Country

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As Kelsea Ballerini is preparing for a run of shows in Australia to wrap the year, she took a moment to answer questions from fans, and to ask her supporters for a favor.

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On her Instagram Stories, Ballerini fielded inquiries from fans, including one question that asked the singer-songwriter what she needed most from fans.

“Thank you for saying this and asking,” Ballerini replied. “I’m in a steady and happy place right now, truly excited for this Australia tour and the holidays.”

Ballerini added, “If I had one favor, it would be honoring that I’m trying to make my personal life personal for now. Unless it comes from me, it’s not from me, and that is really important in protecting my peace right now.”

Ballerini fielded several additional questions from fans, answering about everything from her workout routine to giving an update on the health of her dog Dibs, who has been battling cancer.

“Baby boy is hanging tough,” Ballerini wrote. “Leaving him this morning for our two-week Australia stint was *very* tough, but he’s steady, still fighting the cancer and has incredible doctors and care (and grandma who is going to give him extra treats while I’m gone). All of the good, healing energy you can send his way is appreciated, as always.”

Ballerini is gearing up for a run of Australian tour dates, launching Dec. 6-7 with two shows in Sydney at the ICC Sydney Theatre. Ballerini will play two shows at Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena (Dec. 10-11) and wrap with a show at Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Dec. 13. Ballerini also recently released her EP Mount Pleasant on Nov. 14.

Ballerini also seems poised for an auspicious 2026; her album Patterns garnered a best contemporary country album nomination. The 2026 Grammy Awards will be held Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and will air live on CBS and Paramount+ Premium.

Trending on Billboard Tyler Childers will hit the road next year, when his 2026 Snipe Hunt Tour launches April 23 in Dallas, Texas. The trek will visit 14 cities along the way, including stops in St. Louis, Chicago and Seattle, before wrapping Oct. 3 in Portland, Oregon. His Snipe Hunt tour is presented by LN […]

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Stephen Wilson Jr., who had a double-shot of performances at this week’s CMA Awards, has released a new tribute to blue-collar workers, while R&B star Ne-Yo offers up a country-inspired new track and ERNEST pays tribute to tight-knit communities. Kameron Marlowe, newcomer Emily Roth and bluegrass trio Sweet Sally also offer up new music.

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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of some of the best country, bluegrass and/or Americana songs of the week below.

Stephen Wilson Jr., “Gary”

Last week, Stephen Wilson Jr. not only performed twice at the CMA Awards and during the SESAC Nashville Awards, but he also released this stirring new track. It’s a gritty tribute to working-class men, those who are “Born with a cigarette glued to their face/ Fix about anything a hammer can handle.” Wilson Jr. praises the titular character’s blue-collar skills, but also fears that current and future generations won’t have enough “Garys.” Wilson Jr. has long been known for his formidable songwriting and grunge rock infused style of country. Searing guitar, explosive percussion and lines like “Time leaves town but the minute hand stays” reinforce his reputation as a superb musical craftsman.

Ne-Yo, “Simple Things”

R&B star Ne-Yo has been a steady presence in Nashville of late, as a presenter at the CMA Awards and performing on the Opry in the past week. Now, he releases this country-leaning track about appreciating simple things in life, like spending time with loved ones. The song is a deft mix of R&B and country, and Ne-Yo’s voice is as smooth and commanding as ever.

Emily Roth, “Matter of Time”

In her new song, Roth sings of how a glass of wine and intimate talk with a potential lover leave her teetering on the edge between infatuation and full-blown romance. Roth’s silky voice and the song’s understated musicianship give it a tender, dream-like quality. She wrote this track with Alex Kiel and Jesse Dozzi.

ERNEST, “Hate a Small Town”

On this song from his new project Live From The South, ERNEST lends his strong, vivid songwriting to chronicling the daily happenings and sights of a small community, from kids helping an elderly neighbor, to Friday night football games and “miles and miles of cottonwood trees.” This uptempo track’s percussion sizzles and while the guitar lines are tight and catchy, making for quite the radio-friendly track. ERNEST wrote the song with Chandler Paul Walters, Jordan Dozzi, and Brad Clawson.

Kameron Marlowe, “Fire on the Hillside”

Marlowe has already proven himself as a superb vocalist, and he turns that impeccable voice to this hard-charging tale of how, sometimes, smoke means fire when it comes to rumors raging through small towns. Marlowe’s soulful voice, paired with the song’s relentless rock swagger, makes this a track worth repeated listens and further cements Marlowe as a treasure of a newcomer in the genre.

Sweet Sally, “Iron Waterfall”

This all-woman California bluegrass trio has played at bluegrass events including DelFest, IBMA’s World of Bluegrass and High Sierra Music Festival. Its offers up a smooth, moody performance on “Iron Waterfall,” lyrically sketching a scene of emotional devastation and resilience. Guitarist Lucy Khadder wrote the song, and the trio is joined on the recording by mandolin player Sophia Sparks and bassist Clare O’Grady. Their tight-knit musicianship, paired with their honeyed harmonies that are sprinkled judiciously in the track, showcases their instinctive musical chemistry as a group.

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Country songs are frequently built on wordplay, but the best twists come when a listener can miss the gag but still get the point.

That’s the case with Russell Dickerson’s latest single, “Worth Your Wild.” If listeners don’t have the title in front of them, they’re likely to hear the hook as “I’ll make it worth your while.” And it still makes sense. In the sonic fog of a live arena, fans are particularly prone to hear it as “while,” so Dickerson has started playing it with the title flashing on the video screen behind him in green-and-white block letters, one word at a time: “WORTH. YOUR. WILD.”

“We put ‘wild’ as big as we can everywhere to make sure they get the play on words,” he says.

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Dickerson is invested in that title. He introduced it on Oct. 22, 2024, during a writing retreat with two of his frequent collaborators – Parker Welling (“Blue Tacoma,” “What’s Your Country Song”) and Casey Brown (“I Am Not Okay,” “Favorite Country Song”) – at a Florida Gulf Coast home Welling shares with her husband, Warner Chappell Nashville vp of A&R Spencer Nohe.

At first, they passed over “Wild” and wrote “Famous Back Home,” which became the title of his current album, released by Triple Tigers on Aug. 22. But once they completed “Famous,” the “Worth Your Wild” idea came back up, allowing them to invest a lot of energy in what Dickerson calls “a high-octane banger.”

The “Worth Your Wild” title also gave them a road map for the rest of the song. “Sometimes when you’re writing, titles or phrases kind of have a built-in cadence,” Brown explains.  

Brown and Dickerson consumed themselves with a musical hook, establishing a guitar riff with a grimy, KISS-like tone. “It was probably even more belligerent when we were writing it,” Brown says. “I had some crazy rock-guitar sound with an octave pedal on it. It sounded like a metal band almost.”

Welling thought those two had the musical foundation under control, so she retreated to an adjacent room and started working on a story that fit the “Wild” hook. She pictured it fitting with text about a couple on a summer drive, not unlike the scenario in “Blue Tacoma.” And since she knew Dickerson and his wife, Kalie, when they were dating, she used their relationship history as a loose template.

“I just started writing down rhyming words – like ‘mile,’ ‘smile,’ those kinds of things – to get a chorus map in my mind,” she recalls.

All those rhymes lined up at the start of the chorus, with each of those three phrases melodically mirroring the grimy riff. Brown spit out a follow-up – “She said, ‘Gun it, keep the night runnin’” – that fed the song’s sense of abandon as they filled out that “Wild” section.

Welling also came up with some imagery that helped with the opening lines of the first verse, particularly a reference to “wind in her hair like the ‘80s.” “I was thinking about a girl with wind-blown hair, like the windows are down,” she says. “You think about girls in ‘80s rock videos and their hair is just so big and crazy. It’s kind of that vibe to me.”

They slid in a reference to a 2000 Crazy Town pop hit – “Butterfly,” and its additional wording, “sugar, baby” – throwing in a “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” reference as they underscored the night’s anticipatory promise. They also made a mental note that copyright permission might be required to use “Butterfly.”        

Verse two had the couple parked “off 212 Kentucky,” a nod to terrain in Dickerson’s hometown, Union City, Tenn. In all likelihood, the actual road is Tennessee State Route 214, known locally as the Ken Tenn Highway. “I don’t know if the road names are exactly right,” Dickerson allows.

They left space for a guitar solo, and they created a bridge by piecing together some previous items in the song – the “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” line and two repeats of the “Wild” hook.

After they returned to Nashville, Brown says he “geeked out” on the demo, programming drum parts that enhanced the grimy riff, and playing an additional guitar atop that riff with a curly highlight.

“I’m always a fan of the marriage of a really big wall of rock guitars and then something real clean and chime-y up top,” he says. “That makes it like there’s kind of something for everybody.”

Dickerson and co-producer Josh Kerr (Maddie & Tae, Thomas Rhett) were so impressed with the demo that they mostly recreated it, substituting human musicians for the programmed parts, though they specifically kept Brown’s acoustic guitar, tuned to sound like an arpeggiated electric guitar in the verses. They also credited Brown as a co-producer.

Recording for the master proceeded one musician at a time, beginning with drummer Evan Hutchings on a Zoom hookup necessitated by a snowstorm. The rest of the players did their parts in Kerr’s studio, particularly Nathan Keeterle, who layered a raft of electric guitars.

“There’s probably six guitars just on the intro,” Kerr says.

Keeterle played every passage on at least two different instruments, giving Kerr the option of using dirty sonics or cleaner sounds in certain sections. Kerr would often employ them in tandem. Keeterle ultimately played more than 20 guitars on the track, including a solo with an ‘80s hair-band attitude.

“He just melted our faces off,” Kerr says. “I think I [used] solo one or two, and then I think I made him play it 15 more times because we were having so much fun.”

The “Butterfly” copyright issue went down to the wire. Unknown to Dickerson and his co-writers, “Butterfly” interpolated The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Pretty Little Ditty,” and even though “Wild” used only three words from “Butterfly,” Dickerson’s reps sought approval from all four Chili Peppers and both members of Crazy Town. The “Wild” writers were considering alternative lyrics when they finally received a thumbs up in the final week of production – the six “Butterfly” creators accepted co-writer credits but sought no financial compensation for use of their three words.

Dickerson used two sessions to finish the vocals. Most of it was easy, but he sang one line – “Driving me crazy” – perhaps 150 times to get the exact tone. “It was super-choppy,” Dickerson says of his first efforts, “and not smooth at all.”

Originally, “Worth Your Wild” wasn’t in line to be a single, though Nohe repeatedly told Welling that it could work. “Spencer,” she says, “always knows.”

It was the best-streaming track left on the Famous Back Home album, and the energy was perfectly suited for this phase in Dickerson’s release schedule, as well as his live show. Triple Tigers issued “Worth Your Wild” to country radio via PlayMPE on Oct. 14.

“’Happen to Me’ was uptempo,” he notes. “Why would we not just keep the pedal down? I want people to come to Russellmania and have the freaking time of their lives.”

Dickerson promises to make it “Wild.”