0 Fest in Key West, FL in early 2020, a bunch of independent country artists primarily from the Texas scene took the time to read bad reviews of their music. It’s like a mean Tweets segment featuring some of your favorite artists.
Well well well. Get ready to grow your mullet out, bust out your old pair of Levi’s nut huggers from high school, and be ready to party like it’s 1989, because after a pretty astounding 13-year hiatus of no proper single, one is headed our way.
“Battle” is about the perfect last name for Wayd. Eternally situated between sin and redemption, rich and poor, sauced and sober, successful and forgotten, this is where you’ll find Wayd’s soul and songs, with these weighty forces constantly fighting for supremacy, and Wayd stuck right in the middle narrating it all.