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The Tennessee Board of Parole recommended on Tuesday (April 22) that the state’s Governor consider pardoning Jelly Roll for his past convictions. According to the Associated Press, the board issued its nonbonding recommendation after voting unanimously on the move following a nearly two hour session that included testimony from Nashville Sheriff Daron Hall and several others.
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Jelly Roll has long talked about the his remorse for the multiple arrests in his youth and the long road he’s taken to make amends, including frequently visiting jails and rehab centers before his shows. Following the board’s action, it is now up to Gov. Bill Lee to decide if the singer (born Jason DeFord) will be pardoned. The move could pave the way for the singer to travel internationally to perform, something he has not been able to do to date.
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“This was incredible,” Jelly Roll said of the board’s decision. “I pray this goes through. But today was special for me, regardless.” During the board meeting, Jelly Roll described falling in love with songwriting while in detention, explaining, “It started as a passion project that felt therapeutic and would end up changing my life in ways that I never dreamed imaginable and opened doors that I’ve never thought possible.”
Jelly Roll, 40, was convicted on robbery charges at 17, when a female friend helped him and two other young men enter a house in 2002; both of the other men were armed, though Jelly Roll was not. They demanded money and got $350 and an empty wallet. Because the victims knew the woman and Jelly Roll, they were both arrested right away and he was sentenced to a year in prison. Then, in 2008, police found marijuana and crack cocaine in his car, which resulted in a sentence of eight years of court-ordered supervision. He has been jailed more than 40 times over the years for a variety of drug charges dating back to when he was 14.
Due to those incidents, and a number of other brushes with the law, until last year Jelly was unable to secure a passport in order to book shows outside of the U.S. due to legal restrictions on travel by former felons.
The parole board began considering Jelly Roll’s pardon application since Oct. 2024, which marked at least five years since his sentence expired.
Following Tuesday’s recommendation, Republican Gov. Lee told reporters that “the reporting on Jelly Roll, that’s encouraging for his situation, but there are steps yet to happen in that case.” A number of friends and civic leaders wrote to the board about Jelly Roll’s generosity and transformation to bolster his case, according to the AP.
Sheriff Hall — who runs Nashville’s jail — wrote in a note that Jelly Roll had an “awakening” in one of the jails he managed, while Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino wrote about the generous donations the singer has given to charities for at-risk youth.
Among the reasons Jelly Roll gave for needing the pardon was the current difficulty he faces traveling to Canada to perform due to his criminal record. Last June, Jelly booked his first-ever international shows when he scheduled gigs in Ontario and Ottawa. A week before announcing the shows, Jelly told Howard Stern that he had just gotten off the phone with his lawyer about the travel ban. “We are working … it’s getting good, it’s starting to look promising. It didn’t look good even just six months ago, but it’s starting to look really promising,” he said at the time.
Jelly told the board that he needs the pardon to be able to play more shows in Canada because currently he needs to apply for a special permit to travel north, which can sometimes be a lengthy process. “I want to be an inspiration for people who are now where I used to be — to let them know that change is truly possible,” Jelly told the board. “One of the reasons I’m asking for your recommendation for this pardon is because I’m looking to take my message of redemption through the power of music and faith through the rest of the world.”
He said that due to his criminal record, every time he travels it takes a “team of lawyers and a mountain of paperwork to secure my entry into those countries.” He noted last year’s inaugural Canadian shows, as well as his first trip to the U.K., where he traveled to speak about a rehab program.
Check out Hall’s post about the hearing below.
A year ago, I wrote @GovBillLee asking for a full Pardon for Jason “Jelly Roll” Deford…..today the Board unanimously recommended his Pardon. It’s now in the hands of our Governor. pic.twitter.com/NACZOGW2y0— Daron Hall (@DaronHall7) April 22, 2025
In the span of little more than a year, Tucker Wetmore has quickly positioned himself as an artist whose songs like “Wine into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missin’ You” are connecting with fans, but the title track to his new album What Not To captures a life story he initially thought was too personal to sing about.
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“I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to share this, I’m not going to talk about this,’” he tells Billboard.
The song finds Wetmore shedding light on a childhood with a father battling against alcohol and pills, and Wetmore’s resulting desire and determination to forge a different path. Now, “What Not To” is the title track of his debut full-length album, out Friday (April 25) on UMG’s EMI Records Nashville, in partnership with Back Blocks Music.
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“When I started thinking more about it, I got excited to open up in that sense,” Tucker says of the song. “It’s a thing a lot more people go through or went through. When I think of why I started playing music 10, 15 years ago, it made me feel something. It saved me, it helped me, it was my therapy. This is one of those songs that could be that for somebody else. I feel like every day there’s instance where you’re presented with choices — some big some small, some life changing. I feel like when I get to that crossroad, having that ‘What Not To’ mindset, that’s the first thing that pops in my head.”
He teamed with his producer Chris LaCorte, who co-wrote the song with Wetmore, Chase McGill and Jameson Rogers, and the song spilled out during a four-day writing retreat at a rented lake house in Lynchburg, Tennessee.
“It was the last day and we were all just mentally tired,” Wetmore recalls. “We had just eaten breakfast and Chase started talking about his dad, and then I started talking about mine, and we all just talked real life — like buddies do. It was probably one of the toughest, but also easiest, writes of my life, because talking about that stuff is not easy for me. But it was a bunch of guys wearing our hearts on our sleeves, and the song came from that.”
The rest of the album finds Wetmore looking at other hard-earned lessons in love and life, blending elements of the country, gospel, rock and reggae music that Wetmore heard at home in Kamala, Washington, as he was growing up — though, throughout high school and college, his primary passion was sports, as a multi-sport athlete successful in football and track & field.
When Wetmore was sidelined by a football injury in college, he funneled his former athletic determination into his passion for music and writing songs.
“Wine Into Whiskey” became his first to chart on both the Hot Country Songs chart and the all-genre Hot 100, setting this hitmaking machine into motion and followed with “Wind Up Missing You,” which rose to No 2. on the Country Airplay chart. The songs have become back-to-back RIAA-certified Platinum hits for Wetmore and were both included on his debut EP, Waves on a Sunset.
His new album is poised to be a star-maker for Wetmore, who has amassed over 7 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone. Throughout What Not To, he distills lessons learned by both his own experiences and close observation of those around him.
Wetmore and his team narrowed down potential songs to around three dozen before deciding on the album’s final 19 tracks. “We had a lower number of songs and then we’d go back and think, ‘No, this song has to be on it,’” Wetmore says.
A couple of those last-minute adds were “3, 2, 1” (which is in the top 40 on the Country Airplay chart), and “Takes One to Break One,” which Wetmore calls “kind of the centerpiece of the record. It’s talking about bad luck, bad habits, all of those things. I’m a very album-based listener and that’s what I want to create as an artist, so it had to be on there.”
Songs like “Casino” and “Bad Luck Looks Good On Me” nod to the win-some, lose-some gambles inherent in betting on love, while songs such as “Whatcha Think Is Gonna Happen,” “Silverado Blue” and “Whiskey Again” touch on a time-honored coping mechanism. “Brunette” and “3, 2, 1” continue spiraling back to themes of heartbreak and attempts at moving on.
Tucker says “All of It” is inspired by his real life. “It’s just telling my truth — and there’s metaphors as well, like, ‘Is he really talking about the girl, or is he talking about whiskey, or his relationship with family?’ There’s some weird metaphor things and Easter eggs in the record, which I think is really cool, and it’s going to be cool to see people dissect the whole thing.”
In addition to the writers’ retreat, Wetmore wrote for the album with such top writers as Thomas Archer, Corey Crowder and Justin Ebach, and he says he poured that same passion he held for bettering his skill on the ballfield into elevating his craft as a writer.
“I try to just always be a sponge in the writing room and try to learn something every day,” he says. “Yesterday, I wrote a song with Chris [LaCorte], Jessie Jo Dillon and Jessi Alexander. The coolest thing is to just be able to sit in a room with them, learning from them about how they structure things, and how they work creatively. I’m fortunate enough to call them good friends and blessed to have the people around me that I have.”
When he goes to the ACM Awards next month and vies for a win in the new male artist of the year category, he’ll be bringing his mom with him as his date on the red carpet.
“It’s going to be awesome,” he says. “She’s happy she gets to watch her son do what he loves and she’s always supported me. She’s one the biggest reasons why I’m in Nashville and chasing my dream of music.”
In May, he’ll also headline his first show at Ryman Auditorium—the same stage where he previewed “What Not To” in February before an audience of veteran country radio executives during the UMG Nashville showcase at Country Radio Seminar.
“I was terrified,” he recalls of that CRS performance. “It was just me fighting an internal battle, but I’m very happy that I did it. And I’m so excited to headline the Ryman. I don’t think the feelings are really going to hit me until I walk in and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, this is my show.”
Songs from the new album like “Casino” and “Brunette” have already connected with fans when he slips them into his set. “It’s probably the craziest song in our set,” he says of the latter track. “It’s just creating a buzz. I love these songs, and they are fun to play.”
He’ll bring his new music to broader audiences on Thomas Rhett’s Better in Boots Tour this year, and as he takes the songs to his fans, he’ll take forward a bit of advice he learned while opening shows for Jon Pardi.
“He said, ‘Just take it in and enjoy it all, even the smallest things,’” Wetmore says of Pardi. “He also said to, every night, take a second or two onstage to remind yourself that this is one of the coolest things in the world.”
While he may have racked up career milestones at an impressive clip already, Wetmore says future music will continue revealing more of himself.
“It feels like we’re scratching the surface to telling my story and letting people in on who I am as a person,” he says. “And as an artist, as a songwriter, as a son, as a brother, as a friend — just me.”
It’s the Wilson Phillips song the world didn’t know it needed.
Tight, three-part harmonies, infectious hooks and a light, positive air that makes it easier to hold on for one more day — that’s Runaway June’s “New Kind of Emotion,” a slow-boiling track soaked in fresh nostalgia.
Wilson Phillips was “my favorite when I was little,” Runaway June founder Jennifer Wayne says, “because my mom used to listen to them.”
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Wayne is the only original member left in Runaway June. Current lead vocalist Stevie Woodward and fiddler-vocalist Natalie Stovall found their roles in the trio’s live show through several tours, but it wasn’t until they developed “New Kind of Emotion” with songwriter Paul Sikes (“Wildflowers and Wild Horses,” “Make Me Want To”) on July 19, 2023, that they felt like they’d found their collective voice in the writing room.
A Woodward family gathering started the creative chain. Some of the guests started making music, and one of her cousin’s friends slid into a chord progression with a descending element. Woodward freestyled a melody, and she liked it so much that she recorded it on her phone for later use.
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“The song and the melody felt like it was a very summery, nostalgic song,” Woodward remembers. “My thought was, ‘Well, what if it was a song about driving down the Pacific Coast Highway?’ I saw a convertible with the roof off, and I thought of the song ‘Wild Horses’ by The Rolling Stones, one of my favorite bands.”
But no co-writers responded to that descending progression until she pitched it to her bandmates. “It wasn’t meant for those people,” she says. “It was meant to be a Runaway June song.”
But it continued to evolve. The PCH and the “Wild Horses” reference disappeared as they evaluated its foundation. “One of us was like, ‘Well, gosh, it kind of just feels like a love song,’ ” Wayne recalls. “And one person said, ‘Yeah, like a new kind of emotion.’ And then I think I said, ‘You set it in motion,’ and then we just rolled with it.”
They wrote the chorus first, catching a sunshiny vibe with a subtle spike of melancholy. That came from the chord structure, which features two major-seventh chords back-to-back. They use four notes each, rather than the standard three, to create their sound, and one is only a half-step from the root. It introduces a tinge of dissonance, adding biting complexity.
“Those major-seventh chords give you that kind of throwback feel, but also in an uptempo way that makes you just kind of want to roll the windows down at the same time,” Sikes says.
Runaway June explored harmonies as the members shaped the melody, pointedly emphasizing the trio’s signature. “The three-part is the lead voice,” Stovall says. “That’s what this band is. It’s three-part harmony, and obviously Stevie sings the lead lines. But we want to make sure that the harmonies are really supporting everything.”
The major-sevenths, by stuffing four notes into the chords, offered greater harmonic options, and Sikes was determined to take advantage of them, encouraging Wayne to incorporate the dissonant notes into her high harmonies. Initially, she found herself edging those notes up a half-step to the more conventional root, but as Sikes coached her through it, Wayne increasingly caught the beauty in the part.
“It rubs a little bit,” she says. “My brain couldn’t wrap around singing it, but once you learn it and you sing it together, you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s actually really cool.’ ”
Once they’d crafted two verses at a lower, sultry pitch, they developed another, unexpected hook. “This is what a love song feels like” popped up, and they instinctively repeated the phrase hypnotically after the second chorus.
“When you think about relationships, a lot of times they come out of nowhere,” Woodward says. “So that part, while it does come out of nowhere, it’s fitting for the message.”
“It’s not your typical bridge,” Sikes adds, “because we’re not bringing up any new information. We’re not reinventing the wheel. You might consider it a refrain, more than anything, where it’s kind of a ‘row, row, row your boat’ round-robin [of] that hook.”
They created another moment with a four-note passage in the intro that became a key instrumental riff. It operated similarly to the major-seventh chords, holding at a final note that didn’t quite resolve. It introduced more rewarding tension, similar to the fresh uncertainty of a new relationship.
“I’m always trying to find some sort of fiddle riff that is another hook in addition to the lyrical hooks,” Stovall says.
Sikes built the bulk of a demo that day, converting that riff to a programmed steel guitar in some parts of the performance. He also programmed drums, which were eventually replaced, though the members of Runaway June discovered to their surprise that they preferred the mesmeric artificial percussion, which mirrored the narcotic pleasure of new love.
They developed a game plan for the song during preproduction with their producer, Sugarland’s Kristian Bush, before recording it at Nashville’s Sound Stage in March 2024. The studio band easily grasped the goals.
“The song is a little bit about that weird floatiness you get when you meet somebody for the first time and you connect with them and you’re like, ‘Wow, why do I feel lighter?’ ” Bush explains. “Until you have that feeling, you don’t really connect to a lot of those kinds of songs.”
Woodward played one of the acoustic guitars on the track, drummer Travis McNabb captured the controlled nature of the programmed percussion and Stovall turned in her fiddle riff — though it was blended with Benji Shanks’ electric guitar and a shape-shifted Brandon Bush keyboard part.
“We use an ambient pedal a lot called the Microcosm,” Kristian Bush says. “It inserts weird, uncontrollable versions of your note, so the keyboard might be a Wurlitzer or a [Fender] Rhodes or something really normal. Once you run this thing, you kind of spin knobs until it does something wacky and pray that it goes to the good side.”
A day later, he booked Runaway June into the Starstruck Studios and had the members record their vocals simultaneously for the first time. Watching through the glass in their separate vocal booths, they could breathe as one and follow each other as they would in concert. It’s part of the reason their harmonies sound as tight as a Wilson Phillips performance.
“That’s exactly what I was going for,” Kristian says.
The track went to digital service providers in October, and programmers responded enthusiastically as Runaway June toured. That played a part when the trio asked Quartz Hill to release “New Kind of Emotion” to radio instead of a previously planned ballad. It shipped to country stations through PlayMPE on March 24.
It also tested well informally with people outside the music business; it’s the first time that all of Runaway June’s family members were in harmony on a particular song.
“It’s a good sign,” Stovall says, “when your parents tell you that they were dancing to it in the living room.”
Bailey Zimmerman currently has a hot hit collab with BigXThaPlug on “All The Way,” which debuted at No. 4 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, but that’s not the only monster collaboration he’s got up his sleeve.
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Zimmerman and stadium headliner Luke Combs will soon team up to release a new track called “Backup Plan.”
They gave fans a sneak peek at the track on Monday (April 21) with a video of the two artists singing the song together, and the new track seems to be an ode to ambitious dreamers everywhere.
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“You gotta fire, don’t lose it/ If you got a do-or-die dream, do it,” Zimmerman sings in the clip, as Combs then takes the lead, singing, “If you’ve got somethin’ to prove, go on and prove it.” They join forces on the verse: “Don’t let nobody clip your wings.”
Careening rock guitars surge as they continue their defiant, uplifting anthem on the lines, “Close out the doubters/ All the closed-minders” before deadpanning, “Gettin’ back up is the only backup plan you need.”
The pair did not reveal when the collab would arrive, teasing in the caption only that it is “coming soon.”
Combs is slated to be a headliner during this weekend’s Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio, Calif., while Zimmerman’s next show is May 3 at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas. Zimmerman is also slated to play during Morgan Wallen’s upcoming Sand in My Boots festival in May, and at June’s CMA Fest in Nashville, while Combs is slated to perform at upcoming festivals including the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., and Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.
See their teaser video below:
On April 16, artist-writer Brett Sheroky headed into Nashville on a T-shirt run.
With the release of his debut album, Rock Paper Scissors, looming on April 18, he delivered shirts to a handful of songwriters who had donated to a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign that raised nearly $33,000, surpassing his $30,000 goal and allowing him to hire the musicians and book the studio time to record the project. The results are impressive — there’s not a single piece of filler among its 15 tracks — and yet Sheroky has no idea what to expect. He went into the project with no label, no manager, no booking agent and no publicist, requiring him to juggle every aspect of creating and marketing the album as a one-man shop.
“There’s a hundred little different things constantly,” he says.
And no artist is an expert at all of them. Sheroky, who moved to Nashville 16 years ago, was also working on 8-second videos for Spotify Canvas, a tool that enhances the on-screen background when a song plays on the platform. He wasn’t entirely confident about making them, but he was pushing through the process on his own as a do-it-yourself artist, a common occupation in modern Nashville. The challenges those artists face can be deflating, but those who keep pushing forward frequently find the creative rewards outweigh the more mundane aspects of their lives.
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“Making the art itself, and the feeling you get of being part of something that was created out of nothing, and to be passionate about it still — the victory really is in the making of it,” he says.
Billboard Country Update talked with DIY artists Sheroky, Maggie Baugh and Gina Venier about their efforts in Nashville’s music business. In a previous era, their prospects would have been more narrow. There was no internet, so radio and the clubs were the only means of building a fan base. There was little or no home recording equipment, so artists had to amass enough cash to pay for expensive studio time, which record labels typically funded.
But with streaming, home studios and social media, artists have more tools available than ever to create and market their own music. That ease of entry, however, has increased competition. Thus, more artists are vying for the kind of viral audience that leads to record deals and booking agents. And until they land those kinds of team members, they operate as lone wolves, battling the inner voices as they plot how to advance.
“The highs and lows are crazy because there’s no sense of security,” says Venier, who has been in Nashville 11 years. “There’s no stability unless you’re seeking it out, unless you’re connecting with people and basically keeping your lifelines for the industry nearby.”
That’s one of the odd benefits of making music in Nashville. Outside of solo acoustic gigs, artists typically need bands to back them; thus, the creators form bonds with one another: trading their services, supporting the same people they’re competing with and doing their best to lift all boats in their friend group. They learn the hard way — through business relationships that don’t work out or by making mistakes as they tackle unfamiliar tasks outside their skill sets while trying to minimize their costs.
“I call it ‘bougie on a budget,’ ” Baugh says.
Baugh’s skills are impressive. In addition to her musical talents as a singer, songwriter and guitarist, she spent part of 2024 playing in Keith Urban‘s band. She booked her own 60-date tour for 2025, including two trips to the United Kingdom, building on seven years’ experience in Music City.
“When I booked them, I already knew how to talk to booking agents and promoters,” she says. “I already knew how to put together an EPK —what they were looking for, put the [statistics] first, keep it short and sweet. If they wanted to open the links, they would. I negotiated all the contracts on my behalf by myself, and it’s just from learning from my mistakes along the way.”
To the outside world, Nashville’s honky-tonk district looks like the most obvious developmental breeding ground. And artists such as Terri Clark, Kenny Chesney and Tigirlily Gold have indeed cut their teeth on Lower Broadway, learning how to work a crowd by playing familiar cover songs for tourists. Those gigs can generate income, but it’s the shows on the songwriter circuit — including The Bluebird Cafe, The Listening Room and Jane’s Hideaway — where artists have a chance to build an actual following.
“That’s where I play the originals,” Venier notes. “That’s where I get the fans.”
One of the most difficult hurdles for DIY artists is learning how to pitch themselves. For most, that doesn’t come naturally, and the rejections or unreturned calls can generate significant second-guessing. But a successful pitch sometimes becomes a breakthrough moment. Venier improbably landed a song on SiriusXM’s The Highway by working her contacts, Sheroky battled self-consciousness for weeks before he finally posted his successful Kickstarter campaign, and Baugh emailed an unsolicited recording to a Spotify executive and ended up getting playlisted.
“I’m really bad at promoting myself and talking about myself,” Baugh says. “I’ve just learned the hard way that if you don’t open your mouth, somebody else who’s opening their mouth will get the opportunity.”
The three independent artists are all making the most of their opportunities. Baugh is working on an album with producer Rob McNelley and prepping for an April 22 Grand Ole Opry appearance. Venier will open for Fancy Hagood at Nashville’s historic Exit/In on April 23. And Sheroky, just days before Rock Paper Scissors‘ release, received messages from a booking agent and a manager who both expressed interest in potentially representing him, which would take him off the DIY rolls.
The right partners could help him reach a wider audience, though it’s the one-on-one impact with fans that Sheroky values most. He recalls a woman who traveled from Austin to Dallas to see a show and to tell him that one of his songs pulled her out of an emotional pit.
“She sounded like she was thinking about killing herself,” he remembers, “and she’s like, ‘Man, that song saved my life.’ The numbers — they’re whatever. But that part’s real.”
Meanwhile, as challenging as the DIY life might be, making a living playing music in a crowded pool of country talent is an accomplishment in itself.
“We’re in Nashville,” Venier says. “I’m among beautiful talent and art, and all of us are successful by simply sticking this shit out. Period.”
This week, Morgan Wallen and Post Malone pair up again for a new collaboration, while Sam Barber offers up a song of blistering song of desolation. Elsewhere, Ian Munsick teams up with Lainey Wilson, while Ashland Craft, Don Louis and Tayler Holder also release stellar new tracks.
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the best country, bluegrass and/or Americana songs of the week below.
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Morgan Wallen (feat. Post Malone), “I Ain’t Comin’ Back”
Wallen and Post Malone seem poised to score a second hit — following their previous collab, the six-week Billboard Hot 100-topping “I Had Some Help” — with this musical sequel, which will be featured on Wallen’s upcoming I’m The Problem album. Released on Good Friday, “Back” employs a few religious references, as the duo sing about breaking up with a lover and making an abrupt escape from a stifling place where “half of this town has got a name for me.” This churning track bristles with defiance and self-righteousness on pointed lines such as “I might be a lot of things/ But I ain’t your savin’ grace.”
Sam Barber, “Man of the Year”
Since his musical breakthrough in 2022 with “Straight and Narrow,” the Missouri native has gone from strength to strength, showcasing an ever-maturing, top-tier talent as a singer-songwriter on compositions such as his latest, “Man of the Year.” This gritty track, written solely by Barber, finds him pondering the existential anguish he sees threaded throughout world events, and emotionally embedded in people around him. “Is it in my mind or are we all just sinking?” he muses, his quietly commanding voice ringing out over sparse but captivating production, and shedding light on a generation’s anxieties and fears.
Ashland Craft, “Momma Don’t Pray Like She Used To”
Since the release of her debut project in 2021, Craft has forged her reputation as an in-demand vocalist and songwriter, appearing on albums by HARDY and Lainey Wilson, in addition to releasing her own music. “Momma Don’t Pray Like She Used To,” from Craft’s upcoming album Dive Bar Beauty Queen, chronicles a progression of a mother’s prayers for her daughter over the years, as petitions of support and guidance give way to gratitude. Bolstered by a latticework of instrumentation that includes B-3 organ and mandolin, the track showcases not only a softer side to Craft’s fearless voice, but also how she uses her songwriting to capture ever-deepening emotional nuances. Craft wrote the song with Jess Grommet, Willie Morrison and Corey Elizabeth Grogan.
Ian Munsick feat. Lainey Wilson, “Feather in My Hat”
“Long Live Cowgirls” hitmaker Ian Munsick partners with former tourmate Lainey Wilson on his new song ‘Feather in My Hat,” from his third studio album, Eagle Feather. Written by Munsick with Caitlyn Smith, and Marc Scilbila, this love song depicts someone making it clear their lover surpasses any notion of a prize or milestone–they are a bedrock of support, desire and comfort. Both Munsick and Wilson have distinct voices and together, their sonorous renderings infuse the song with a soulful charisma.
Don Louis, “She Ain’t Crazy Yet”
With a sultry groove that all but commands listeners to take to the dancefloor, this new song from Don Louis seems like a party anthem, but it’s also a relational warning shot. Lyrically, he sings about being in a new relationship that seems rosy at present, but past disappointments in the romance department have taught him those idyllic moments could shift in an instant. “So far she ain’t jealous, so far she ain’t mean/ But I’m gon’ hold my breath,” he sings, with voice all burly, gritty and captivating, as he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. From the deluxe version of his album Liquor Talkin’, “She Ain’t Crazy Yet” was written by Louis with Autumn Buysse and Danielle Blakey.
Tayler Holder, “Cry at Our Last Dance” (Wedding Version)
Holder releases what is sure to become an enduring wedding dance favorite with this tender ode of a father soaking in the moments with his daughter prior to her wedding. “I could spin you round forever/ But now that’s for him to do,” Holder sings, on what is one of his best outings to date. Holder wrote the song with Justin Ebach, Andrew Sevner, Dalton Dover, and Thomas Archer.
Country Music Hall of Fame duo Brooks & Dunn, who have collected 25 ACM Awards wins over the course of their decades-long career, will be feted on May 7 at the Omni PGA Frisco in Frisco, Texas, during the “Play Something Country” gala hosted by the ACM and ACM Lifting lives. The event comes one […]
Singer-songwriter Vincent Mason has caught fans’ attention in a major way thanks to his vulnerable, emotive takes on love and heartbreak, such as his somber, acoustic-guitar driven 2024 hit “Hell Is a Dance Floor,” which has earned 98.1 million official on-demand U.S. streams through April 10, according to Luminate. The song, on which Mason is a co-writer, was recently named publisher pick of the year at the recent AIMP Nashville Awards.
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Signed with Interscope/UMG Nashville/Music Soup, Mason recently made his first push to country radio with “Wish You Well,” a rare outside cut for the singer-songwriter. “Wish You Well” was written by Blake Pendergrass, Jessie Jo Dillon, Chris LaCorte and Geoff Warburton.
“I’ve never recorded an outside song before, just because there was always one line that didn’t feel like me. There’s a lot more stuff I’ve written that I think we’ll send to radio, but this just turned out so good and I loved it from first listen,” Mason tells Billboard. “It lands on the hook great and I loved the back half of the melody, when it goes into the [lyrics] ‘My heart hit rock bottom shelf, we didn’t last like a last call bell.’ When that melody went into that b-section, I was hooked on the song.”
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Over the past year, Mason has swiftly amassed milestones, issuing the six-song EP Can’t Just Be Me, opening shows for Riley Green and collaborating with Gavin Adcock on the song “Almost Gone.” In September, he made his Grand Ole Opry debut, and has been playing to packed venues on his sold-out Hell Is a Dance Floor Tour.
Growing up in Roswell, Georgia, Mason gleaned his work ethic from his father, an interior designer who owns his own firm, and his mother, a pediatric dentist. “They were always hardworking, and that’s kind of what they brought us up on,” Mason reflects. “But we weren’t necessarily held to a whole bunch of rules as long as we were working hard and had a passion.”
For Mason, that passion has always centered around two things: sports and music.
“I was always walking around the halls, singing. My teachers tried to sign me up for choir a few times, but I would just play football and basketball instead. My parents weren’t into country music, but I found it on my own. I started hearing it in middle school and high school because some of the kids were into it,” Mason says, citing songs such as Jon Pardi’s “Head Over Boots,” Kenny Chesney’s “American Kids,” and Thomas Rhett’s ‘T-Shirt.” “I thought, ‘Oh, country songs are catchy and happy,’ and then I heard, on the rock side, John Mayer doing this heartbroken, deep singer-songwriter stuff.”
Before relocating to Nashville, he briefly attended the University of Mississippi, an experience that further broadened his palette of musical influences to artists such as Koe Wetzel, Flatland Cavalry and Zach Bryan.
“I felt like there was this middle ground of country sonics and the heartbroken singer-songwriter aspect,” he says. “I found that lane and felt like I could take a stab at it.”
This year, Mason will open shows for Jordan Davis on his Ain’t Enough Road Tour, and has been in the studio, writing and recording new music.
Mason, Billboard’s Country Rookie of the Month for April, opened up about adapting to life as a touring singer-songwriter, his must-haves on the road, and the songwriting legend he couldn’t wait to write with.
Have you felt any pressure to follow up on that success of “Hell Is a Dance Floor,” and if so, how are you handling that?
If I’m being honest, I feel like the PR answer would be to say “No.” But I do feel the pressure, for sure. I just don’t want to have one song [hit] and that be it. I feel good about the songs we’ve put out after “Hell is a Dance Floor,” but I write a bunch of songs and I want our set to get better. A year into this record deal, I just want to keep making music I’m proud of.
You just released “Wish You Well.” Are there plans for an album this year?
Yes, at some point this year, hopefully. I don’t think we have a hard release day, but we just cut a handful of [songs] last week. I think we’re just going to kind of keep cutting songs and trying to get ’em ready.
Has the singer-songwriter life been different than what you anticipated?
I think it’s wild that it feels normal to me now, because for the last year, everything was so new, and now I feel like I found a little bit of a rhythm. So, I think it’s just kind of “Hang tight and try to make the best songs you can.” I’m enjoying having a grip on what’s happening lately. It doesn’t feel like everything’s just flying a thousand miles an hour. It does feel like it’s kind of slowed down in a way, even though we’re traveling all the time and doing just as much. I feel like I’ve found a way to be comfortable.
Who are the “bucket list” writers you wanted to collaborate with?
I remember Luke Laird was one. He wrote four of the first five country songs I ever loved, like “American Kids,” “Head Over Boots,” and “Drink in My Hand.” Every time I liked a song and looked at the credits, it seemed like Luke Laird was on there and all those Eric Church songs like “Over When It’s Over.” That was a name I asked about specifically. I wanted to write with Jessie Jo Dillon after I found out she was on there–all the writers on “Wish You Well,” I wanted to write with. But I remember Luke was probably the biggest legend where I was like, “I really want to write with Luke.”
To this point, you have been known for some sadder songs, such as “Heart Like This.” Will we see happier songs on a new project?
We do have some happier songs on there, not always just heartbroken, and sad all the time. [Sadder songs] are what sparked my interest and that’s just what I learned how to write. I kind of felt like I had to learn how to write happier songs when I was first writing those heartbreak songs. I remember being like, “Can we go deeper or get really detailed with this?” I felt like it’s a little bit harder to do that with the upbeat, happier songs. I wanted to pile up different sides of life, because you also want to hear the love side of it, or the fun side of it. So, I’m trying to make it a bit more [of a] complete scope of my life I guess. Even on the heartbreak side, there’s some more upbeat heartbreak songs, too.
You will be opening for Jordan Davis on his Ain’t Enough Road Tour this year. What are you most looking forward to about that tour?
It feels like every artist that I’ve talked to — more than one — just always say that Jordan’s [touring] camp is the best. So we’re excited to get out there and be a part of that. Then on the musical front, I always just try to learn from anyone that’s had success that long. He’s had hit after hit, and has moved with the way things are going, but has never abandoned what he’s doing.
What are some of your must-haves on the road?
We bring an Xbox everywhere we go to pass the time, and I definitely need some kind of energy drink, preferably Celsius. That’s what keeps me rolling. Other than a guitar, but those are the main two things we always try to bring. We just switched to the bus, so I think we’re going to save one of the bays on the bus to set up a little TV for football season, and chairs and cornhole. There’s talk of a little fire pit that we might bring. So we’re going to bring a little tailgate set up. I think.
What is your favorite sports team?
My mom’s whole family went to West Virginia, so I typically root for them; that’s the family school. I always like to see Ole Miss do well, even though I was only there for a minute. And then, the Falcons and the Braves.
Is there an artist whose career arc that you admire?
I think Eric Church is kind of my answer for that. I do think he’s one of the best songwriters ever, especially best country songwriters ever. I want to do it my own way, but I think he did such a good job of making songs that he loved. And then the hit songs are so unique that they don’t sound like anybody else’s hit song. And artists like John Mayer, they put out this whole discography of stuff they love and people still show up, so that’s what I want to build.
What song or album are you currently obsessed with?
Kansas Anymore by Role Model. I think the songwriting is so dialed in and the sonics are really cool. There’s a lot of stuff that feels really Tom Petty, which is cool. I’ve been wearing that album out a ton.
Is there a TV show or podcast you are into?
I always listen to Theo Von’s podcast [This Past Weekend]. Anytime he has someone on, I usually tune in.
Luke Bryan has heard the jokes before. So when Jennifer Hudson asked him about their mutual friend and fellow country singer Blake Shelton on her syndicated talk show on Friday (April 18), American Idol judge Bryan had to first issue her a stern warning.
“I could recommend you not be his buddy,” Bryan said after Hudson gushed about her pal and former judge on The Voice. “I could steer you in other directions,” Bryan added, before giving up the bit and saying he was just kidding.
“Is it true that sometimes people get y’all mixed up,” she asked. “It is very true really,” Bryan began saying as Hudson threw up two handsome side-by-side images of the men on the screen behind her, noting that the confusion might be coming about because both country stars are “so lovable.”
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“Well, I like that, but I’m a little mad at how Blake’s eyes look so purty right there… I gotta get me some blue eye… things,” Bryan laughed before telling a story about a time he and his 14-year-old son Tate stopped to get some snacks for the boat before going on a fishing trip. “So Tate’s over there buying his Sweet Tarts and all that stuff and the guy behind the counter is like, ‘You’re Blake Shelton.’ And I said, ‘really?’ And he said, ‘I know it, you’re Blake, you’re Blake.’ And he goes, ‘Are you Blake?’”
Bryan said he assured the man he wasn’t the “Purple Irises” singer, then asked what made him think he was. “He goes, ‘well, you’re just Blake Shelton’s doppelganger.’ And he kept going on and there were several people in the line and my son’s sitting there watching this go down,” Bryan said. “And he goes, “‘Well, there’s no way you’re Blake, because Blake wouldn’t be here shopping at this gas station.’”
So, Bryan gathered up his purchases and got ready to leave as the man looked at him and added, “‘Could you imagine having Blake Shelton’s money?’ You know, I didn’t want to go into it that I have more money than Blake…” Bryan also said that people in the little town where he lives and goes fishing know he’s around there a lot and that they probably let the cashier know afterwards that he’d misidentified the singer.
“But my son just had a blast with it,” Bryan said. “Because your children are always watching how you handle the good part of fame, and some of the other stuff of fame. So a couple days later we were at a restaurant and this guy walks up and he looks at Tate and he goes, ‘Well how old are you little buddy?’ And Tate’s like, ’12.’ And the guy walks off and I’m like, ‘Tate, why did you tell the guy you’re 12? You’re 14.’ And he goes, ‘that guy don’t need to know everything about me.’”
Watch Bryan on the Jennifer Hudson Show below.
Morgan Wallen and Post Malone are teaming up again, with their just-released second collaboration, “I Ain’t Comin’ Back.” The two artists previously earned a towering hit last year with “I Had Some Help,” which topped charts in both pop and country formats, spending six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and four weeks atop Country […]