Country
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Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers, Colbie Caillat with Sheryl Crow, and more turn up stellar new releases this week. Tyler Hubbard aims to make his duo of chart hits into a trio, while bluegrass whizkid Wyatt Ellis and gravel-voiced J.R. Carroll continue forging their signature styles. See those and more Billboard country picks below.
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Tyler Childers, “Phone Calls and Emails”
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With albums like his breakthrough Purgatory and successors Country Squire and Long Violent History, Childers’s mix of country, folk and bluegrass elements has inspired a rise in counter-programming to mainstream country’s usual pop and hip-hop fusions. He continues that with latest album, Rustin’ in the Rain. At only seven tracks, Rustin’ in the Rain is succinct yet solid, melding originals with renditions of the Kris Kristofferson-written “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and S.G. Goodman’s “Space and Time.” Among the standouts in those originals is this solo write from Childers, whose vigorous vocal conveys the hurt and confusion when a loved one stops responding to his correspondences. “It’s so unnerving to get no reply,” he sings in a desperate attempt to gain closure. Piano and mournful steel capture the song’s arc from clinging to the last remnants of hopefulness, but giving way to angst and despair.
Chris Stapleton, “Think I’m in Love With You”
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Stapleton gets funky on this solo write, slightly quickening the pace, his signature guttural, husky voice working within the evergreen topic of love, registering romantic grit and ‘70s soul. Sonically, it’s a further confirmation of Stapleton’s genre-traversing capabilities, following his previous outing, “White Horse.” “Think I’m in Love With You” is the latest preview of Stapleton’s upcoming album Higher, out Nov. 10.
J.R. Carroll, “Diamondhead”
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Oklahoma native Carroll issued his debut project in 2020, ad followed with 2022’s Raging in the Dark and his OurVinyl Sessions EP which released earlier this year. Those projects largely put the spotlight on his gospel-inflected voice and acoustic-based songwriting. Carroll has been on the road playing keyboards for Zach Bryan, but on this chugging, percussion-fueled romp, he offers a potent reminder of his own songwriting and vocal prowess. Here, he sings of a woman whose romantic allure beckons him on a wild day spent near the river, with hours of booze and cigarettes, and dancing to Turnpike Troubadours tunes on the jukebox. “Ain’t much that I can do/ Can’t bear to see it stop,” he deadpans, with a voice filled with urgency and surrender.
Colbie Caillat feat. Sheryl Crow, “I’ll Be Here”
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These two laid-back vocalists team up in a mighty way for this rootsy, yet calmly uplifting anthem, which revamps “Never Gonna Let You Down,” a song featured on Caillat’s 2014 album Gypsy Heart. Caillat wrote this song 13 years ago, with Brett James, Jason Reeves and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, but the sunny production and timeless message here feel fresh and polished, while their intertwining harmonies feel familial. “I’ll Be Here” is included on Caillat’s upcoming country album, Along the Way, out Oct. 6.
Tyler Hubbard, “Back Then Right Now”
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Hubbard issues his third solo career single, following his No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit “5 Foot 9” and the No. 2-peaking follow-up “Dancin’ in the Country.” He follows those two gratitude-filled, light-hearted tracks with a similarly-styled up-tempo track, a nostalgic ode that finds the singer reminiscing on youthful days, before various town developments put up big-box stores over old fishing spots and blacktop over gravel roads — times when “you took a pic and you didn’t have to post it.” This sounds like another solid, radio-ready single.
Wyatt Ellis feat. Jake Workman, “Get Lost”
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Wunderkind mandolin player Ellis, who has performed alongside music luminaries including Sierra Hull, Sam Bush and Bobby Osborne, continues his penchant for traditional-leaning bluegrass on this song he wrote with multi-instrumentalist Jake Workman, when Ellis was 12.
Together with Ellis and Workman on sprightly mandolin and guitar, this track offers up a loose jam-band feel, meshing fiddle from legendary instrumentalist Michael Cleveland, as well as bass from Mike Bub and banjo from producer Justin Moses. “Get Lost” is the second release from Ellis’ upcoming album, set to be released on Knee-High Records.
Ashley Anne, “She Ain’t Texas”
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Virginia native Ashley Anne is known for the track “Dear Dolly,” which was released earlier this year. But on her latest, she laments that an ex-lover has moved on — but this perspicacious lady also knows his new love lacks country bonafides. “if she ain’t country and she ain’t your cup of sweet tea,” Anne maintains she has something better to offer, singing with a honey-dipped-in-whiskey voice over a swirl of country and blues.
Alex Hall, “Her to Here”
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Singer-songwriter-guitarist Hall issued his debut EP, the star-studded Six Strings, in 2021, and is gearing up to follow it with his latest album, Side Effects of the Heart, out Sept. 15.
“Her to Here” previews the new album, as Hall sings of a lover who calls his bluff and leaves him in the dust. He copes by ruminates on the choices he made and should have made. “Her to Here” reads more polished than some of his earlier work, while this Hall/Todd Clark/Travis Wood co-write offers an evocative depiction of romantic loss.
Charlie Robison, the Texas singer-songwriter whose rootsy anthems made the country charts until he was forced to retire after complications from a medical procedure left him unable to sing, died on Sunday. He was 59.
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Robison died at a hospital in San Antonio after suffering cardiac arrest and other complications, according to a family representative.
Robison launched his music career in the late 1980s, playing in local Austin bands like Two Hoots and a Holler before forming his own Millionaire Playboys. In 1996, he released his solo debut, Bandera, named for the Texas Hill Country town where his family has had a ranch for generations.
When he was approached by Sony in 1998, Robison signed with its Lucky Dog imprint, which was devoted to rawer country. His 2001 album Step Right Up, which peaked at No. 27 on the Top Country Albums chart, produced the top 40 country song “I Want You Bad.” The single reached No. 35 on the Hot Country Songs chart.
In 2018, Robison announced that he had permanently lost the ability to sing following a surgical procedure on his throat. “Therefore, with a very heavy heart I am officially retiring from the stage and studio,” he wrote on Facebook.
Robison served as a judge for one year on USA Network’s Nashville Star, a reality TV show in which contestants lived together while competing for a country music recording contract.
He is survived by his wife, Kristen Robison, and four children and stepchildren. He had three children with his first wife, Emily Strayer, a founding member of the superstar country band The Chicks. They divorced in 2008.
Memorial services are pending.
Not many people can say that they’ve earned a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single, a Billboard 200 No. 1 album and a mug shot all in the same week — but most people aren’t Zach Bryan. The Grammy-nominated country/rock powerhouse was arrested Thursday evening in Oklahoma for obstruction of investigation, according to the Craig County […]
Perhaps more than any other genre, duets have a deep, storied history within the canon of country music, with several men and women artist pairings crafting entire albums’ worth of duets.
But a select few have made strong showings on both the Billboard country charts and the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart. Most recently, Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves teamed up for “I Remember Everything,” included on Bryan’s new self-titled album. The song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving both artists their first Hot 100 chart-cresting hit (the song also reached the pinnacle of the Hot Country Songs chart).
Here, we look at other men and women duets that have risen to the upper echelons of the Billboard Country charts, as well as making it to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Artists including Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Eddie Rabbitt, Gabby Barrett and Florida Georgia Line make the list, but the late singer-entertainer Kenny Rogers towers when it comes to crossover duets.
Rogers was inducted as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013, and earned 21 No. 1 hits on the Hot Country Songs chart, ranging from 1977’s “Lucille” to his Alison Krauss and Billy Dean collaboration “Buy Me a Rose” in 2000. But early in his career, Rogers was earning pop music success as part of the group First Edition, including the 1968 Hot 100 top five hit “Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was In).” So, it is no surprise that in the early 1980s, Rogers’ natural country-pop sensibilities stood out on a trio of hit duets that rose into the top 10 on the Hot 100, including one chart-topping track. These followed his 1980 smash hit “Lady,” written by Lionel Richie, which spent six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was also a No. 1 hit on what was then the Hot Country Singles chart.
By the 1980s, however, the Hot 100 chart was already well-primed for such dual-chart successes, thanks to several (non-duet) Hot 100 chart No. 1s that also peaked on the Hot Country Songs chart in the 1960s and 1970s, including songs from Jeannie C. Riley, Freddy Fender, Glen Campbell, John Denver and Charlie Rich.
Here, we look at several collaborations by men and women artists that rose into the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, listed in ascending order of chart peak.
Carrie Underwood Feat. Randy Travis, “I Told You So”
The first time Cody Johnson heard “The Painter,” it took him home emotionally.
After the first line, “She talks about the future like she’s flipping through a magazine,” it seemed familiar.“I’m like, ‘Well, there’s Brandi,’” he says, referring to his wife.
After each of the remaining five lines in the opening verse, he had the same thought: “There’s Brandi.” And when the chorus hit – “I don’t remember/ Life before she came into the picture” – he was pretty much gone.
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“Tears started welling up in my eyes,” he recalls.
It was no question after that moment that Johnson would record “The Painter.” But what particularly makes the song work is that his sentiment about his wife is not entirely unique. The words also apply to the marriage of Red Street Country singer/songwriter Ryan Larkins, who conceived the basic idea – that a woman brought meaning and color to a man’s life – with his wife, Chauntay, in mind.
“I was getting to go and do what I love every day, and I was just talking about how I wouldn’t be here without her,” he says of the original co-writing session. “I just had a few words, like ‘masterpiece,’ ‘colors,’ ‘canvas,’ and I kind of had this thing: ‘She made a masterpiece/ Yeah, she’s the painter.’”
Larkins introduced the concept during a writing appointment with Kat Higgins (“Knowing You”) and Benjy Davis (“Made For You”) in the front room at Nashville’s THiS Music on June 26, 2019, the month before the company’s co-founder, Rusty Gaston, left to head Sony Music Publishing Nashville.
“It was basically like, ‘This is my wife and our life, she’s the painter, she’s the color, she’s making everything come to life,’” Higgins notes. “We were just smiling. It was such a fun song to write because we all love the character.”
Davis started in with a rolling guitar figure and casually dropped the poetic opening line about “flipping through a magazine,” though the rest of “The Painter” wasn’t quite so effortless. They wanted to sell the painting theme in the lyrics but were very specific about not overdoing it. The second line suggested a non-painting artist, and the end of verse two intentionally avoided rhyming. They moved around between stanzas, placing images where they seemed appropriate. The enthusiasm increased when the chorus honored her patience: “With every wall I built, she saw a canvas.”
“I don’t remember who said that, or remember when it was said, but that’s when we knew we were on the right path,” Davis recalls.
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In the third verse, the woman gives her approval to her man’s blue periods, a sort of recognition that rough patches offer value of their own. The writers talked a bit about writing a bridge for “The Painter” – they might have even tried one or two versions of a bridge – but ultimately dropped that plan and inserted a four-bar space for a solo.
“When we left that day, we knew we had something special,” Larkins notes. “And so we kind of talked about it a little bit through text. And we’re like, ‘You know, we probably need to revisit this because it just doesn’t quite land.’ So we got back together and worked on it.”
They had determined that “masterpiece” was a little over the top, so when they reassembled a few weeks later, that line became the primary focus of the day. “’My life’s a masterpiece and she’s the painter,’ we felt like that was a little too grand,” Davis says. “We had to kind of strip that away and be like, ‘No, it’s not a masterpiece. I see it this way, and she sees it that way.’”
Within a couple hours, they changed it to “My world was black and white, but she’s the painter.”
Higgins oversaw the demo, with a resonator guitar delivering the rolling effect while a kick drum kept the pace moving by hitting every beat once the first chorus came in. Larkins sang it like he meant it, and Higgins provided a vocal countermelody in the chorus. The version that Johnson would hear was almost master-quality, and his interest affirmed the writers’ diligence. “The fact that he wanted to cut this,” Higgins says, pausing. “It’s sort of like a knighting to get chosen by Cody.”
Johnson recorded “The Painter” with producer Trent Willmon (Granger Smith, Zane Williams) at Starstruck, where Johnson had the best chance of connecting with the studio band.
“There’s this magical spot where the singer is in the little vocal booth,” Willmon says. “In the corner, and through the glass, you can see both the entire band and the control booth. There’s not a lot of tracking rooms like that, where the singer can see everything that’s going on. The musicians get so much inspiration from Cody and this just brutal energy that he sends out, and he can see them, they can see him, and they just thrive off of him.”
Tim Gallaway took on the key resonator part, and Jerry Roe handled the drums, starting the kick at the very beginning to emphasize the pace a little more, with shaker creating additional motion in several sections. They recorded it at 98 beats per minute, the same deceptively brisk tempo as the demo. Later, Willmon brought fiddler Jenee Fleenor in to overdub additional parts, some of them inspired by the vocal backgrounds Higgins had sung on the demo. Fleenor also built the solo section, developing an elegant string quartet one instrument at a time.
“That part blows me away,” Larkins says. “It moves me almost to tears, like as much as the chorus or the very first verse. It’s such a huge part of that song now.” Willmon worked with Fleenor in-person on that section. The decision to cut it that way, instead of just emailing her the files, was one of his favorite parts of the process.
“If I sent [the tracks] to her it would be like giving up tickets on the 50 yard line to the Super Bowl,” he says. “It is about as creatively musical as it can get watching her do her magic.”
The mix of strings, resonator and Travis Toy’s steel guitar imbued the “The Painter” with a whole pallet of sound, supporting the storyline in an appropriate fashion. “We’re not reinventing the wheel here,” Johnson says. “But all those different nuances, it paints a beautiful picture and it has all those different colors in it.”
Johnson’s relaxed, emotional vocals – delivered with Brandi in mind – were captured on a newly purchased $10,000 Brauner microphone, with Johnson changing “my world was black and white” to “my life was black and white.”
“The Painter” became a unanimous choice for the first single from a forthcoming album. Warner Music Nashville released it to country radio via PlayMPE on Aug. 10. It debuted at No. 12 on the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart dated Aug. 26 and started at No. 33 on Country Airplay. It’s at No. 40 on the Sept. 9 Airplay chart.
“I don’t sing ‘The Painter’ any harder than I’m talking right now,” he says. “That is rare for a Cody Johnson song. But it’s not, ‘Hey, look at me. Look how good I can sing.’ It’s all about the message.”
Maren Morris isn’t nearly ready to make nice with Jason Aldean. Or so it seems in what looks like a tease from a new video posted by Morris on Thursday (Sept. 7). Morris posted images on Instagram from what appeared to be a visual for a new song that could take aim at Aldean’s divisive track “Try That in a Small Town.”
The caption to the post reads, “I’m done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom,” alongside a silent clip of a bucolic town with a billboard that reads: “Welcome to Our Perfect Small Town: From Sunrise to Sundown.” The post also included a shot of Morris, dressed in a gauzy black shoulder-less top, staring up into the distance at an unseen object. US magazine noted that the picture seems to be of the outfit that Morris wore at the 2016 CMAs, where she won new artist of the year at the event where Aldean was blanked on nominations, lamenting at the time to reporters, “I’ve gone out and done everything I can do to put ourselves in a position to be there, and people either vote for you or they don’t.”
The enigmatic post got an enthusiastic thumbs up from Brandi Carlile, who commented, “Oh it is ON [fire emoji].” Carlile supported Morris when the singer took issue with anti-trans comments made by Aldean’s wife, Brittany, in August 2022, when the latter wrote on Instagram, “I’d really like to thank my parents for not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase. I love this girly life.”
Those comments drew a sharp rebuke at the time from Morris, who called Brittany “Insurrection Barbie,” a comment that drew a “MY Barbie” comment from husband Aldean. The spat ended with Morris raising more than $100,000 for GLAAD’s Transgender Media Program and Trans Lifeline with a line of merch mocking fired Fox News personality Tucker Carlson’s attempted diss line calling Maren a “lunatic country music person.”
Morris’ apparent video tease also drew comments from Cassade Pope, who added a series of side eye emoji, while Julia Michaels wrote “WOW WOW” and Natalie Hemby posted four heart emoji. At press time a spokesperson for Morris said they had no additional comment about the post.
What appears to be the latest salvo in the Morris-Aldean skirmish seems to be keyed to Aldean’s controversial “Try That in a Small Town” single, whose video was pulled from CMT in July amid critics’ claims that it contained pro-gun and pro-lynching messages; the clip was filmed in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, TN, the site of a 1927 mob lynching of an 18-year-old Black teenager named Henry Choate and the 1946 Columbia race riot.
The song challenged those who “pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store” or “cuss out a cop” to, as the title suggests, try those actions in a small town and “see how far ya make it down the road.” The song’s video featured footage of an American flag burning, protesters having confrontations with police, looters breaking a display case and thieves robbing a convenience store.
At the time, Aldean said the claims that the song was “pro-lynching” and that it intimated he was “not too please” with the nationwide 2021 Black Lives Matter protests were “not only meritless, but dangerous“; footage of the BLM protests were later edited out of the video.
Check out Morris’ tease below.
Wilson is nominated for her own hit “Heart Like a Truck” and as a featured artist on HARDY’s “Wait in the Truck.”
Wynonna will receive the Country Champion Award at the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards, which is set to air live from the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on Thursday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
And Wy will head right back to the Opry on Oct. 3 when she hosts Christmas at the Opry, a two-hour special that will air Thursday, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
The People’s Choice Country Awards will air live on NBC and Peacock while Christmas at the Opry will air on NBC and next day on Peacock. The latter show is seen as competition for CMA Country Christmas, a fixture on ABC since 2010. Carly Pearce hosted last year’s show, which aired on Dec. 8, 2022.
“Wynonna is one of the most recognized and lauded performers in country music,” Cassandra Tryon, senior vice president, live events, NBCUniversal Entertainment, said in a statement. “Not only is she incredibly talented, her selflessness and passion for putting the needs of others in the spotlight is unmatched. We can’t think of a better person to honor as our inaugural ‘Country Champion’ and to celebrate the holidays with across these two major country music events.”
As the Country Champion recipient at the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards, Wynonna will be celebrated for her decades-long career and efforts around philanthropy and activism. She has used her public platform to advocate for children, military veterans and their families, disaster relief and more through her work with such organizations as the Wounded Warrior Project and Habitat for Humanity.
As previously announced, Toby Keith will receive the Country Icon Award on the show.
The same producers are behind both shows. People’s Choice Country Awards is produced by Den of Thieves with Jesse Ignjatovic, Evan Prager and Barb Bialkowski serving as executive producers, along with RAC Clark as executive producer and showrunner.
Christmas at the Opry is executive produced by Ignjatovic, Prager and Bialkowski for Den of Thieves along with Clark and Jen Jones.
Tickets for the Oct. 3 taping of Christmas at the Opry, in front of a live audience, are on sale now at Opry.com. The performer lineup will be announced at a later date.
NBC calls these projects “an example of collaboration resulting from NBCUniversal’s equity investment in Opry Entertainment Group alongside Atairos, which was finalized last year.”
After his arrest on Thursday evening (Sept. 7) in Oklahoma for obstruction of an investigation, Zach Bryan posted a video on Friday morning (Sept. 8) further explaining what happened during the incident in which he said he got “too lippy” with officers.
Bryan is sitting in his car in the nearly five-minute clip, speaking directly to fans while driving to New York with his dog Jack in the passenger seat. “I just wanted to be completely transparent with everyone who listens to my music about what happened yesterday with me getting arrested,” said the singer who just scored his first Billboard 200 No. 1 album with his new self-titled project and his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song with “I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves.
Prefacing his story by saying that he will have to deal with the “legalities” of the arrest, that he did go to jail and that police did not play any favorites with him, Bryan bluntly said, “I was an idiot today. My decisions did not reflect who I was as a person… I should have been smarter about it”; in an earlier social media post, Bryan said he’d had an “incident” with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and that “emotions got the best of me, and I was out of line in the things I said.”
He then laid out what he said was the full timeline of events, which Bryan explained began three days ago when he was driving through a small town in Oklahoma, where he was pulled over by a police office for going “4-5 [miles] over” the speed limit. The singer said after being asked for his license, registration and address, he explained to the officer that he was not comfortable giving out his address because of his notoriety as a musician.
Bryan said the officer informed him that if he did not give his address he would go to jail. “I’m like, ‘man, I’m not gonna give you my address,’” Bryan said he told the cop, who then allegedly asked him to step out of the vehicle, at which point the singer said he was handcuffed. “I’m like, ‘man, what the hell is going on? Why are you doing this?’” he recalled saying.
After Bryan discussed it with the officer, he agreed to give his address and the cuffs were taken off, but the encounter “frustrated me a lot because I didn’t know if I had a right to refuse giving him my address,” he said. Fast forward to Thursday, when Bryan tells his security guard that he’s driving to Boston to see his favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, play the New England Patriots in Foxborough on Sunday.
The pair begin driving and Bryan said they were 40 minutes from his Tulsa house — with his security guard trailing him in another car — when he saw his security get pulled over. Bryan said he pulled around the block and parked his car near his security guard’s and waited for the traffic stop to conclude. After 15 minutes Bryan said he wondered why it was taking so long, so he got out of his car. “I was gonna smoke a cigarette [and] the cop comes up to me and he’s like, ‘sir, get back in your vehicle.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not the one getting pulled over,’” Bryan said he told the officer.
When told he would go to jail if he didn’t get back in his car, “like a dumbass I said, ‘take me to f—ing jail? What do you mean?’” Bryan said he replied, admitting that he got “too lippy” with the cop, who then brought him over to his cruiser. “I didn’t help my situation at all,” Bryan said of his confrontation with the patrolman. “I felt like a child, it was ridiculous, it was immature. And I just pray everyone knows I don’t think I’m above the law. I was just being disrespectful and I shouldn’t have been and it was my mistake.”
After getting cuffed for the second time in three days — Bryan noted that the restraints were tight on his wrists — the singer was placed in the front seat of the cruiser, where he engaged in some back-and-forth about how the handcuffs hurt. He said the officer told him, “they’re not supposed to be comfortable.” Bryan said he began getting “more angry and angry” about the situation, “which is the worst thing you can do.”
After 15 minutes Bryan said he was released from the police cruiser, at which point he said he was just “mouthing off, like an idiot. Like an actual child. I’m like, ‘man, someone’s gotta get a hold of you guys. Why are you using your authority like this? This is so wrong.’ When in reality they were just doing their jobs. I was upset.”
He said the officer then explained that he was going to talk to Bryan and he didn’t want to be interrupted, after which Bryan said he would listen, but then he wanted to respond. “He started talking, I interrupted him. Naturally, because I was just angry,” Bryan said. The officer then informed the singer that he was taking him to jail, where he spent several hours, during which Bryan said he “cooled off a little bit.”
He said everyone in booking at the Vinita, OK jail was very kind to him and that he and the arresting officer ended up shaking hands, after which he posted his online apology note. “I was just an idiot and I’ll take the fall for it,” Bryan said. “I’m a grown man and I shouldn’t have behaved like that. And it won’t happen again.”
Watch Bryan’s video below.
Zach Bryan was arrested Thursday evening (Sept. 7) in Oklahoma for obstruction of investigation, according to the Craig County Sheriff’s Office. There are currently no other details on the country/rock star’s arrest, which was first reported by TMZ. Bryan was born in Oologah, Oklahoma, and lives in nearby Tulsa, while the sheriff’s office where he […]