Country music tends to go through cyclical changes, often swinging between nods to its stripped-down folk origins and polished takes on current popular trends. One of the latest movements, as exemplified by Luke Combs and Gabby Barrett, finds a way to synthesize both of those approaches — plus many others …
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Early in Caylee Hammack‘s career as a staff songwriter with Universal, she was on a writers’ retreat in Florida when she got the news that her house in Nashville had burned down. She lost nearly everything. Fortunately, the 26-year-old Ellaville, Georgia, native had already learned a few things about resilience. …
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Kid Rock‘s Big Ass Honky Tonk and Rock & Roll Steakhouse will have its permit to sell beer suspended for five days after the Nashville venue served patrons at its bar — a violation of the city’s active public-health emergency order in regards to Covid-19. Currently, watering holes in Tennessee’s …
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Ryan Culwell tapped into a sense of national angst on his incisive 2018 album, The Last American, but it was nothing like the fever-pitch emotion he experienced firsthand on Saturday when riots broke out in Nashville following a peaceful protest against police brutality and the killing of George Floyd in …
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Nashville mainstay Chuck Mead has released what he calls “the official song of quarantine,” a remake of Hank Snow‘s 1962 hit “I’ve Been Everywhere” retitled — appropriately — “I Ain’t Been Nowhere.” Widely known today as a Johnny Cash song, “I’ve Been Everywhere” had Cash dropping a rapid-fire list of …
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Old Crow Medicine Show provide a rallying cry for the city of Nashville and a message of positivity for the world at large in the new song “Nashville Rising.” The string band’s Ketch Secor wrote the song in the days following a deadly tornado that touched down in the city, …
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“There’s alternative, Triple-A and pop. So why can’t there be pop-country and country-country?” Nikki Lane once wondered to Rolling Stone Country. “We just need two genres.” With a new playlist, Spotify is hoping to answer that call. Indigo, launching Tuesday, will be the streaming giant’s conduit for “country-country” — where …
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Live From Here host Chris Thile kickstarted a new digital series called “Live From Home,” featuring self-recorded performances of musicians around the globe as they find ways to create and share music in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Like virtually every large-scale performance in the country, Live From Here‘s …
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An under-appreciated period of Johnny Cash’s lengthy recording career will be reexamined with the April 24th release of a seven-disc box set, The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991, and a 24-cut “best of” collection representing highlights from this period. The CD set also includes several rare or previously unreleased tracks and …
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Update (3/23): Willie Nelson has delayed the release of his upcoming album First Rose of Spring until July 3rd. Willie Nelson will turn 87 on April 29th — on April 24th, he’ll release his 70th album. Titled First Rose of Spring, the record features two new songs written by Nelson …
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