Country
Nashville Labels Turn to Pop Partners as Streaming Changes the Game
This kind of arrangement is growing more common to the point that every big Nashville label now works with a pop counterpart. Sony Music Nashville has teamed with RCA Records to promote several acts including Tenille Townes and Kane Brown, who has released songs with several acts on RCA’s pop roster, including Khalid and H.E.R. At first, Brown’s deals were renegotiated per song, but as it became clearer that the country star would continue to delve into pop, SMN and RCA now have a “broader partnership” for the “Be Like That” singer, says SMN executive vp/COO Ken Robold. “Basically it was [RCA Records COO John] Fleckenstein and I coming up with what we thought was a fair deal.” While he wouldn’t give specific percentages, Robold says RCA is “incenti...
Reba McEntire Rescued After Staircase Collapse
Firefighters helped country legend Reba McEntire out of the window of a historical Oklahoma building after a staircase collapsed between the second and third floors, sending one person to the hospital with minor injuries. On Wednesday, the 66-year-old tweeted that, “While my team and I were in Atoka, OK yesterday checking out an old historical building, a staircase collapsed. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured. We were safely evacuated from the building thanks to the quick response from the Atoka fire and police departments.” A total of seven people were rescued out of the over 100-year-old building. Coby Scherrill, who alongside McEntire was scoping out the structure for a future project, told local Fox News affiliate KXII that, “We were just touring the building and ...
Miranda Lambert, Luke Combs & Ethan Hulse Among 2021 Nashville Songwriter Awards Winners
Numerous songwriters also shared the stories behind the compositions that were honored as part of the “10 Songs I Wish I Had Written” awards, which are voted on by NSAI’s professional songwriter members to honor the work of their peers. Songs eligible for the honor must have at least one Nashville-based writer and had to have charted within the top 20 of a Billboard airplay chart within the Christian, country, mainstream top 40 and/or rock genres within the eligibility period. The highest-voted song is honored as NSAI song of the year. See below for a list of songs honored as the “10 Songs I Wish I Had Written”: “7 Summers” – Written by: Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne, Morgan Wallen“Ain’t Always The Cowboy” – Written by: Brandon Kinney, Josh Thompson“Chasin...
Carly Pearce, Ashley McBryde Team Up for New Song ‘Never Wanted to Be That Girl’
“Nobody ever thinks it will happen to them,” Pearce said in a statement. “You never see it coming, but there’s always an explanation. You know, who’d ever want to think that way about someone they love? Why would you? And so, that’s where this song started: the things you don’t see, because you’d never look. “Ashley is such a great drop-into-the-moment writer, she was able to bring that reality bomb truth to what we were doing,” continued Pearce. “She’s fearless, and she understands human nature in a way that let us both really write to the hurt of realizing we’ve been lied to by someone we’re intimate with.” “Carly isn’t afraid to face the less potable subjects,” McBryde added. “As a writer she’s willing to get in there and get very honest. Writing this song together with Shane strengthen...
Kacey Musgraves Debuts “star-crossed” Live at the 2021 MTV VMAs: Watch
Fresh off the release of her fifth studio album, star-crossed, Kacey Musgraves made her long-awaited debut at the 2021 MTV VMAs and brought plenty of her country-pop charm with her. The singer gave the world-premiere performance of the album’s title track. Considering the song’s obvious reference to Romeo and Juliet — as well as Musgraves’ recent divorce, which inspired her new album — the live rendition of “star-crossed” was destined to conjure tears. Musgraves turned the Barclays Center stage into her own witchy boudoir, evoking the campy, fiery aesthetic of Baz Luhrman’s 1996 adaptation of the classic fateful love tale. That is literally fiery, as a heart behind her ignited during the closing refrain. Replay the full performance below, and see all of tonight’s VMAs performances here. Ad...
Miranda Lambert Jumps to No. 3 on List of All-Time CMA Awards Nominees: Who Else Is in the Top 10?
First nod: 1983 Most recent nod: 2014 Number of awards: 17 Did you know?: Hard to imagine, but Strait didn’t win the horizon award, the former name for new artist of the year. He was nominated in 1983, but lost to John Anderson. In addition to being the overall nominations leader, Strait is also the leader in several individual categories, including male vocalist of the year (25 nods), entertainer of the year (19), album of the year (19) and single of the year (nine). 2. Alan Jackson, 81 First nod: 1990 Most recent nod: 2012 Number of awards: 16 Did you know?: Jackson didn’t win the horizon award either. He was nominated in 1990, but lost to Garth Brooks. (Pretty stiff competition.) 3. Miranda Lambert, 58 (not counting two with Pistol Annies) First nod: 2005 Most recent nod: 2021 Number of...
Rascal Flatts’ Joe Don Rooney Charged With DUI in Nashville
Two weeks ago, Rooney and his Rascal Flatts bandmate Jay DeMarcus were at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium to accept the Academy of Country Music’s Cliffie Stone icon award, which honors leaders in the country music industry who have contributed significantly to the growth of the genre through their writing, recording, production and music works as well as through philanthropic contributions and other goodwill efforts. In 2020, Rascal Flatts announced their farewell tour, though that trek was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the group also released the EP How They Remember You, followed by a greatest hits collection. Over the past several months, some of the group’s members released solo music, with DeMarcus releasing the single “Music Man” in ho...
Kacey Musgraves Releases New Album star-crossed: Stream
Get ready to fall apart: Kacey Musgraves has unveiled her new album star-crossed via MCA Nashville/Interscope Records. Stream it below. In a sit-down with Rolling Stone, the superstar singer revealed that she was inspired by Greek tragedies and her divorce from ex-husband Ruston Kelly when conceiving the album. “This last chapter of my life and this whole last year and chapter for our country — at its most simple form, it’s a tragedy,” she explained. “And then I started looking into why portraying a tragedy is actually therapeutic and why it is a form of art that has lasted for centuries. It’s because you set the scene, the audience rises to the climax of the problem with you, and then there’s resolve. There’s a feeling of resolution at the end. I was inspired by that.” Advertisement Relat...
How to Watch Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Star-Crossed: The Film’
See below for how to watch Star-Crossed: The Film online, and how to see Kacey Musgraves live in concert. How to Watch Kacey Musgraves’ Star-Crossed: The Film Online for Free Star-Crossed: The Film will be available to stream on Paramount+ starting September 10. If you don’t have a Paramount+ account, the streaming service offers a seven-day free trial for new customers, which allows you to watch Star-Crossed for free online the same day. After your first week, Paramount+ costs $4.99 a month for its Essential plan. The monthly Essential plan does include ads, but you can pay $9.99 for Paramount+’s Premium package, which also includes a seven-day free trial and is mostly ad-free. Both plans include access to stream Kacey Musgraves’&nbs...
Nashville Music Manager Stan Moress Dies at 83
Moress founded Nashville-based management and consulting firm the Consortium in 2001, alongside partners Bernard Porter, Al Schiltz and Mike Martinovich. Among those artists The Consortium repped over the years were Joe Diffie, Sherrié Austin, Billy Ray Cyrus and Catherine Britt. In 2005, Moress, Schiltz and Martinovich helped launch Midas Records Nashville. Moress’ clients and colleagues remember him as a generous spirit, who often felt like a family member and was always willing to go out of his way to help. Black, a Moress management client in the early 1990s, tells Billboard, “He always had a special place in my heart. We tended to be a comedy team when together, he the straight man, and I the jokester. We always had fun and I held him in great esteem. On top...
Brandi Carlile Performs Gorgeous Cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock”: Watch
Brandi Carlile has always been upfront about her love for Joni Mitchell, often playing songs by the folk legend onstage while on tour. Over the weekend, though, Carlile played a particularly special set for SiriusXM’s Small Stage concert series where she broke out a show-stopping cover of “Woodstock,” an underrated Mitchell song from her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon. Watch a replay of her rendition below. For her take on the cut, Carlile and her bandmates drew “Woodstock” out into a nearly six-minute-long scorcher. Over with some wavering keyboard notes, Carlile opened the Mitchell song with subdued gusto and heart — which is as to be expected, after all, considering she’s famous for putting on incredible live sets — before her bandmates kicked in with big country rock guitar riffs and ...
Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall to Lead ‘Austin City Limits’ 47th Season
Austin City Limits will launch its 47th season on Oct. 2, welcoming Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall for the new season’s hour-long premiere episode. Leading into the October premiere, Austin City Limits shared a video clip of the trio performing “In His Arms,” from the May-released collaborative project The Marfa Tapes, a set of acoustic songs written and recorded in tiny Marfa, Texas. “If it gets weird up here, it’s because we’ve all been friends for like, over 20 years,” Lambert says in the clip of the Austin City Limits performance. “I’ve grown up watching Jack since I was 15, been going to every club around Texas, following him around, one of my heroes. And Jon the same, we met … almost 20 years ago. He just sings...
