Soliciting Western Swing legend Ray Benson of Asleep At The Wheel as producer, Joshua Hedley pens a love letter to Western Swing, and sings its virtues. It might be the 2025 instrumental album to beat.
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.
Mr. Jukebox. The Mayor of Lower Broadway. The Singin’ Professor of Country & Western. Whatever you want to call him, Joshua Hedley has been a radical preservationist of actual country music for years.
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.
Is Zach Top really a traditional country artist? Or is he just reimagining the sounds of ’90s country? And are people forgetting that in the ’90s, traditionalists though the music was terrible?
There’s a few places you can go in this world to remind you that country music is not just “music.” It is a form of artistic expression and a historical continuum so inextricably interwoven with the fabric of rural American life.
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.
It’s not just Zach Top’s music, nor just his history. It’s the cut of his jib. It’s the contours of his character. It’s the full package that assures you that the future of country music is in good hands.
Tyler Lenane started Gimmie Radio with co-founders Jon Maples, Andy Gilliland, and David Rosenberg, who all previously worked for companies like Beats, Apple, and Google. The company was based in San Francisco. The format attracted hundreds of thousands of fans in total.
There is nothing more hip than complaining about what Lower Broadway has turned into over the last half decade or so. But the situation could be so much incredibly worse. It could be 6th Street in Austin, which is supposed to be the entertainment epicenter of the “Live Music Capital of the World.”
The Longhorn Ballroom was one of the most important venues in country music for many years. When it opened in 1950, it was known as Bob Wills’ Ranch House, and was one of the major venues in Western Swing. It was also once operated by Jack Ruby.
2022 is a very unique year when it comes to albums to consider, since there are no clear front runners as we’re used to. No specific album or albums feel like undeniable masterpieces, but the albums at or near the top of the heap are so numerous, it’s painstakingly hard to delineate them from each other.
Perhaps the name is new to you. But to those who’ve been carefully curating their listening catalogs with the most emotionally-cutting and forward-thinking country music for over a decade with be both intimately familiar with the name Caitlin Rose, and extremely excited to hear about a new album.
Songs are the most important unit of measurement in music, and the specific moment a life can change, a perspective can shift, a deep emotion that has gone dormant is re-awakened, and life is enhanced positively henceforth. When we talk about potential “Song of the Year” nominees, were not looking for the toe tappers.
Here at the halfway pole of the musical year, it’s time to run down the best albums that have been released in 2022 so far. There have already been some excellent releases, and the first albums highlighted should be considered early candidates for Saving Country Music’s Album of the Year.
There’s nothing more country than showing love and appreciation for momma. It’s country songs that taught us all so well to respect our matriarchs. So no matter who you are, or where you’re from, make sure you’re a little country today. And after you wish momma…
Deeply studied and truly gifted to express the host of styles that comprise the broad and omnivorous 90s country era, Joshua Hedley has made himself into a modern country marvel, capable of taking up any piece of music from any country music era, and making it sing.
What an amazing time in music we live in where you can compile a playlist of excellent new songs from living legends like Willie Nelson and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and place them right beside new songs from great contemporary artists like Ian Noe and Kaitlin Butts.
Considered by many as the Mayor of Lower Broadway in Nashville, singer and songwriter Joshua Hedley has made a name for himself by keeping the history and sound of true country music alive through his music, both as a performer, and as a recording artist.
With his aching, painful delivery of poetically elegant songs ripped straight out of his own biography and smeared with tears and the residues of addiction, Justin Townes Earle embodied everything you wanted from the tragic troubadour holding on just enough to perform for you.
Robert’s Western World has been home to the Don Kelley Band for a quarter century. Though not as flashy or well-known as some of the other bands that blew up from the Robert’s stage, those who know Robert’s and The Don Kelley band know just how important the band has been to keeping true country alive on Lower Broadway.
Margo Price will release her latest record called That’s How Rumors Get Started on May 8th after moving on from Jack White’s Third Man Records to Loma Vista, an imprint of Concord Records. Margo released her first taste of new music in mid January with the song “Stone Me.” Now we get the first proper single.
“If it ever gets to be too much for you, there are a lot of great songwriters out there who agree with you politically. Oh wait, no there aren’t,” Jason Isbell responded to a Twitter user. But this assessment severely discounts to work of conservative songwriters who’ve contributed to the American songwriting canon.