Country
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Toby Keith returned to the stage over the weekend, performing two full-fledged concerts at Hollywood Corners in Norman, Okla. — with each clocking in at more than two hours in length. The shows mark Keith’s first performances since announcing his stomach cancer diagnosis in June 2022, when he revealed that he had spent the past […]
On July 5, the Country Music Association releases its first feature-length film, CMA Fest: 50 Years of Fan Fair. The documentary, available on Hulu, offers the stories behind the festival’s five-decades of connecting fans and artists, and along the way building the signature country music festival’s ever-strengthening global impact. These stories are told through the eyes of multiple generations of artists, as well as key music industry members, including the CMA CEO Sarah Trahern.
CMA Fest: 50 Years of Fan Fair looks into the festival’s beginnings as Fan Fair in 1972, when it drew 5,000 fans to Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium, and chronicles the festival’s evolution into a festival that now draws more than 80,000 fans a day across four days, with attendees from not only every U.S. state, but also nearly 40 countries. The 75-minute doc features interviews with an array of artists, including Bill Anderson (who has attended nearly every Fan Fair/CMA Fest since in 1972), Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Frankie Staton, Lainey Wilson, Carrie Underwood, Vince Gill, Wynonna Judd, Sawyer Brown’s Mark Miller, Dolly Parton and Jeannie Seely.
As the past several years have become what some would consider a “golden age” for music documentaries in general — with a plethora of documentaries on Whitney Houston, Lady Gaga, P!nk, Britney Spears, Shania Twain, Joan Jett, music mogul Clive Davis, producer David Foster and multi-hyphenate Quincy Jones, just to name a handful — we look at a non-comprehensive list of 20 additional country music-centered documentaries.
These documentaries span from multi-part, history-encompassing docs, as well as documentaries that tell the stories of the industry that helps bring the music to the masses, and documentaries that center on the stories of individual artists ranging from Luke Bryan and Jelly Roll to Guy Clark, DeFord Bailey and Linda Ronstadt. Check out our list below.
Luke Bryan: My Dirt Road Diary
Lily Rose plays Fishing for Answers at Billboard’s Country Live event. Lily Rose:What’s up, y’all? I’m Lily Rose, and I’m going Fishing for Answers with Billboard. First celebrity crush? I think it would have to be Nick Jonas. In a crazy turn of events, it’s Nick Jonas. The best concert I’ve ever attended? I’m not […]
Dolly Parton says she’s reluctant about the notion of artificially living on as an AI hologram after her death, because she doesn’t want “to leave my soul here on this earth.”
According to The Independent, the country star discussed during a London press conference whether she would ever consider creating a show utilizing a hologram version of herself. The Country Music Hall of Fame member and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee replied, “I think I’ve left a great body of work behind. I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved [with] because I don’t want to leave my soul here on this earth.
“I think with some of this stuff, I’ll be grounded here forever … I’ll be around — we’ll find ways to keep me here.”
According to the U.K. publication, the country icon also laughed that “everything” about her — and that includes “any intelligence” — is fake anyway.
Parton, who co-hosted the Academy of Country Music Awards earlier this year alongside Garth Brooks, is promoting her upcoming debut rock n’ roll album, appropriately titled Rockstar, which will release Nov. 17. The album features Parton in collaboration with several rock music icons, including Steven Tyler, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Fogerty, Debbie Harry and Heart’s Ann Wilson.
During the press conference, Parton also spoke of trying to get Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to perform on the album with her. Parton said that much of her upcoming Rockstar album was inspired by her husband, Carl Dean, who loves Jagger’s music.
“I wanted [Jagger] to sing on ‘Satisfaction,’ but he wanted something new and different, which I don’t blame him for that, so I wound up singing that with Pink and Brandi Carlile,” Parton said. “We kept looking for the right song and he was doing an album in [Los Angeles], and he did some stuff in Nashville, and I kept missing him everywhere. I ran him around like a high-school girl.”
Country artist Lauren Alaina reveals five things you didn’t know about her at the Billboard Country Live event. Lauren Alaina:I’m Lauren Alaina, and here are five things you may not know about me. Lauren Alaina:I don’t have any secrets. I’m … OK. Let me think I have the gene for having twins. So please pray […]
When Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” reached No 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated July 8), it marked several firsts.
The song, a remake of Chapman’s 1988 classic, became the first remake of a pop hit to reach No. 1 on the chart in 15 years, since Blake Shelton topped Country Airplay with his version of Michael Bublé’s “Home.” It was also the first time in 24 years that a cover of a song that originally reached the top 10 of the Hot 100 — Chapman’s tune peaked at No. 6 — summitted on the Country Airplay chart. The last to do so was Mark Chesnutt’s “I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing,” which led Country Airplay list in 1999, after Aerosmith’s original topped the Hot 100 in 1998.
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But most significantly, it becomes the first song with a Black woman as the sole writer to top the chart. In fact, it marks only the second time since Country Airplay’s debut in 1990 that a Black songwriter has reached No. 1 credited as the only writer on a track. And like with “Fast Car,” the only time it has happened before was on a cover of a previous hit: For the chart dated Aug. 4, 1990, Dan Seals’ remake of Sam Cooke’s “Good Times,” penned solely by Cooke, reached No. 1. Cooke, who released the song originally in 1964, took his version to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
As Rolling Stone first noted, three Black women have reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart as co-writers: Allison Randall was the first to do so, as co-writer on Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s & OOO’s (An American Girl),” which hit No. 1 on the chart dated Aug. 10, 1994. In 2021, Lady A took “Champagne Night,” co-written by Ester Dean, to the summit — while later the same year, Dan + Shay reached No. 1 with “Glad You Exist,” which Tayla Parx co-wrote.
A number of Black and biracial male artists have taken songs they have co-written to No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart, including Darius Rucker, Kane Brown, BRELAND and Jimmie Allen. Additionally, a handful of Black male songwriters, including Shy Carter, Steven Battey, Anthony Smith and Jamie Moore, have co-written songs that have topped the chart.
For pure longevity on a country chart though, no one tops Ted Jarrett. In 1955, Webb Pierce’s take on the Black singer-songwriter’s “Love, Love, Love” spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Most Played by Jockeys chart, nine weeks atop the Most Played in Jukeboxes chart and eight weeks at No. 1 on Best Sellers in Stores for all “Country & Western Records.”
Assistance preparing this story provided by Tom Roland and Jim Asker.
Everyone comes back from Las Vegas with a good story, even country music superstar Carrie Underwood. In photos shared to her Instagram on Monday (July 3), the Grammy-winning star showed off the matching tattoos she got with her mom and sisters in Sin City. “When your 74-year-old mother asks you and your sisters to get […]
Jelly Roll is taking things short for summer.
The “I Need a Favor” singer/songwriter cut off his long hair and shared a video of the process via Instagram on Friday (June 30).
“You ever wake up and just feel like ‘F— it’? That’s exactly how I woke up feeling this morning,” he says, narrating footage of his haircut. In the clip, Jelly Roll enlists a friend to cut his hair and shape up his beard.
As Jelly Roll readies himself to cut off his signature long mullet, he and his wife Bunnie XO banter, with Jelly Roll calling Bunnie “hair hater No. 1.”
“Are you excited it’s leaving today?” he asks.
“Me and about 5,000 other women!” she responds. “All the ladies in the comments are talking about how beautiful you look with your hair cut, so I’m so excited.”
Bunnie even grabs some clippers to help cut a few of Jelly Roll’s locks off herself. The video shows the rest of the haircut, as locks of Jelly Roll’s curls fall to the floor.
“I can’t believe I cut my curls!” Jelly Roll says at one point in the video clip. “This clip is about acceptance; you can see that I’ve accepted that there is nothing I can do.”
The video ends with Jelly Roll heading to a bathroom to check out his newly shorn hair in the mirror. Clearly happy with his new, shorter haircut, Jelly Roll asked fans to chime in in the Instagram comments section to give their opinions.
“Freshy,” commented Miranda Lambert, who co-wrote “The Lost” with Jelly Roll and Jesse Frasure on Jelly Roll’s album Whitsitt Chapel. Bunnie commented, “We stan a clean shaven king.”
Jelly Roll was recently the cover star of Billboard’s Country Power Players issue, and opened up about his life and career so far, including time spent in jail as a teen and young adult, launching his career as a rapper, meeting his wife Bunnie, and his recent success topping both Billboard’s country and rock charts.
Luke Combs notches his 16th No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated July 8) as “Fast Car” pulls into the most coveted spot. In the tracking week ending June 29, it gained by 7% to 33.4 million audience impressions, according to Luminate.
The song is an update of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 classic, which hit No. 6 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. Combs’ cover is the first take on a pop hit to top Country Airplay since Blake Shelton’s version of Michael Bublé’s “Home” led in 2008, after Bublé’s ruled Adult Contemporary in 2005.
Meanwhile, Combs’ “Fast Car” is the first remake of a Hot 100 top 10 to crown Country Airplay since Mark Chesnutt’s “I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing” led the latter list in 1999, after Aerosmith’s original topped the Hot 100 in 1998.
Plus, as Chapman solely-wrote “Fast Car,” it’s the first Country Airplay No. 1 authored by one writer since December 2017, when the Mitch Rossell-penned “Ask Me How I Know” became Garth Brooks’ 19th leader.
Additionally, Combs’ “Fast Car” completes an 11-week cruise to No. 1 on Country Airplay, marking his quickest, besting the 12-week climb for “Lovin’ on You” in 2020.
“Fast Car” follows Combs’ “Going, Going, Gone,” which ruled Country Airplay for two weeks in March. He owns another place in the top 10, as “Love You Anyway” rises to No. 9 (18.3 million, up 5%). Further, Riley Green’s “Different ‘Round Here,” on which he’s featured, holds at its No. 36 high (2.8 million, up 1%).
A crossover hit, “Fast Car” also hits the top 10 (12-10) on the Adult Pop Airplay chart, becoming Combs’ first song to reach the tier on the tally (in his first visit to the list).
‘Georgia’ Goes Top 10
Elsewhere, Kane Brown banks his 11th Country Airplay top 10 as “Bury Me in Georgia” lifts 11-10 (18.3 million, up 12%). It follows “Thank God,” with wife Katelyn Brown, which became his ninth No. 1 in February.
Country singer Megan Moroney reveals five things you didn’t know about her at the Billboard Country Live event. Megan Moroney:What’s up, y’all? I’m Meghan Moroney, and here are five things you probably don’t know about me. I still drive my high school car. It’s a 2010 white Mustang, and she’s very well loved. So right […]