Texas country artist Pat Green recently released a new single called “While I Was Away” ahead of the release of his new record Home on August 14th, and when asked what he thought about the new artists and the new style of country music prevailing in the mainstream today, he not only took the high road, he had some high praise for one of country music’s most notorious repeat offenders.
Thoughts and prayers continue to pour in for Randy Rogers, his wife Chelsea Rogers, and the entire Rogers family after the Texas country star revealed that his recently-born daughter Rumer passed away Tuesday night (6-9) after battling a rare brain condition. A memorial for the newborn is being planned. “She died in our arms and in no pain. She was absolutely beautiful in every way,” Randy said in a statement.
Being willing to see where a song takes you is at the heart of every music lover, and in this spirit I present eleven hand selected songs released in the first half of 2015 that will hopefully take you someplace you want to be, or somewhere you’ve never been before. This is the cream of the crop in my opinion; the gut punchers not for the faint of heart.
So we’re close enough to the half way pole in 2015 to start thinking about what the best has been so far, and to get ready for what is sure to be a pretty exciting second half of 2015 for album releases. There’s been some big surprises, a few letdowns, but overall 2015 so far has been a pretty varied season for releases.
A hiatus in The Trishas project presented a window for Jamie to spread her wings, and that’s what she does in Holidays & Wedding Rings. Far from a songwriter who has spent her best material on past projects, or is too burdened with home and family to find time for the guitar and notepad, Wilson taps into the keenest observations and inspirations of her career.
Country music celebrities will be coming out swinging in the coming weeks at a couple of annual charitable golf tournaments who just announced their lineups. Whether you’re a golfer or not, you can participate in the music portion of these events and help out a good cause in the process. The 17th Annual Wade Bowen Classic and the 8th Annual Golf & Guitars have just announced their lineups.
Boy howdy did Wade Bowen and Randy Rogers absolutely clobber the ball out of the park with this one. When I first heard they were making this album, I thought we’d something more for the serious Red Dirt fan. Instead we get a completely fleshed out album full of original songs that rival or potentially surpass the work either of these Texas country stalwarts have done on their primary projects.
Not your run-of-the-mill country protest song, “Standards” makes use of sharp wit and country stylings to land a poignant and cutting point about the plight many musicians face when they interface with the music industry. Though protest songs droning on and on about how Nashville is no longer country are just as cliché as the songs they’re criticizing, “Standards” has an appeal beyond…
It’s the ACL Fest, Lollapalooza Bonnaroo, and Coachella, of Texas music all wrapped into one, but without the complex maze of performance areas and wristband access, legions of hipsters, and hackneyed joining of disparate music acts that scream of the monogenre forming in American music. Instead most, if not all of the performers at Larry Joe Taylor Fest know each other.
What gives Zac Brown Band a lot more creative latitude with their music is the fact that they’re honest about not really being country. We’re all music fans first, and then our loyalties split down the lines of various genres. If only more artists were honest about their intentions, it would give us the opportunity to enjoy the music more. Zac Brown Band is a Southern rock band…
That’s right, the long-running legendary Texas country tour, and the long-anticipated album complimenting the collaboration is finally happening. Hold My Beer, a studio record featuring A-list Texas country talent Randy Rogers of The Randy Rogers Band and Wade Bowen trading licks back and forth will finally be released.
Ahead of this self-titled release, the buzz was immense. There was a sense this wasn’t going to be simply another Wade Bowen album—that his experiences of the last few years helped Wade see himself for who he really is, instead of who everyone else wants him to be. Two songs in, and this album already delivers on any promises and expectations preceding it.
Texas country star Wade Bowen is set to release his 5th studio album on October 28th, and the self-titled affair will see Bowen break away from the bonds of a major label to reclaim his creative freedom. The album is said to be a new beginning for Bowen, and finds the Waco, TX native at “…the turning of the page to a place where the music becomes a little bit freer, a little bit looser…”
“Songs About Trucks” performed by Wade Bowen and written by hot songwriting commodities Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally has become one of 2013’s big anti-hits with its off message take on truck songs and their daisy chains of clichés. It is only appropriate that Bowen’s anti-hit should be accompanied by an anti-video.
The hidden dystopia seething under the smile of sweet suburban life, and the general dysfunction plaguing any and all affairs of the heart is the broken-minded madness that Brandy taps into with this album, following fed up and frustrated fraus who are willing to medicate themselves and match the misdeeds of their men sin for glorious sin.
There’s nothing worse than inadvertently coming within ear shot of one of those songs—the idiotic country music laundry list / checklist ditty, or even worse when the performer is inclined to get all hip-hop on your ass and start rapping the lyrics over a drum machine beat. If you find yourself bent over and fighting back a gag reflex from Class A country checklist exposure, these songs will help cure what ails you.
In Zac Brown’s recent disparaging comments about Luke Bryan’s hit “That’s My Kind Of Night,” Zac went out of his way to lay as little blame as possible on Luke Bryan. Instead it was the song itself, and its songwriters that drew the brunt of Zac Brown’s ire. Though Zac didn’t name any names, the likely target of Zac’s criticism was country songwriter Dallas Davidson.
There’s nothing I value more than a mainstream country music record that bucks all trends and is truly worth your ear. Enter Charlie Worsham and his debut album Rubberband that is being lauded by many critics and fans alike as a breath of fresh air for the mainstream radio dial. Rubberband is a very fun album that sucks you right in, but Charlie Worsham is no Kellie Pickler….
Once again a member of the Texas music scene has delivered a song that gives voice and reason to how the rest of us feel. Wade Bowen’s “Trucks” aims its big, diamond-plated bumper at the incessant references to tailgates and four wheel drives in modern pop country songs and slams on the gas.