Cindy Walker was one of the most important and prolific songwriters in country music history, penning some 500 recorded songs, and some 400 of them charting in the Top 40.
If you only ever interact with one thing Saving Country Music does, it should be this playlist. The articles are too long and too opinionated? Don’t have the time? This playlist boils everything down to direct suggestions.
As fall breaks and the end of the year fast approaches, it’s time to look at what’s on tap for the rest of 2025 in country before Christmas music ushers the music industry into the Holidays.
Don’t ever find yourself taking for granted that we live in such a fruitful, resurgent time for true country music. It’s a bumper crop of incredible songs coming out each week. This is where you can find the cream of the crop.
Brennen Leigh is one of the most preeminent country and Western singers of our era. This is the reason some have been sent downright giddy by the recent revelation that Brennen Leigh will be releasing a new album.
Listening through Rhinestone Requiem, the boldness of its audio flavors, and the passion brought to the songwriting, it gives you a sense that Sunny Sweeney is just now hitting her peak.
Anyone who knows anything about country music knows that Robert’s Western World is the last real deal honky tonk in Nashville’s Lower Broadway entertainment district.
Taking time from touring and recording her shows for SiriusXM’s Outlaw channel and Willie’s Roadhouse, Sunny Sweeney is readying the release of her latest album “Rhinestone Requiem.”
When you think of Luckenbach, TX, you think of Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Terlingua! You think of Willie and Waylon and the boys. Bluegrass isn’t what immediately comes to mind. But for the fourth year.
If you want a perfect example of why some of these gross inequities pervade the music industry, one great example is the way the return of Jessica Simpson to music has been so slavishly lauded by the press.
You don’t enjoy SXSW—the annual musical gathering in Austin, Texas every mid March. You endure it. You survive it. Here are Saving Country Music’s biggest takeaways from SXSW 2025.
It’s about food. It’s about land stewardship. It’s about sustainable ranching practices. And it’s also about music. It’s the Old Salt Music Festival. It’s a small festival, but one with a very big music lineup.
Whether you’re intimate with the James Hands catalog or not, you’re happy to see an album like this being made, especially knowing Ags Connolly’s story. Ags went from a starry-eyed fan of James Hand to a friend.
To make sure important names don’t go overlooked, here’s a sample of some of the other independent country performers who are guaranteed to deliver top-caliber performances patrons will remember.
Since the Grammy Awards are one of the few awards that weigh artistic merit over commercial success, it makes it a bit more important to pay attention to for fans and advocates of independent artists.
Sagebrush has been a music venue, bar, and business for over 70 years. The building was first built in the 1940s as an army barracks. It later became “Gil’s Club” in 1955.
It was one of the ages at Austin, TX’s Moody Theater on February 18, 2024 for the 10th Annual gathering of the Ameripolitan Awards founded by Dale Watson along with his wife Celine Lee.
It was 25 years ago on August 5th 1999 when young Nashville Lower Broadway performer, Jesse Lee Jones, finalized one of his most important decisions, to buy Roberts Western World from its founder, Robert Moore.
For nine years, “Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights” organized by Nashville musicians Brendan Malone and Kevin Martin of The Cowpokes has been the small local gathering with massive international impact on country music.
On “Borned In Ya,” Melissa Carper leans into her strengths even more by worrying less about genre, and more about era, while emphasizing what is quietly brilliant about her approach to songwriting.
“People call me retro or throwback, and I’ve been OK with that,” Carper says. “But, I feel like I’m still creating something new. I’m taking styles and blending things in a way that maybe hasn’t been done before.”
Texas music songwriter and performer Kelly Willis, bass player and throwback marvel Melissa Carper, and country traditionalists/killer guitar player Brennen Leigh have been an occasional tour bill over the last couple of years.
It’s an embarrassment of riches on the latest playlist update, with the list once again bursting at the seams and being extended from 25 to 28 just to make room for all the great songs being released at the moment.
In 2024, everything that Dale Watson must have dreamed up as his ideal fantasy of what the Ameripolitan Awards could become was finally realized when it returned to Austin where it was originally held.