Country
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With radio programmers spread across the country, it’s not often that artists have a chance to interact with the programmers and personnel who have aided them in their respective journeys to earning their first country radio hits — at the same time, all in one room. But each year, they do get that chance when radio programmers — along with plenty of label personnel — gather in Nashville for the Country Radio Seminar.
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On Friday (March 1), following three days of radio and streaming-focused panels and label luncheons, the conference concluded by highlighting five highly-promising new artists.
This year’s class featured Records Nashville’s George Birge, Riser House’s Dillon Carmichael, Sony Music Nashville/RCA’s Corey Kent, Sony Music Nashville/Columbia’s Megan Moroney and Valory Music’s Conner Smith.
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The night’s performances were tightly focused, with artists largely running through their familiar breakthrough hits, while also offering glimpses into what lies ahead musically.
First up was Kent. In an introductory video that played on the main screens prior to his performance, Kent began by thanking country radio for “helping us to deliver the biggest axe blow we’ve ever had,” in making his single “Wild as Her” a top 5 Country Airplay hit. “There will be many more to come,” he promised. Taking the New Faces stage, Kent introduced his set with the brooding “Gold.”
“If you know anything about me, you know this. I believe tomorrow isn’t guaranteed and what you do today matters. What we do tonight is take a few risks … you either getting busy living or you’re getting busy dying.”
He then offered his most recent radio single, “Something’s Gonna Kill Me,” a churning, freewheeling song which made great use of his rock-woven, rugged voice. From there, he offered his breakthrough hit “Wild as Her.” He largely stayed close to center stage throughout his set. Not that he needed to roam the stage — his voice, full-bodied and shot through with rock influences, permeated the room.
“Thank y’all so much, country radio!” he told the packed ballroom of radio executives, before offering a preview of a new song, titled “This Heart,” which Kent noted will soon impact country radio.
Next up was Birge, who reached No. 2 on the Country Airplay heart earlier this year with “Mind on You.” Microphone in hand, he stalked the stage as he offered the hard-rock influenced “Hard on the Bottle.” He later gave the audience an early look at new song “Damn Right I Do,” and concluded with “Cowboy Songs.”
“I’ve dreamed about this day for a long, long time and damn it did not disappoint,” he said. “I couldn’t come here and not play the song that you changed my life with,” he added before taking up a guitar to perform “Mind on You.”
“Thank you for believing in me,” he told the audience. “I don’t take for granted for one second that I get to be up here on this stage and it’s because of you guys.”
Before Nashville native Smith took the stage, screens on both sides of the stage showed home videos of Smith as a young child, around five or six years old, performing covers of hits from Kenny Chesney and Montgomery Gentry, followed by footage of Smith earning a standing ovation during his Grand Ole Opry debut in 2022.
Smith, clad in a white shirt and black leather jacket, began his high-octane set with “Smoky Mountains,” the title track from his January-released full-length album.
He noted that he’s attended the New Faces of Country Music Show a few times. “I would always watch and just pray that I would get a chance to be on this stage,” he said, thanking the crowd. “It means so much more than you know.” He then rolled into another song from the album, “Heatin’ Up.”
He also offered up with the tender, fiddle-laced duet “Roulette on the Heart” (though his duet partner on the song, Hailey Whitters, wasn’t in attendance). Still, Smith’s solo rendition connected with the audience just fine, thanks to his warm, smoothing vocals.
Smith also thanked country radio for changing his life by making the revved-up “Creek Will Rise” a hit. “It’s like Luke Bryan says — rain is a good thing,” Smith said before launching into the careening, rock-fueled, slightly bluesy track. ”Long live country radio!” he said, exiting the stage.
Kentucky native Carmichael, who is currently out on tour opening shows for Cody Johnson, launched his set with “Raised Up Wrong.”
“What an opportunity this is. Thank you for giving us a chance,” he said, before launching into his breakthrough hit “Son of A.” “In order to even qualify to be voted for to be a new face, one of those qualifications is you have to have at least a top 25 at country radio, so I want to thank my team for continuing to push this song we are about to play … and for country radio all of you who kept playing it … it means so much.”
He concluded with another uptempo track, one perfect for getting crowds to lift up their cups and enjoy some levity, with his current top 40 Country Airplay hit, “Drinkin’ Problems.”
The evening included a special moment to remember the life and career of the late country star Toby Keith, who died last month at age 62 following a battle with stomach cancer.
“He lived life fully, right to the end,” CRS Board of Directors president Kurt Johnson said, noting that Keith had planned to perform during Country Radio Seminar this year. CRB/CRS executive director RJ Curtis noted that 30 years ago that night, Keith made his New Faces Show debut in 1994. Then screens on either side of the main stage showed clips from Keith’s CRS New Faces of Country Music Show debut, including a performance of “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” and a short interview clip of Keith from his New Faces debut.
The lone woman on this year’s New Faces bill, Moroney closed out the lineup that evening. She is also one of the most-celebrated newcomers, thanks to her breakthrough hit, “Tennessee Orange,” and her debut album, Lucky.
“Anybody feel lucky?” she asked as she took the stage, clad in one of her signature sparkly, brightly-colored dresses to perform the title track to her album Lucky, as images of horseshoes, four-leaf clovers and boots crisscrossed the screen behind her.
Moroney’s star power was undeniable from the first song. From there she sailed through southernism-tinged kiss-off “I’m Not Pretty” and new release “No Caller ID” (which debuted at No. 13 on the Hot Country Songs chart earlier this year), led by her warm-hued voice, which cracked in all the right places, letting the emotional nuances of each song seep through.
“I have a lot of new music coming out this year that I’m excited for you to hear,” she teased, later adding, “Thank you for your support of me and my songs. I love writing songs. I love to do this and I get to do this because of you,” she said. In a departure from earlier performers on the bill, Moroney’s set offered its share of ballads, including the introspective song from Lucky “Girl in the Mirror.” Moroney closed with a faithful live rendering of her hit “Tennessee Orange.”
Since its inception in 1970, the New Faces of Country Music Show has put some of country music’s brightest new talents in the spotlight, with the members of the Class of 2024 joining the list of past New Faces performers including Tim McGraw, George Strait, Taylor Swift, Faith Hill, Keith Urban, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert and Jelly Roll.
Cody Johnson earns his second leader on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “The Painter” ascends 3-1 on the March 9-dated ranking. During the Feb. 23-29 tracking week, the single increased by 12% to 31.2 million impressions, according to Luminate.
Johnson, from Sebastopol, Texas, previously hit No. 8 on Country Airplay with “Human” in June 2023, and his first No. 1, “‘Til You Can’t,” which ruled for two frames starting in March 2022. Prior to his three top 10s, his first entry, “With You I Am,” reached No. 40 in May 2017. He broke through further with “On My Way to You” (No. 11, June 2019).
Benjy Davis, Kat Higgins and Ryan Larkins co-wrote “The Painter,” which Trent Willmon produced. It’s the lead single from Johnson’s LP Leather, which arrived on Top Country Albums at its No. 5 best last November, becoming his fifth top 10.
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Johnson’s additional song, and next proper single, on Country Airplay, “Dirt Cheap,” places at No. 58 (736,000).
‘23’ Is Top 10
Chayce Beckham’s “23” climbs 11-10 on Country Airplay (18.4 million, up 5%), becoming his first top 10. The Apple Valley, Calif., native was crowned the winner of ABC’s American Idol in 2021 and performed “23” live on-air during that season. He had written the song a year before, and became the first champ to win the competition performing an original song.
Beckham is the fourth winner in the Idol franchise to hit the Country Airplay top 10. He joins Carrie Underwood (30 top 10s, including 16 No. 1s, after winning in 2005), Scotty McCreery (eight top 10s, five No. 1s; 2011) and Kelly Clarkson (two top 10s, one No. 1; 2002, Idol’s inaugural season).
Meanwhile, “23” (not the same composition as Sam Hunt’s song of the same name that topped Country Airplay for a week in April 2022) is the chart’s first top 10 written by a single person since Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” which led for five weeks beginning last July.
After reaching Billboard’s country charts for the first time with “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Beyoncé makes her first appearance on a rock radio airplay tally with the buzzy, banjo-inflected single.
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The song debuts at No. 36 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart dated March 9. It’s Beyoncé’s maiden placement on any of Billboard’s rock-based airplay lists (Adult Alternative Airplay, Alternative Airplay, Mainstream Rock Airplay and Rock & Alternative Airplay). Adult Alternative Airplay reflects songs’ weekly plays on a panel of 50 adult alternative-formatted stations, with data, as monitored by Mediabase, provided to Billboard by Luminate. The format encompasses music under the umbrella of Americana, including material considered more specifically folk, country, blues, soul and other related styles.
The leader in spins for “Texas Hold ‘Em” on the Adult Alternative Airplay panel Feb. 23-29 was KVYN in Napa Valley, Calif. The station played the song 45 times in that span.
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“KVYN decided to get on this Beyoncé track right away, mostly to support her musical evolution and dabbling in American roots music,” KVYN program director Nate Campbell tells Billboard. “So far, it’s working in our rotation and we’re happy to have ‘Country Beyoncé’ in our mix.”
Adult Alternative Airplay is the latest airplay chart on which “Texas Hold ‘Em” has debuted. The song bounded 54-34 in its second week on Country Airplay (March 2) and dips to No. 38 on the March 9 survey. Concurrently, it bounds 28-16 on Adult Pop Airplay, 25-17 on Pop Airplay and 36-23 on Rhythmic Airplay – as the Greatest Gainer on each chart – as well as 28-24 on Adult R&B Airplay, 36-32 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and 40-32 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.
Thanks to Country Airplay and Adult Alternative Airplay now on her résumé, Beyoncé ties Pharrell Williams for the most airplay charts – 18 – on which any artist has appeared. (Among women, she surpasses Mariah Carey, with 17.) The 18 airplay charts, among 25 in Billboard’s menu, that Beyoncé has graced: Adult Alternative Airplay, Adult Contemporary, Adult Pop Airplay, Adult R&B Airplay, Country Airplay, Dance/Mix Show Airplay, Gospel Airplay, Latin Airplay, Latin Pop Airplay, Latin Rhythm Airplay, Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Pop Airplay, R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, the all-format Radio Songs chart, Rap Airplay, Rhythmic Airplay, Smooth Jazz Airplay and Tropical Airplay.
“Texas Hold ‘Em” and counterpart “16 Carriages” are expected to be on Beyoncé’s eighth studio album, the follow-up to the Houston native’s 2022 LP Renaissance, due March 29. Both tracks were released Feb. 11 – with the latter having launched atop the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart dated Feb. 24. It added a second week at No. 1 on the most recently published, March 2-dated chart, when it also ascended to the top of the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. In addition to 16.1 million in all-format radio airplay audience, the song drew 29 million official U.S. streams and sold 29,000 Feb. 16-22, according to Luminate.
All Billboard charts dated March 9 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, March 5.
On Thursday (Feb. 29), three-time Grammy winner Trisha Yearwood led a conversation with reigning CMA entertainer of the year Lainey Wilson, as part of the 2024 Country Radio Seminar in downtown Nashville.
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Among the topics they discussed were the importance of women artists standing up for themselves, the similarities in their respective career paths, and battling imposter syndrome.
Both have carved out multi-faceted careers, with No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits, awards accolades and work in television. (Wilson was featured on the series Yellowstone, while Yearwood is known for her Food Network cooking series Trisha’s Southern Kitchen, as well as roles in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, the live television musical The Passion and a recurring role on the military drama JAG).
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In May 1991, Yearwood’s debut single “She’s in Love With the Boy” appeared on the Country Airplay chart; by early August that same year, it had reached the pinnacle. In 2021, Wilson earned her first No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit with “Things a Man Oughta Know,” and has followed with a string of chart-toppers.
They discussed their rapid career rises, with Yearwood recalling that time period surrounding the radio success for her debut radio single, “She’s in Love With the Boy” feeling like “a dream come true,” but she also described it as “holding onto a runaway train and just trying to keep up. And a lot of it is a blur, until I made myself figure out how to be in the moment.”
“I’m in the process of that right now… the last few years have been a whirlwind in the best kind of way,” Wilson responded, adding, “Somebody was telling me — I think it was back in 2017 when I signed my first publishing deal — they told me, ‘It’s going to feel like you’re being drug behind a ski boat for years.’”
Taking on country radio
Wilson (who earned her first Grammy this year for her album Bell Bottom Country) has earned four No. 1 Country Airplay hits: “Things a Man Oughta Know,” the Jelly Roll collaboration “Save Me,” the two-week chart-topper “Never Say Never” (with Cole Swindell) and the three-week solo No. 1, “Watermelon Moonshine.”
But Wilson recalled how when she was first taking her music to radio, there was at least one difficult encounter with a radio exec, pointing out the importance of not taking no for an answer.
“Radio tour, it was hard. It was really, really hard, I’m not going to lie to y’all,” Wilson said. “It taught me a lot. I made a lot of friends along the way that I still text and we talk all the time. But I do remember one specific stop: I go in and we waited in the foyer. He brings us into his office and he said, ‘Play me what you got.’ This was my first single, ‘Dirty Looks.’ He said, ‘You should have left your guitar in the car. I don’t want to hear you play. I want to hear what it sounds like through the speakers.’ Well, he had like 1997 computer speakers, so of course you couldn’t understand anything that the song was saying. He listened to it twice, back-to-back. I was just sitting there and he let the second time finish. He leans across his desk and he said, ‘Lainey, you’re just not that good.’ And I leaned across his desk and I said, ‘So-and-so, out of the 10 years that I’ve been in Nashville, you telling me that don’t mean s–t.’”
She went on to add, “It did light another fire underneath me. After I left there, I was like, ‘Okay, at the end of the day you put yourself out there. Not everybody’s going to like you or love you … I think moments like that, they’re not fun. But if anything, they do build character. They give you fun stories to talk about with Trisha Yearwood.”
Yearwood, who has earned five No. 1 Country Airplay hits, offered up her own difficult encounter during one radio interview, when a radio interviewer brought up a fake story about Yearwood that had been in a tabloid.
“I was doing a show and went to the radio station that was sponsoring the show,” Yearwood recalled. “The DJ thought it was funny..and said, ‘Let’s talk about this.’ I said, ‘I can’t believe you would ask me that question.’ And I left, and I’ve never done anything like that.” She went on to add that, “They were very apologetic, but to say to you — and I don’t know if you’ve had that experience yet — but I wish I had learned earlier. I was about your age that I was like, ‘I’m kind and I’m nice, but there’s some things that aren’t okay.’ It’s okay to say that’s not right.”
Leading with purpose — and advice from Dolly
Yearwood also noted the importance of being selective in the projects you agree to take on, to make sure they are in alignment with an artist’s goals.
“I never said, ‘I want to have a cookbook. I want to have a cooking show,’” Yearwood said. “But I was open for the opportunities when they came. And I’ve said no to a lot more stuff than I said yes to. But I say yes to the things that feel right to me. And that’s always the bar to follow. People can read through things when they know it’s not genuine.”
“There’s definitely been times where I felt like I was doing it all,” Wilson said, relating some advice she received from Dolly Parton. “I asked her, ‘How do you decide everything that you’re doing?’ She said, ‘It has to be something that I’m really passionate about and excited to do. It that’s not the case, then I don’t do it.’”
Navigating Social Media
Wilson also shared advice she wrote down shortly after meeting Yearwood for the first time. “She said, ‘For y’all right now, the line between being loved and hated by the world is getting smaller every day. I was like, ‘Oh, Lord’ — because sometimes people love you, people hate you, and then sometimes people hate you because people love you.”
“That’s true: There’s this whole thing of everybody rooting [for you], then when you get to the top of the heap, now we got to figure out a way to make her not superhuman. Now we got to take her down a peg,” Yearwood said. “I guess that’s human nature and the social media aspect makes the world bigger, and smaller.”
She added, “Every time I used to read the comments — good God, don’t do that. I used to read and I’d just get so upset by things and I would call my people and go, ‘We’re getting off of social media.’ And they were like, ‘Actually, you can’t really do that.’ I wanted to interact, but then I realized that I also needed to protect my mental health.”
“Yeah, because even if you put your eyes on it for a split second, it still pings your heart … you’re still human.”
Battling Imposter Syndrome
They also fielded questions from the audience, including one about staying centered as a person during a career rise, and battling imposter syndrome.
“I have a lot of people in my life who remind me of my hard work,” Wilson said. “Even folks like Luke Combs. The day after the CMAs, he texted me this huge novel, and he’s like, ‘Lainey, I just want you to remember that you’re that girl that moved here and lived in that camper trailer and I knew you back then. I’m so proud to see your hard work being recognized and don’t you start thinking that you didn’t deserve this for one second.’ It’s keeping people like those close people who lift you up — also just talking to the Lord. At the end of the day, I got to keep those things close really, really close because this business is hard.”
Though Beyoncé wasn’t in attendance, the singer-songwriter (and her chart-topping hit “Texas Hold ‘Em”) has been a much-discussed topic during the annual Country Radio Seminar being held this week in downtown Nashville.
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Queen Bey recently made history when “Texas Hold ‘Em” debuted atop the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart; the song went on to top the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. In its second week on the Country Airplay chart, “Texas Hold ‘Em” rose from its No. 54 debut to No. 34.
During an early-morning panel on Friday (March 1) titled “Diversi-’Tea’: Spilling the Data on Inclusive Programming,” panelist Travis Moon, the current director of operations for Radio One Houston and the program director of KKBQ, spoke of being early adopter in playing “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
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“I saw the song come out and was waiting for the edit that we could play,” he said. “I could have overthought this, but my initial gut said, ‘Let’s go.’ A lot of times, we wait to see who moves first; safety in numbers. I didn’t care.” He went on to add, “If the listener turned on the station in the middle of that song, it sounds like something we would play.”
Moon didn’t see playing the song — and adding it during the day — as a huge risk. “I’ve been doing country radio for 32 years, we’ve played hundreds of stiffs during the day that we never play anymore. I don’t know how it will do in the research world, but it sounds great on the radio.” He also noted that during a recent event the station held, they played “Texas Hold ‘Em,” and “the dancefloor was full.”
“First of all, Beyoncé is part of a huge conversation, and you can’t ignore a song she puts out regardless of what genre you work in,” said fellow panelist Jess Wright, has served as the country format captain and host at LiveOne/Slacker Radio since 2016. Wright noted that in their metrics, they are seeing “Texas Hold ‘Em” “has the highest-banned score of any song on stations it is played on. It also has the highest heart score. We expected this because you will always have your traditionalists. There are people who won’t want to hear it.” She noted that listener reactions to “Texas Hold ‘Em” are very similar to those they saw with the 2019 Lil Nas X/Billy Ray Cyrus smash hit “Old Town Road.” “It was the most-panned and the most-hearted,” Wright said.
On the Country Airplay chart dated March 2, “Texas Hold ‘Em” was among the songs with the most increased audience and most increased plays. But it remains to be seen what will ultimately happen with the song at country radio. During a panel discussing “Debunking Industry Myths,” Gator Harrison, Senior VP of Programming for iHeartMedia’s Nashville Market, said, “I played [the Beyoncé track] as soon as I got it, we’re exposing it and once we’ve exposed it enough, we’re going to go to research and ask, ‘What do you guys think? Do you like this?’ We still have to have that local conversation through research with our audience.”
“Whether it’s a song that stays long-term, it does feel a little bit of a novelty, but it sounds good so right now we are sticking with it,” Wright said.
Earlier in the week, “Texas Hold ‘Em” was also part of the conversation in another diversity-focused panel, which featured BBR Music Group leader/president Frontline Recordings, North America Jon Loba, as well as singer-songwriters Frank Ray and Lily Rose, as well as consultant Jaye Albright, and moderated by the Country Music Association’s Senior Director, Industry Relations & Inclusion Mia McNeal.
Loba addressed some of the criticism that has swirled around the song being part of the country music format.
“To the Beyoncé point, I absolutely understand wanting to be protective with the format, and the young artists put in so much work and so much effort for that one shot,” Loba said. “So I do understand the thought of this taking a slot maybe of somebody who’s been here… and wanted to do it all their life. But I think that there is a balance. Maybe [country radio] won’t play every Beyoncé record, but right now one of the biggest icons in music is saying, ‘This genre is cool, this genre matters,’ and we should at least, in this moment, embrace that. Everybody wants to be here. Come to our house. We’re the coolest house on the block.”
Loba also offered a potent reminder regarding backlash surrounding the song, saying, “I also think the gatekeepers need to understand the loudest voice is not always the majority.”
“I’m not surprised by the way this industry has embraced this album,” McNeal said. “I think by and large, most people have enjoyed it. And if some people don’t, they don’t. And it’s OK. It’s art, and it’s something to be consumed and judged.”
On the same panel, Ray, who broke through with his Latin music-tinged song “Streetlights,” praised the lift that the song is giving to other Black women country artists on streaming and socials. “She’s elevating these other Black female artists that have been doing it for such a long time, like Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts and Tanner Adell — if we can do that with a Mexican artist, that’d be awesome.”
“That song is countrier than 33% of stuff that is on country radio right now… she just wrote a country song and it’s great, and it’s a tide lifting all boats,” Rose added.
Fellow “Spilling the Diversi’TEA’” panelist Jada Watson, an assistant professor of Digital Humanities in the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa (and the principal investigator on the SongData project), noted that since the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em,” there have been increased numbers of consumption and engagement on DSPs and social media platforms for Black country artists — including Rissi Palmer, Tanner Adell and Reyna Roberts — but that largely hasn’t translated to radio support.
“I’m not seeing it yet on radio, but I recognize this is week three,” Watson said. She also spoke of concerns as to whether this will mark lasting support for other Black women country artists: “That is where my concerns lie now — how and when will this translate into support for the Black women who have been pursuing country music?”
The comments from the panels came as part of an ongoing wider conversation about increasing diversity on country radio, and opening doors to include and elevate more women artists and artists from Black, Latino and LGBTQIA+ communities.
Moon advocated for radio taking more chances and looking beyond what research testing might show, pointing out as an example the success of Gabby Barrett’s 2020 hit “I Hope,” saying the song “had some high negative [scores] and huge high passion [scores]. I ignored the negatives and it ended up being a big hit. A lasting hit.”
“The reality is when you are testing music, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Moon said. “If we have less female artists in our music tests, when people are taking the test, it does hit them as a little more novelty. They’re unaccustomed to hearing a lot [of female voices on radio], so you’ll have higher negatives as a result. I have in the past ignored the negatives on female artists, and I look specifically at the love score,” he said, later adding, “That doesn’t mean I’m going to put it power, but that doesn’t mean I’m going drop a song. There’s certain context. I look at artists and I don’t [do] just one size fits all the negative scores. So that’s one rule I’m willing to break, [in order to] try to find, unlock that passion.”
Rose, who was named outstanding breakthrough artist at the 2022 GLAAD Media Awards, said, “I think with fans, you just have to give them patience. They just want to be moved. They just want to hear a good song.”
“We don’t give the audience enough credit,” Loba said. “At the end of the day, people want to hear great music. We as the labels just need to offer that up and gatekeepers do, too.”
Loba’s sentiment was echoed by during the Friday morning panel, with Wright telling attendees, “We need to play good songs and find great music wherever we can find them.”
Watson also noted the benefit of increasing the diversity of artists and sounds found in country music in reaching members of the vast country music audience, saying, “The audience of country music is far more diverse in every way than we even know. I think the exciting thing about this moment is that we have the tools to actually discover who that audience not just is now, but who they always been. And I think that once we start to know who that audience is, we’re going to start to see changes that reflect a greater diversity within the industry as well.”
On Georgia native Peytan Porter’s six-song, sophomore EP Grown, out Friday (March 1), she sheds light on a creative revival, the culmination of dismantling — then rebuilding — her sound to reveal her true self.
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“This past six to 12 months has been just reclaiming my entire life and setting myself on a really good direction,” she tells Billboard.
Porter’s music career gained traction not long after her 2020 graduation from Nashville’s Lipscomb University, where she studied public relations. A year later, she signed a publishing deal with Jody Williams Songs and Warner Chappell Nashville and saw her song “Therapy” go viral on TikTok. She followed with her pop-country debut 2022 EP In My Head. But while her debut only showcased one dimension of her musical abilities, Porter says Grown feels more akin to who she is. The album is lush with introspective lyrics and gauzy, Laurel Canyon vibes.
Porter name-checks the modern sounds of folk-rocker Foy Vance and the blues-influenced Chris Stapleton, as well as more classic influences, including Fleetwood Mac and Linda Ronstadt’s 1977 album Simple Dreams.
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“There’s just a kind of drifter, free nomad energy that comes with that whole timeframe,” Porter says of the 1960s and 1970s scene that birthed music from Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Mamas and the Papas and more. “I was doing a lot of digging into that whole era and was inspired by how touring fueled the music itself. It felt like they hashed things out on the road and brought it into the studio. I wanted my music to sound like it does live and I can’t do that if I’m using track and synthetic sounds. This record feels like I’m stepping into my own.”
Porter, who is managed by Red Light Management, and repped by CAA for booking, will get the chance to showcase her new music this year at festivals including Tortuga Music Festival and Gulf Coast Jam. Beginning in June, she will also open shows for Tim McGraw on his Standing Room Only tour.
Billboard spoke with Porter, Billboard’s March Country Rookie of the Month, about the stories behind the songs on her new project and her journey toward her newfound sound.
What was the catalyst for creating your new album?
When my first record came out, I felt kind of lost. A lot of exciting things had happened fast, and doors were opening. I was trying to keep up and didn’t have the capacity to stop and create a direction for myself — it felt like I was going with whatever was popping up. When the project came out, it felt like a finish line of sorts, and for the first time I had space to pause and be like, ‘Is this the direction I want to go for the next 20 to 50 years?’ And I felt a resounding ‘No.’ There were so many parts of myself that I wasn’t showing, and that didn’t feel authentic. I’m not a good enough actress to have kept up the gig that long.
How did you take the time to recalibrate, creatively?
I spent a lot of time alone in the woods. I went on a dating hiatus. I tried to just be alone and figure out my style, independent of the people around me. I started making decisions and not asking for opinions. I cut my bangs, moved into a sketchy apartment and started decorating it with candles and weird mushroom decorations, gaudy gold and jewel tones. I figured out how to stop apologizing for what I like, and that bled into the music. Luckily, my team supported me. And I had turned 25, so it was like my quarter-life crisis. A perfect storm.
The title track of the album touches on the apartment and some of the rougher moments that come with figuring things out on your own. Are there any particular moments that inspired that song?
I wrote this after I moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Nashville. It maybe wasn’t the smartest decision I had made. I had an outside-facing unit, ground level. I remember it was New Year’s Eve and I’m in my bed journaling and I hear gunshots right outside of my window. I crawl out of bed and am sitting on the floor and praying for protection. I grabbed my guitar and just started capturing what was going on around me.
That moment was so far from what everyone back home was doing — my sister was expecting a baby, my best friend was planning a wedding — and I was going through this artistic shift. I remember thinking, “This is what you wanted.” I wrote like half of the song and brought it to Steve Moakler and Mark Trussell, to finish it together.
“God’s Hotel” has a more bluesy vibe and a message of self-acceptance. What feel were you going for on this?
On the road, we close with “God’s Hotel,” and then go into “Lean on Me,” and I wanted this communal kind of feel. When I go to a live show, I feel that. Finding a place where we all belong is important to me, because it’s a journey we all take of figuring out who we are, and then finding people who will let us be that.
You reunited with Greg Bates, whom you also worked with on In My Head. How did the process of working on this album compare with your first project?
I was much more hands-on sonically, with this record. I came in with playlists and vision for sounds and different instrumentations. He trusted me to know what I wanted. He pulled in players like [steel guitar player] Dan Dugmore, who played with Linda Ronstadt. He was intentional with the people he brought in and the sounds we used.
You recorded this album live, all the musicians in the studio together. How did that impact the feel of the EP?
We wanted to capture the live concert feeling. That meant not bringing in a blueprint of stems from a demo and working from it, but rather creating it in the moment. We played it all together and I got to sing with them on every take. There was this energy of it being a live shared experience, that I feel got captured. We did come back and tweak a few things after the fact, but I wanted it to feel like we were doing something together.
This time in the studio, I had a lot more opinions. I came in and saged the studio, and got it ready to be the kind of energy I wanted. It was the first time I felt like I had a voice in a space like that. It can be daunting with a mainly male presence in a room like that — to be a female artist, and come in and have a vision — but they gave me space to follow that vision.
“Run the Radio” is about a breakup, but also reclaiming freedom. What’s the story behind this song?
I was on a balcony on vacation, writing songs, and thought about this guy I had recently been involved with, who had lived in a van. I thought the experience was worth at least putting in a song. I thought, “I didn’t like any of his music” — and then I thought, “I didn’t like any of my exes’ music.” When I dated an athlete, I listened to hip-hop and R&B. I dated a mountain guy who was into obscure folk. The guy with the van liked EDM and house music. I realized I was trying to cater myself to him.
That’s when I had this idea of, “I run the radio now.” I only listen to what I like. The song came out so beautifully. The more I appreciate my own instincts and styles, the more I want to offer that feeling of freedom, strength, and just pure joy to people.
You signed with Jody Williams Songs and Warner Chappell Nashville in 2021. How have they championed this self-discovery season?
He’s the best person and guru. I remember saying, “Jody, I think I’ll just cut my bangs.” It’s like when you go through a break-up and you want to cut off all your hair — that happened creatively. And he goes, “Maybe start with a trim.” That’s the most Jody response — don’t blow up your life, but just start somewhere. And they have seen me through this crazy journey. They signed me to write songs, and then three months later I have a song take off as an artist. They have rolled with the punches and trusted me to know what I want for myself.
As an artist and a songwriter, how do you balance the demands of both roles?
It is a vast difference. Some days I’m making graphics at 1:00 a.m. and I have a [writing session] at 11:00 a.m. and a coffee meeting, and I’m doing all the artist things that people don’t realize we have to do. Then having to figure out what I get to put out as an artist and what songs I’m in love with as a writer. It’s a juggle; You want to honor the craft and that’s always hard in a commercial setting. But I love that I have the option of doing both; I think there is a time and place for both and I think country music, especially, kind of honors the people who can toe the line between commercial and craft.
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Carly Pearce thought she knew what the title track of her fourth full-length album would be. Then she wrote “hummingbird.”
“When I wrote ‘Country Music Made Me Do It,’ I was like, ‘This is the title of the album,’” she says of the playful, cheeky song she released last summer. “’hummingbird’ was one of the last songs I wrote for the record and it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is what it was meant to be the whole time.’”
The delicate, fiddle-laced title track about resilience closes hummingbird, coming June 14. “It’s kind of my little bluegrass moment,” she says, adding she got a tattoo of a hummingbird once she completed the project. “It’s lyrically way more abstract than what you would usually hear on a contemporary country record. It’s kind of an artistic way of saying that you’re not going to settle.”
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After the heaviness of 2021’s EP 29 and its full-length companion 29: Written in Stone, Pearce says writing the songs for hummingbird felt “light and airy and freeing and like a big exhale.”
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Both 29 and 29: Written in Stone received commercial and critical acclaim, including Pearce’s duet with Ashley McBryde, “Never Wanted to Be That Girl,” which won a Grammy in 2023 for best country duo/ group performance. The sets fearlessly mined Pearce’s heartache following her divorce from Michael Ray and were filled with confessional reflections. The albums “really taught me just how vulnerable I could be and how that could transcend,” she says. “Even though I thought I was only writing my story, it seems like I’ve been writing a lot of other people’s stories.”
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Still, Pearce hit a bit of a stumbling block when it came time to start the new album. “I was so intimidated of how to follow 29 because I never wrote that thinking it would have any kind of success,” she says. “But what it did is it taught me so much about how strong I am. And so, to see this album be finished and for it to speak to so much that has happened to me, I’m really proud of myself, and hummingbird will forever remind me that I can really do anything.”
While love often still goes sideways in the songs on hummingbird, on many of them, including “Truck on Fire,” “Still Blue” and “Rock Paper Scissors,” Pearce is coming from a place of control and often humor. “I think there comes a lot of strength and almost a playfulness to laugh at what you’ve been through and not make a joke of it, but make light of it because it’s part of your story,” she says.
With the exception of the moving Grammy-nominated duet and current single “We Don’t Fight Anymore,” featuring Chris Stapleton, the first half of the 14-track album is more lighthearted than the second half by design. “It was important to me that the first songs that people heard from me were that I’m doing good,” she says “It’s a two-part album of healing because with the healing comes a great freedom and joy. Even the heavier side that can feel harder in moments, there’s still a sense of strength that 29 didn’t have because, quite frankly, I didn’t have the strength during 29.”
Carly Pearce, ‘hummingbird’
Courtesy of Big Machine Records
Pearce, who co-wrote 13 of the 14 tracks, produced the album with 29 and Written in Stone producers Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. “They know me on such a personal level now that I think they were the only people I could make this next record with,” she says. “They just had such a sense of where I was and where I wanted to go and sonically what I was wanting to do.”
That included “doubling down” on the traditional country instrumentation the Kentucky native featured on those two sets that was noticeably absent from her first two albums helmed by the late pop producer busbee. Songs like the twangy “Fault Line” recall her musical hero Loretta Lynn and the music she listened to growing up.
“My grandparents, when they figured out I wanted to be a country artist at 5, bought me all of these deluxe [compilations] from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s and I studied those. While ‘90s country is such a big part of me, those classic sounds of Loretta and Tammy [Wynette] and George [Jones], I was just a fan of all of it.”
The gauzy, monochromatic, stripped-down visualizer for “hummingbird,” which premieres above, sets the tone for the images for the project. “There’s less makeup, less of the really fixed hair. There’s prisms in the lens of the camera,” Pearce says. “All of it has been super intentional and super important to me to make the visual feel different than anything I’ve ever done.”
Pearce drew inspiration from one of her fellow country artists. “Especially in country music, it can get very, very polished and predictable in imaging. I’ve been really inspired by people like Kacey Musgraves, who has stayed competitive, but always has something different in the way that she looks in her photos. And I wanted to find how I could challenge myself from a visual standpoint to just look a little different.”
Pearce will debut the title track at Big Machine Label Group’s luncheon at Country Radio Seminar on Friday (March 1). “That’s certainly not a song that you would think I would choose to sing at a radio luncheon, but I’m singing it because this is the kind of music that I make. This is the kind of message that I want to send,” she says. “It’s a really important record for me and I think just being able to sing something like this has also shown me that country radio has accepted me for me. And I feel really lucky that that is where I’m at in my career four records in.”
Just days after premiering “The One (Pero No Como Yo)” at the 2024 Premio Lo Nuestro, Carin León and Kane Brown have released the track’s music video, which Billboard is premiering exclusively. Fusing country and regional Mexican — two genres that are more similar than different (for starters both center on storytelling and live instruments) […]
Olivia Rodrigo is bringing her Guts World Tour to Texas, so naturally, she’s turning up Beyoncé‘s chart-topping new ode to the Lone Star State. In a TikTok posted ahead of her Wednesday (Feb. 28) show in Austin, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter sports a purple cowboy hat and springs in and out of a hollow, oversized birthday […]
Singer-songwriter Maren Morris is among the 2024 Billboard Women in Music honorees, where she will be honored with the Visionary award.
Billboard takes a deep dive into Morris’ crossover chart successes that have make her a force on both the country and all-genre charts. Since her debut with “My Church” in 2016, Morris has fashioned a mesh of country, pop and R&B that has resonated with fans and propelled her to seeing 12 songs cross over onto the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart, including a top five hit with her 2018 track “The Middle” with Zedd and Grey.
Meanwhile, she’s earned top milestones on the Hot Country Songs chart, too. Morris’s 2020 hit “The Bones” spent 19 weeks atop the Hot Country Songs chart, making it the second-longest running No. 1 on the chart by an unaccompanied solo woman in history. It also peaked at No. 12 on the Hot 100.
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She’s also earned four No. 1 hits on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart, including “I Could Use a Love Song” and the Thomas Rhett duet “Craving You,” “Girl” and “The Bones.”
Her 2016 album Hero and 2019 album GIRL topped the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, and her 2022 album Humble Quest debuted at No. 2 on the tally. GIRL also picked up the Country Music Association’s album of the year honor in 2019.
The 2024 Billboard Women in Music ceremony will be held March 6 at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles, and will celebrate women who are making an impact across the music industry.
Other honorees include Billboard‘s Woman of the Year honoree Karol G, Hitmaker award honoree Ice Spice, Icon honoree Kylie Minogue, Powerhouse award winner Charli XCX, Impact honoree Young Miko, Rising Star honoree Victoria Monét, Group of the Year NewJeans, Breakthrough winner TEMS and the recipient of the new Global Force award, Luísa Sonza. The evening will be hosted by actor-producer Tracee Ellis Ross.
Billboard revealed the full slate of its 2024 Women in Music honorees, across the spectrum of music industry sectors, from record labels to publishing to touring on Feb. 29.