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Ahead of Dolly Parton‘s upcoming book Behind The Seams, which releases Oct. 17 and delves into decades worth of Parton’s iconic fashions from rhinestoned dresses to fringed jumpsuits, the 10-time Grammy winner discussed the pros and cons of her glamorous image in an interview with The Guardian.
Parton said that though many people failed to take her seriously over the years due to her famous image, she refused to change for anyone and kept her focus on her work. “Actually,” she says, “my look came from a very serious place. That’s how I thought I looked best. Sometimes that’s worked for me, sometimes it can work against you. It took me probably years longer to be taken serious, but I wasn’t willing to change it, and I figured if I had the talent, it’d show up sooner or later.”
Since releasing her debut country single, “Dumb Blonde,” in 1967, Parton has earned two No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits (“Islands in the Stream” and “9 to 5”) as well as 25 No. 1 Hot Country Songs hits. She’s been inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and earned the Country Music Association’s top honor, entertainer of the year, in 1978.
Parton added, especially as a woman in the 1960s and 1970s music industry, she was regularly dismissed by industry executives — but she didn’t back down.
“I would just say, ‘I think I have something that we can all make some money off of, and get over the fact that I’m a girl here, because my mind is on something else.’ I always knew how to maneuver in a crowd of men,” she said, noting that she grew with numerous brothers and uncles. “I never slept with anybody to get ahead, because to me it wouldn’t be worth it. That don’t usually work in the long haul either.”
She also noted that she did face sexual harassment along the way. “Oh, I did, but I always knew how to put a man in his place without making him feel bad. If sometimes that don’t work, I’m also strong as a boy – I know how to push you off and get the hell away from you.” Asked whether she’s had to push back against harassment both in her personal life and in her career, she said, “Both. And that’s a very uncomfortable situation. I was always able to get away before [a serious assault] would happen, but I feel sorry because some women are not able and some men are that aggressive.”
Parton’s story of modeling her image after the “town tramp,” as she says — a woman who wore high heels, red lipstick and low-cut tops — is well-known. Parton told The Guardian that her father and grandfather strongly disagreed with her choices, and at times, her grandfather physically punished her for it.
“I was willing to pay for it,” Parton said. “I’m very sensitive, I didn’t like being disciplined – it hurt my feelings so bad to be scolded or whipped or whatever. But sometimes there’s just that part of you that’s willing, if you want something bad enough, to go for it.”
The wide-ranging interview also finds Parton discussing her reason for deciding early in her career to not delve too deeply into political situations.
“Because you’re going to lose half your audience,” she said. “Even within my own family, especially the last few years since Trump and Biden, all that, it’s like we can’t even go to a family dinner any more. Especially if people are drinking – they get in a damn fight at the table. Don’t get so trapped where if you’re a Republican, you got to be this way, if you’re Democrat, you got to be that way. You’re not allowed to think nothing else. Well, how crippling is that? I’ve got as many Democrats as I do Republicans as fans, and I’m not going to insult any of them because I care about all of them. I ain’t that good a Christian to think that I am so good that I can judge people. That’s God’s job, not mine. So as far as politics, I hate politics. Hate politics.”
Parton also recently announced a four-part radio series, What Would Dolly Do?, set to air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Apple Music 1, beginning Oct. 25. The first episode features Parton with co-host Kelleigh Bannen, and finds Parton discussing her iconic image and career, as well as her book Behind the Seams.
Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” spent six weeks atop Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. But the track wasn’t recorded anywhere near Nashville — it was crafted alongside producer Ryan Hadlock, over 2,000 miles away at Bear Creek, the rustic barn-turned-studio that Hadlock’s parents had built in 1977 just outside of Seattle, not far from the birthplace of grunge. The genre-fluid song didn’t just top the country chart — it peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, too.
“Even the term ‘country music’ is almost becoming passé in some ways because in working with Zach, in a lot of ways, he doesn’t really consider himself a straight-up country musician,” says Hadlock, who also produced Bryan’s “From Austin.” “He’s a singer-songwriter who happens to be from Oklahoma, has an accent and sings about the world he’s in… I think he will be doing amazing things for a really long time.”
Within Nashville, too, a similar genre-mashing ethos has bubbled up on hits such as Morgan Wallen’s muted, acoustic-based chart juggernaut “Last Night,” which spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks atop the Hot 100 in 2023. “He has one of those magical voices that allows him to span multiple formats, really,” says producer Joey Moi, who has worked with Wallen since his debut album. “He can sing a traditional country song, or over a hip-hop, contemporary production or a contemporary country production, and it still sounds like a Morgan Wallen song.”
As more and more country tracks have risen to the upper reaches of the Hot 100 this past year, many of the standouts — not only “Something in the Orange” and “Last Night,” in addition to other tracks by Bryan and Wallen, but also Luke Combs’ rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” (which reached No. 2), Bailey Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place” (which hit the top 10) and Jelly Roll’s rock and country-blending “Need a Favor” (which broke into the top 20) — demonstrate an instinct for crafting sounds that appeal beyond the genre.
A mix of newcomers and veterans, they include Hadlock; Wallen’s “Last Night” producers, Moi and Charlie Handsome; Zimmerman producer Austin Shawn; Combs’ “Fast Car” co-producers, Jonathan Singleton and Chip Matthews; and Jelly Roll producer Austin Nivarel.
Notably, many of these studio creatives have résumés that extend beyond country. Before working with Big Loud artists like Wallen and Florida Georgia Line, Moi produced Canadian rock band Nickelback. Hadlock has worked with names ranging from Foo Fighters to Brandi Carlile, while Handsome’s credits include Post Malone, Kanye West, Juice WRLD and Lil Wayne.
For Wallen and Bryan, scaled-back production proved essential to the genre-traversing success of their respective hits. “We purposefully kept it simple,” Moi says of “Last Night.” “There are a handful of parts going on, but it’s more about the negative space and making it about the story, the vocal and the instrumental that runs throughout. It lends itself to being accessible by more lanes as far as radio formats; it was tougher to define as just a country song, or just a pop song or [adult top 40] song. It kind of fit everywhere.”
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Moi says the song’s sparse production partially resulted from Wallen’s own creative inclinations. “My natural instinct is to build these larger-than-life productions, and Morgan is great about coming behind me and being like, ‘Take this out and that part out,’ making sure I’m not doing too much on certain things,” Moi says. “I’d say he has had his best opportunity on the last two records to really imprint upon every aspect of it, from the songwriting to demos to our approach to tracking in the studio and postproduction. You can hear his contemporary, youthful thoughts over all of it.”
Similarly, Hadlock notes the minimal production on “Something in the Orange,” which utilized vintage mics and gear. “Sometimes old equipment is better at capturing emotion, and part of it is having a good room; I think people don’t always realize how much an instrument the room is that people are playing in,” says Hadlock, whose goal was a recording that sounded like Bryan was “playing right in front of you,” that would make “people listen to it and say, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing live recording.’ ”
For Shawn, the freedom to experiment was key in landing the right feel for Zimmerman’s “Rock and a Hard Place.” He and Zimmerman produced the song a half-dozen different ways before landing on the approach they used for the final recording. “We produced an almost John Mayer-esque, real smooth-sounding [version], then the acoustic version and one that was a dark piano ballad, with strings and fiddle that sounded almost like you were listening to a country Goo Goo Dolls song,” Shawn says.
As he did with “Fall in Love,” Shawn incorporated a “three-minute-long sample of just wind” into “Rock and a Hard Place.” “It feels like you are in a desert, and I wanted to feel that open style — we added fiddle and pedal steel, just subtly to bring out the emotive aspect. We wanted this song to feel like you could play it on acoustic guitar, but at the same time, it can still fit into a country radio modern format.”
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Shawn, who co-wrote Zimmerman’s “Fall in Love,” recalls the no-barriers approach he and Zimmerman took early on in developing his sound. “We thought about the kinds of songs he would want to hear and made the music as fans, just encompassing everything we love… There’s no gimmicks with this kid. His gift is making the music that defines him and his lifestyle.”
Ultimately, producers who encourage such experimentation — whether Combs’ cover of a 1980s folk-pop classic, Bryan’s poetic blend of country, folk and rock or Wallen’s country-to-hip-hop range — have shaped songs that are resonating with a multitude of listeners.
“He has always wanted to stay in the country lane, but we all knew he had a sort of contemporary side,” Moi says of Wallen. “If we planted our roots and built our foundation in a good spot, [we knew] we’d have the opportunity to explore other genres, and I think we’re in a sweet spot for that right now.”
This story originally appeared in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Early in his emergence as a national country artist, Keith Urban assembled a string of singles that reveled in the moment.
“Days Go By,” “Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me,” “Somebody Like You,” “Raining on Sunday” and “You’re My Better Half” — some of them from the appropriately named album Be Here — celebrated living life in the present rather than wallowing in the past or stressing about the future. Mastering that is one of the biggest challenges of day-to-day existence in the device-encumbered 21st century. But it has always been a huge hurdle for creators, particularly when business — with its need to plan future marketing and account for past expenses — distracts from making art in the moment.
Urban and fellow composers Kix Brooks, David Lee Murphy, Casey Beathard and Rafe Van Hoy will face an intersection of past, present and future tonight (Oct. 11) when they’re officially inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The event at the Music City Center is by definition a celebration that occurs in the moment, but it’s an achievement built on previous accomplishments, and the enshrinement creates a marker that will exist in a permanent future.
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Urban is likely as prepared for that clash of time stamps as is possible, given how often he has encouraged listeners to grab the moment as it arrives. He recognizes the importance of embracing the now as a steppingstone between the established past and the unknown future.
“I like feeling a part of a through line,” he says, “where I’ve come from, how I got to be where I am, but mostly, I’ve always looked forward.”
Finding the glory in a moment is frequently the task at hand in writing hits. Many fans, often when commuting to or from a job they dislike, look to find escape in recordings that help make their present moments better.
Songs that focus on the instant as it passes can certainly accomplish that, though material that draws on the past or imagines a future event can have value in the current moment, too. Figuring out what kind of song to create is frequently a decision best made by reading the room.
“I like those live-in-the-moment kind of things because I try to [live like] that,” Murphy says. “But I look back fondly on things that I’ve done. So I just kind of take them as they come.”
Murphy has indeed created some lasting songs in present tense: His own “Party Crowd,” the Kenny Chesney hit “Living in Fast Forward” and Jason Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor” all focus on events as they unfold. His 1996 hit “The Road You Leave Behind” leans on past childhood lessons to create a worthwhile present, and his Chesney duet, “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright,” applies optimism to future uncertainty.
The other Hall of Fame entrants have similar mixes. Beathard’s “Don’t Blink,” made famous by Chesney, employs a centenarian character whose advice for successful living is to experience each moment while it’s here. The Eric Church co-write “Like a Wrecking Ball” anticipates a rockin’ bedroom in the very near future. And Beathard’s Jeff Bates hit, “The Love Song,” looks back to understand key relationships.
Brooks’ hit list as a writer includes The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s backward-glancing “Modern Day Romance,” Brooks & Dunn’sright-now declaration “Brand New Man” and a celebration of future possibilities, “Only in America.” But he was living in the present when he wrote it.
Brooks remembers that “Only in America” came together after he and songwriters Don Cook and Ronnie Rogers had spent the day four-wheeling. He describes it as “grown men getting corny, just going, ‘God, are we lucky to be born on this part of the planet?’ We complain about our world sometimes, but man, you know, we are blessed to just have been born here. No matter what your background is, the opportunity is there.”
Creating in the present is tricky — yoga and meditation are currently trendy in part because people find it so difficult to tune into what’s happening now. That’s one of the hurdles that makes the songwriting process — and any other creative endeavors — so challenging. Younger songwriters who are just sticking their toes in the water are prone to get distracted by imagining the song’s future as they create it. Veteran writers more often get hung up by their accumulated experience, measuring the current writing session against previous successes and failures.
The now, of course, is all that’s available. Getting rid of the years of clutter from the past is key to making the most of each fleeting moment as it passes.
“A friend of mine said I had beginner’s mind,” notes Urban. “And I think that’s probably what it is, where I truly walk into a studio to make a record, almost thinking, ‘How do I do this? What? How?’ Where I have no real feelings at all that I’ve ever done a record. And it’s not something I have to try to do. It’s just naturally how I feel. It’s a blank canvas, and it feels very fresh and brand new and exhilarating and anxiety-ridden and everything all at once.”
As simple as that sounds, time is a jumble. Even when writing in the present tense, most songs are informed by other time frames. As an example, the biggest hit for the late John Jarrard, who’ll be added to the Hall of Fame as a legacy entry, was arguably George Strait’s “Blue Clear Sky,” which centered on the instant when a single person recognizes their soul mate. But the present has power because it’s informed by past disappointments. And Jarrard quite often mixed time frames. The Collin Raye cut “My Kind of Girl” and Tracy Lawrence’s “Is That a Tear” paired verses grounded in the past with choruses firmly in the current moment, and his John Schneider cut, “What’s a Memory Like You (Doing in a Love Like This),” blends past and present in a troubling haze.
Van Hoy, meanwhile, earned his first hit with George Jones & Tammy Wynette’s“Golden Ring,” a story song that traces a series of present-tense events in the life cycle of a piece of jewelry. His most enduring song — “What’s Forever For,” recorded numerous times before Michael Martin Murphey cut the hit version — is obsessed with the future.
The Hall of Fame inductees have mostly come to terms with that issue. As they celebrate the present moment at the Oct. 11 ceremony, they have enough past experience to recognize the successful futures they created weren’t necessarily shaped by the songs they expected.
“You never know,” Van Hoy says, “which of those are going to connect and hang around.”
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The arrival of Jessie James Decker‘s latest single, “I’m Gonna Love You,” was a long time in the making — three years to be exact. The country star sat down with Tetris Kelly for the latest Billboard News interview and revealed that she song was originally completed in 2020, but was put on pause at the request of her team.
“This has been a song I’ve held onto since 2020. I wrote it in 2020 with Emily Shackleton and Liz Rose, two of the most incredible songwriters in town. It was just a song I loved so much, and I felt my team didn’t let me put it out for so long,” she shared. “It wasn’t that they didn’t like it — it was like, ‘Let’s wait.’ And finally, I’m like, ‘I’m not waiting anymore.’ I was playing it live on tour, the crowd would go wild, I just felt like it was the right time to put this song out.”
The song arrived on Sept. 22, with a stripped version of the track arriving on Oct. 6. Of the track, Decker says it “shows a side of me I think no one’s ever seen before. It’s vulnerable, it’s soulful, my heart’s really just all in soul. It’s just one of my absolute favorites, so I’m really glad its out there.”
The country star also shared her thoughts about the genre showing dominance on the Billboard charts over the past year, noting that the controversy surrounding some tracks — such as Jason Aldean’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Try That in a Small Town” — is par for the course.
“There will always be controversy in every genre and every bit of music. It’s just part of it — it gets people fired up inside. Music is always going to make you feel some type of way. It’s either gonna make you sad, make you wanna get up and dance. That’s what makes music so incredible,” she explained. “It can just make you feel something, and this is why I love being a part of its moment. EMD had its moment, rock n’ roll had its moment. I just think it’s country’s turn again.”
The “I’m Gonna Love You” singer is also celebrating the Oct. 10 release of her second cookbook, Just Eat: More Than 100 Easy and Delicious Recipes That Taste Just Like Home. For Decker, branching out into food was a natural progression for her, as she was “raised by amazing cooks.”
“My mom’s side is all Italian coming over from Italy and settling in Louisiana. You got cajun roots, southern roots, and that just makes for good food,” she explained of her motivations — partly inspired by her struggles to feed her former NFL player husband Eric Decker — to branch out into food. “I’m not a chef. I’m not here to intimidate anybody or come up with all these fancy foods. I just wanna make great food and help you make great food too.”
Watch Decker’s full Billboard News interview in the video above.
To honor the upcoming 115th anniversary of the Good Housekeeping Seal, the magazine has renewed Dolly Parton‘s personal seal, which the Country Music Hall of Fame member and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member originally earned back in 2001. Parton is the only person to earn the seal since it was introduced by Good […]
It shouldn’t work: David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” with its androgynous storyline and garage-band sound, is from the height of the British glam-rock era, when sexual freedom and defying authority were key tenets in youth culture. Chris Young, a mainstream Southern guy whose persona is not built on rebellion, interpolated the song in his own “Young Love & Saturday Nights” — and somehow, Bowie’s edgy rock riff works within the centrist country sound.
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“Young Love & Saturday Nights” arrives nearly 50 years after “Rebel Rebel” was introduced on Bowie’s 1974 album Diamond Dogs, and at nearly every concert, Young sees fans perk up when they hear Bowie’s familiar lick, the same way that his senses were twisted when a publisher played it for him without warning during a song meeting. “I didn’t have any idea,” Young says, “and within like the first six seconds, I’m like, ‘That’s David Bowie. Why are you playing a David Bowie song?’”
By the time it was over, Young was obsessed. It would, he knew, provide a guitar lick for his concerts that felt like he was doing a cover song for anyone who knew “Rebel Rebel.” But it was still different enough from the original to stand on its own for anyone who didn’t identify its origin.
“Most people get the feeling when that song starts — they go, ‘Why is this familiar?’” says Young, interpreting the facial responses he has witnessed at his shows. “Then the minute that [signature riff arrives], you know immediately what it is, and then it smacks you right in the face at the top of the verse with, ‘No, this is something new.’”
Turning familiar music into something new was the general idea when songwriter Jesse Frasure (“She Had Me at Heads Carolina,” “If I Was a Cowboy”) started sifting through the Bowie catalog for titles that could be ripe for a country re-imagining. The idea might sound like rock’n’roll heresy, but Bowie’s estate practically commissioned the work, conveying interest to Warner Chappell in seeing his music reinterpreted for country. Frasure drew the assignment, and initially had “Heroes” in his crosshairs, before shifting to “Rebel Rebel.”
“One thing was for sure: I didn’t want a David Bowie interpolation to end up hokey,” Frasure recalls. “I felt like ‘Heroes’ could be a little bit sappy and hokey if we did it in a country setting, so I felt like this one at least would have a little bit more edge to it and may be just a little cooler.”
The iconic riff was, of course, the main attraction, in part because Bowie never sang that line as a melody. That meant that a can’t-miss hook was available for the chorus, and Frasure fashioned a basic track to work from, then sent it off to two collaborators, Ashley Gorley (“Last Night,” “Truck Bed”) and Josh Thompson (“Stars Like Confetti,” “I’ll Name the Dogs”), for a Zoom writing session. While they kept the riff, they dropped the “Rebel Rebel” lyrical theme, in which Bowie calls his mysteriously gendered date a “hot tramp.”
“We just tried to find something country to kind of balance it out,” Gorley says. “I have no idea who came up with the title. I think we were just kind of spitballing stuff and thinking of different ideas, and then that kind of spit out there at the end somewhere.”
They purposely avoided using the word “rebel” in the text, though they were determined to find a blue-collar version. Frasure referenced the guy working the docks in Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On a Prayer” as the template. They settled on a local club musician with a rundown Chevy Silverado and a star-struck girlfriend whose father disapproves of her bad-boy choice.
“That scenario is pretty timeless,” says Gorley. “It can happen tonight, and 40 years ago, you know — 50 years ago, whatever that was — the same kind of things were going on. They’re still playing in their bands, driving things that barely run, falling in love with somebody. It’s still happening.”
Even before they knew what the song would be, Frasure had envisioned the word “Alabama” fitting in the middle of the chorus, and that translated into the couple listening to “’89 Alabama.” And in the second verse, they kept the cultural references going by name-checking Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and James Dean.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that history repeats itself,” Frasure says. “To me, it’s so cliché: You pick up guitars, you get the girls, and it’s been repeating itself. And probably the last person you want your daughter to date, that’s the one that they’re going crazy for. So to me, that was a tribute to all those things that we love — you know, drugs, sex and rock’n’roll — and package it in a country-friendly way.”
Once they finished the Zoom write, Frasure completed work on a programmed demo, then had Thompson record a vocal. They pitched it around town a bit with no takers, until Young flipped over it, and texted the writers often enough that they knew he would follow through and record it.
Young invited Frasure and Gorley to attend the tracking session with co-producer Corey Crowder (Chase Rice, Florida Georgia Line) in November 2022 at the Sony Tree Studios, a demo facility that had been recently upgraded. Crowder wanted the master to have a live sort of energy, matching both the raw tone of Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” and the bar-band plot of “Young Love & Saturday Nights,” and Sony Tree was an ideal setting.
“It’s a cool room,” says Crowder. “I think it actually helped that specific song, just because they’re all in the room together like they’re up onstage or something.”
Drummer Chris McHugh re-created the power of the original “Rebel Rebel” backbeat, and Crowder spent extra time with guitarist Sol Philcox-Littlefield, emulating the sound of the Bowie riff.
“We hunted on that for a minute,” Crowder remembers. “There was several takes where we had to like, ‘Let’s get it a little thinner,’ that kind of thing. That tone was so perfect, you know, you just don’t want to ditch that. So that was a big priority for me.”
Young did the lead vocals later with co-producer Chris DeStefano (Chase Rice, Morgan Evans), making certain to get plenty of sleep the night prior. “Living up to the fact that you’re constantly going to be compared with someone who’s a legend, I definitely did not leave that vocal booth until I was done,” says Young.
“Young Love & Saturday Nights” got significant media attention when Bowie’s country interpolation debuted on streaming services on July 21. RCA Nashville released it to country radio on Sept. 11 via PlayMPE, and it entered Country Airplay quickly, rising to No. 49 on the chart dated Oct. 14.
“I’ve now probably said the word ‘interpolation’ more than I ever have in my entire life in the past two months talking about this, but it’s really exciting for me because I love the song,” Young says. “And it’s cool to see other people getting pumped about it.”
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Banjo player and guitarist Buck Trent, a two-time CMA instrumental group of the year winner and a prominent member of the cast of the variety show Hee Haw, died on Monday (Oct. 9) at age 85.
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Trent was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina on Feb. 17, 1938, and moved to Nashville in 1959. In 1962, he joined Porter Wagoner’s Wagonmasters, performing with the group for approximately a decade.
Trent’s star rose through his work as a member of the cast of the variety show Hee Haw from 1974 to 1982. Those performances were regularly punctuated by Trent shouting what became his signature phrase, “Oh yeah!” In 2018, Trent was part of a “Kornfield Friends” reunion tour which also featured his fellow Hee Haw alums Jana Jae, Lulu Roman and Misty Rowe.
During his career, Trent also made appearances on The Marty Stuart Show and The Porter Wagoner Show, among others.
In 1975, Trent and fellow country music entertainer and banjoist Roy Clark earned a Billboard Top Country Albums hit with their collaborative project A Pair of Fives (Banjos, That Is), peaking at No. 9. Three other Trent titles impacted the tally: 1968’s Give Me Five (No. 40), 1976’s Bionic Banjo (No. 43) 1978’s Banjo Bandits with Clark (No. 45).
In 1975 and 1976, Trent and Clark won consecutive CMA Awards for instrumental group of the year. Also in 1976, Trent joined Clark and The Oak Ridge Boys for a concert tour behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union. Two years later, Trent and Clark released the project Banjo Bandits, which would earn a Grammy nomination for best country instrumental performance.
In addition to his own recordings, Trent contributed guitar and/or banjo on enduring recordings by Roy Acuff, Wagoner, Clark, Stuart and Dolly Parton, including Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene.” His contributions to music also proved innovative, as the creator of the electric banjo.
In the 1980s, after traveling to Branson, Trent began performing and would become a longtime performer in the town. In 2004, Trent also appeared as a Branson performer in the movie Gordy. Later, in 2012, Trent played on two songs for Marty Stuart’s album Nashville Volume 1: Tear the Woodpile Down.
Trent was previously named as one of this year’s American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame honorees; the celebration is slated for Oct. 12-14 in Oklahoma City.
Trent’s wife, Jean Trent, said in a statement, “It is with great sorrow and a broken heart to say my husband, my love, Buck Trent, went to be with Jesus this morning. I lost my best friend, and the world lost a Master Musician and Country Music Legend. Oh Yeah!”
Jim Halsey, longtime manager for Country Music Hall of Fame group The Oak Ridge Boys and the late Clark, described Trent as “one of my very favorite people in the world.” He added in a statement, “I worked with him for years as a partner with the Roy Clark Show. Buck Trent is one of the greatest banjo players ever. We will all miss him. Thank you, Buck Trent, for being in all our lives.”
Roman added in a statement, “Buck was like a brother to me after all of these years. We’ve shared tons of laughs and some tears along the way, but we never left each other’s side. We had a bond like no other. I’ll miss the man, but cherish the memories from our 50+ year friendship. My heart breaks for his precious wife, Jean, his family, friends, and fans. There will never be another like Buck Trent. Oh Yea!”
The Oak Ridge Boys member Joe Bonsall added, “We lost a dear long-time friend today in Buck Trent. Buck toured the Soviet Union with us and Roy Clark in 1976 and we have been close ever since. Buck was one of the greatest banjo players of all time and a very funny man. We will miss Buck!”
As North Carolina native Scotty McCreery celebrates his 30th birthday (Oct. 9), he has also notched just over a dozen years in the country industry and five albums’ worth of music. In early 2011, the North Carolina native began to make his presence known in the music world with his performances on American Idol, reflecting a talent […]
Could a Britney Spears and Jay-Z collaboration be on the way? Well, not exactly — but the “Circus” singer is trying to make it happen. In the caption of an Instagram post on Monday (Oct. 9), Spears proposed a cover of Beyoncé’s “Daddy Lessons” featuring a new rap verse from Jay-Z. “So many people have […]
This week welcomes new country albums from Darius Rucker and Reba McEntire, as well as a new duet from Noah Kahan and Kacey Musgraves, and new music from Kelleigh Bannen, Harper O’Neill and bluegrassers Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out.
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Reba McEntire, “Seven Minutes in Heaven”
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Country Music Hall of Famer McEntire returns with this new track, from her acoustic album Not That Fancy. Like the rest of the album, “Seven Minutes in Heaven” places the focus on McEntire, who still possesses one of the most distinctive voices in country music. Though she’s known for her vocal power and ability to wrap a single word with a multi-syllable trill, here McEntire tenderly bares her emotions, imagining how she would spend “seven minutes in heaven” — not catching up with music cornerstones such as Johnny Cash or Elvis Presley, or even posing questions to a higher power — but rather, spending time with a loved one who has passed on.
The album, which was released on Oct. 6, serves as a companion project to her lifestyle book Not that Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating and Dusting Off Your Boots.
Darius Rucker, “Never Been Over”
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In 2008, Rucker released “It Won’t Be Like This For Long,” as a couple welcomes a young child and looks at how fleeting the years ahead will be. “Never Been Over,” from his new album Carolyn’s Boy (named after Rucker’s late mother), flips the perspective, looking back on a couple’s love nearly two decades later, chronicling years of emotional zeniths and low points, a duration spent raising kids and building a life together one day at a time.
“We’ve been holdin’ onto love so long/ That we don’t know how to run,” he sings expertly on this track — written by Rucker with Lee Thomas Miller and Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, and bolstered by discreet, serene pedal steel and mandolin.
Noah Kahan & Kacey Musgraves, “She Calls Me Back”
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Kahan and Musgraves each separately paired up with Zach Bryan on songs from his previous projects –now they are teaming up together on a refreshed version of “She Calls Me Back,” originally from his 2022 hit album Stick Season. Kahan’s ragged vocal contrasts with this immensely danceable groove, as he’s wrought with tension over his lingering obsession with an estranged lover.
With her 2018 song “High Horse,” Musgraves proved her hypnotic voice paired with a dancefloor-ready beat made for a heady mix. Here, there’s a similar feel, as Musgraves’ kaleidoscopic voice cooly floats above the propulsive rhythm. The back half of the song is interwoven with new lyrics, with Musgraves responding to his pondering with a nonchalant, forthright answer: “I’m running out of tears to cry/ They’re gone before they hit my cheeks/ Maybe it’s the air out here, or maybe something’s changed in me.” Their voices intermingle wondrously.
Kelleigh Bannen, “I Know Better Now”
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Bannen is well-known for her “Today’s Country” show on Apple Music, but she’s been creating music for well over a decade. “I Know Better Now” marks her first new music in nearly four years, with Logan Wall being the sole writer on the song. “I Know Better Now” is rife with wisdom gained from years of hopes, dreams, and crushing disappointments, as she sings of growing up and learning that “life’s a string of things you gotta let go.” She holds fast to the soul-lifting aspects of music and deep breaths, and notes that “You lean a lot harder onto faith when your luck runs out.”
Piano, strings and Bannen’s voice are each rich and distinct, with the song’s uncluttered production highlighting the elegant interplay between the group of instruments.
Harper O’Neill, “Dark Bar Daisy”
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“I’ve always bloomed a little later/ Closer to closing time,” Texas native O’Neill sings, offering an ode to midnight barflys. The track is led by her wisened vocal, which expertly bends notes and imbues the lyrics with the husky realism of someone who has lived, loved, lost and seen a few things. Sultry, horn-driven production, courtesy of Jake Gear, further elevates the song. O’Neill wrote “Dive Bar Daisy” with frequent collaborator Meg McRee (they also wrote O’Neill’s breakthrough 2022 song “Somebody”). Here, they craft what feels like a sparkling homage to fellow Texan Miranda Lambert’s fan-favorite “Dark Bars.” The song serves as the title track to her new project Dark Bar Daisy, released Oct. 6, which also houses previous releases like “Guilty” and “Somebody.”
Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out, “Heading East to West Virginia”
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This seven-time International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) vocal group of the year winning ensemble returns with its first new music since 2015’s It’s About Tyme, with a pair of new tracks, including this sprightly love song. The band is as sharp as ever, while three-time IBMA male vocalist winner Moore’s octave-leaping voice remains nimble and crystalline.
Banjo player Keith McKinnon, fiddler Nathan Aldridge, bass player Kevin McKinnon and mandolin player Wayne Benson capture the heart-quickening anticipation of reuniting with a lover, as Moore sings of making the trek from Texas to West Virginia, braving stormy weather as soon as he gets the call for reuniting with his lover.
Colbie Caillat, “Meant for Me”
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Nearly two decades after breaking through with her 2007 debut single “Bubbly,” this California native (and now longtime Nashville resident) makes her official foray into country music. In this song from Caillat’s debut country solo album, Along the Way, she ponders the edifying moments from both love and loss–acknowledging that some relationships are meant to be temporary. “Meant For Me” was written by Caillat with AJ Pruis and Liz Rose and here, her voice is richer, more mature, but still with her signature, even-tempered rendering. Throughout the album, Caillat delves into appreciating the positives brought by a long-term relationship, even as it dissolves, gleaning lessons from the memories, the ache, the understanding and the moving forward.
John Morgan, “Remember Us”
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Morgan has already established his bonafides in the songwriting realm, thanks to more than a dozen songs recorded by Jason Aldean — including the Carrie Underwood duet, “If I Didn’t Love You.” On the title track to his new EP, Morgan sings from a wistful, bittersweet position, recognizing that an ample amount of whiskey has unlocked his willingness to work through the more halcyon moments shared with an ex-lover. Sonically, the track hews close to Aldean’s polished country-rock sound, though Morgan’s vocal brings a patina that leans toward tender more than swagger.