Country
Dan + Shay Reemerge on Social Media to Denounce Racism After George Floyd’s Death: ‘Please Use Your Voice’
Country duo Dan + Shay returned to social media after a two-month break to urge others to join them in fighting racism following the death of George Floyd, the unarmed Minneapolis resident killed by a police officer who kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes. On Saturday afternoon (May 30) — after spending the last few months social distancing and quietly working on new music, with their last public update posted on March 13 — Dan + Shay broke their silence with a call to action for their one million followers. “It has been quite difficult to remove ourselves from social media for the last few months, and we intended to stay inactive for a little bit longer, as we put the finishing touches on what we think is our best work yet, but this past week’s events i...
Makin’ Tracks: Parker McCollum Puts ‘Heart’ Out Front in MCA Debut
On the first listen to Parker McCollum’s “Pretty Heart,” it’s easy to get hung up on the hook. Maybe even the first four or five listens. The chorus ends with him stretching the one-syllable word “heart” out across 11 notes, letting it wind and curve until it ends unusually on the hard “rt” sound. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘No way,’ ” says McCollum, remembering the moment he created that line in 2018. “I mean, that’s just goofy.” Songwriter-producer Jon Randall (Dierks Bentley, Jack Ingram) agrees. “It’s the wrong vowel,” he says. But that quirk eventually emerges as one of the characteristics that sets “Pretty Heart” apart, along with its swamp-rock slide guitar and the jumble of torment and bravado embedded in McCollum’s vocal performance. The singer had the same evolving r...
Whitney Team with Waxahatchee to Cover John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”: Stream
Chicago band Whitney has released a new cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” featuring the searing guest vocals of Waxahatchee. As if that weren’t enough, Whitney has also served up a version of the R&B classic “Rain” by SWV. While these two covers come from very different sonic backgrounds, together they help demonstrate the range of Whitney’s rock and country-soul sound. Drummer/vocalist Julien Ehrlich brings “Take Me Home, Country Roads” up an octave, allowing his relaxed tenor to float above those iconic southern riffs. For Waxahatchee, aka Katie Crutchfield, this kind of melody is her bread and butter. Her voice obliterates his when they join together for the chorus. But this happens when one half of the duet has a bigger natural instrument than the other, and the ...
NNPC explains parameters for employment, career progression
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has explained the parametres for employment as well as career progression in the corporation, using the recently concluded Graduate Trainee employment process as well as top Management promotion exercise executed by the corporation as an illustration. The National Oil company says unblemished academic competence, logical thinking, ability to engage meaningfully in problem solving in addition to federal character are key to becoming an employee of the corporation. To progress in the Management cadre, professional competence, accountability and transparency as well as ensuring national spread in top management positions are critical factors that are not negotiable. Explaining the parametres, NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs D...
Sheryl Crow, Florida Georgia Line & More Perform National Anthem During ‘Indy 500 Special’: Watch
Superstar artists from the Big Machine Label Group have joined forces for a powerful rendition of the National Anthem. During the NBC broadcast of Indy 500 Special: Back Home Again on Sunday (May 24), artists like Sheryl Crow, Florida Georgia Line, Lady Antebellum, Thomas Rhett, Brantley Gilbert, Justin Moore and Brett Young joined forces from their respective homes for a moving recorded performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The all-star performance also included appearances by Big Machine artists Carly Pearce, Mike Eli, Danielle Bradbery, Abbey Cone, Heath Sanders, Noah Schnacky, Avenue Beat, Dan Smalley and Payton Smith. The video was co-produced by Grammy-winning producer Julian Raymond and BMLG president and CEO Scott Borchetta. The Indianapolis 500 is typically held o...
Kogi: Coronavirus has further exposed the rot in the health sector
Kogi state government has said that the Coronavirus pandemic has further exposed the rot in the nation’s health sector, but however, noted that the state government would continue to invest in the sector for effective service delivery The Commissioner for Health in the State, Dr Saka Haruna Audu made this known in a press statement issued on Saturday, adding that the state government is steadily improving the health sector in the state. He noted that despite the pandemic and dwindling fortunes of all States in the Country, construction and equipping of Health facilities worth Billions of Naira are ongoing across Kogi state in the three Senatorial Districts, adding that this was a pointer to the fact that they intend to revamp the health sector. He stressed that the state government was com...
NAF deploys special forces, additional platforms to boost ongoing operations in Katsina
Authorities of the Nigerian Airforce on Friday said that following President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive on the launch of a major crackdown against bandits, kidnappers and other criminal elements in Katsina and other States in the North West of the Country, the NAF on 22 May 2020, injected Special Forces (SF) operatives and deployed additional platforms to Kastina State. NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, said, “The arrangement is to consolidate on the already existing security architecture in the State to ensure the success of the ongoing renewed offensive against the armed bandits under the auspices of the Defence Headquarters (DHQ)-led Operation Hadarin Daji. Speaking during the deployment, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sa...
From Webb Pierce to Tupac: Country’s Roots Are Showing
Many artists aren’t just singing in one style and hoping to make a career out it. The fences officially have been moved. When Sam Hunt slid “Hard to Forget” into country radio playlists, he expanded the playing field for the format. On one hand, he introduced modern listeners to Webb Pierce‘s “There Stands the Glass,” a 1953 single that demonstrates the whiny twang that once defined the genre. But he packaged it with start-and-stop, tech-based rhythms that pulled directly from hip-hop. It’s a stunning development: blending musical sounds that are separated by seven decades on the calendar and perhaps an even greater distance on a sonic map. But it’s also indicative of the increasingly elastic nature of the format. Jon Pardi‘s “Ain...
Listen to Steve Earle’s New Album, ‘Ghosts of West Virginia,’ in Its Entirety: Premiere
Coal Country’s run at New York’s Public Theater has been cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. But Steve Earle is still abundantly enthusiastic about Ghosts of West Virginia, the album that came alongside the production and is premiering exclusively below. The songs scored him a Drama Desk Awards nomination for outstanding music in a play. “We had a hit,” Earle, who performed his songs in the play as “a kind of Greek chorus,” tells Billboard. “People were buying tickets. We were only open officially for a week when it closed, so I feel like we were just at the beginning of it.” Coal Country and Ghosts of West Virginia — which features six songs from the play plus an additional four tracks recorded with his band the Dukes and comes out Frid...
Makin’ Tracks: Ryan Hurd Moves Forward by Mining ‘Every Other Memory’
Ever since its inception, when promoters promised to preserve “old-time music,” country has been a genre built upon the past. Whether it’s recounting childhood events in the lyrics or borrowing the phrasing and technique from its predecessors, each generation has managed to bring history into the here and now. With “Every Other Memory,” Ryan Hurd accomplishes that in two ways as the song’s protagonist recalls an old flame through a mental scrapbook of their time together. And one of the specific images is an Eric Church concert, which pays homage to one of Hurd’s real-life icons. “I really love leaning on nostalgia,” says Hurd. “It’s just such a huge part of our genre, and I kind of picked pictures, like emojis sort of, so that every line is a snapshot.” Every lyrical line owes a debt to t...
How Brad Paisley Put on a Full Production Arena Show and Kept Everyone Safe (Including Himself)
Last Friday, Brad Paisley and his band played a full production arena show, sponsored by Bud Light Seltzer. It was one of the first shows since the COVID-19 pandemic started earlier this year to feature all the bells and whistles of a regular concert. Beamed online from the Steel Mill, a production space in Nashville where Paisley rehearses his tours, the only thing missing was a live audience. As Paisley details below, it took tremendous work and extreme attention to every detail to ensure that all safety standards were met, even navigating with precision how he and his guitar tech would switch guitars. He tells Billboard how the show came together and the possibilities for more live entertainment on the horizon. Billboard: How did you feel on that stage with the full production and your ...
God, Family, Country: Vet Craig Morgan’s New Album Tackles All-American Issues
America is headed into the oddest Memorial Day in its history. The National Memorial Day concert will be broadcast from indoors instead of in front of a crowd outside the U.S. Capitol Building. Seats at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will remain empty. And in many states, citizens are being encouraged to avoid barbecues or, at the very least, to exercise social distancing when they attend. Despite the unusual nature of living through a pandemic-challenged era, Craig Morgan is moving forward with the release of a new album, God, Family, Country. Due May 22, the Friday of the holiday weekend, the project is practically made for Memorial Day: It focuses on meaning-of-life and meaning-of-death issues while exploring sometimes uncomfortable topics. Morgan, who served more than two decades in t...
