Country
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Jimmie Allen has been dropped by his record label BBR Music Group, the company confirmed to Billboard, just hours after a second woman sued the singer for sexual assault.
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“BBR Music Group has dissolved its relationship with Jimmie Allen, he is no longer an active artist on its roster,” said the label in a brief statement sent to Billboard. Variety first broke the news of BBR’s move and the second lawsuit Friday (June 9).
BBR Music Group had earlier placed Allen on suspension after he was previously accused of repeated rape and sexual harassment by a “Jane Doe” who had worked as a day-to-day manager at the singer’s former management company, Wide Open Music. In the wake of that May 11 allegation, Allen was also placed on suspension by his booking agency, UTA, and his then-management company, The Familie; while his public relations company, Full Coverage Communications, stopped working with him altogether. He was additionally dropped from the performer lineup at CMA Fest.
Allen has strongly denied the allegations from the first lawsuit, calling them “false” and vowing to “mount a vigorous defense” and “take all other legal action necessary to protect my reputation.”
In the suit filed Friday, an unnamed woman accused Allen of battery, assault and invasion of privacy. She claimed that after meeting Allen on a flight, she agreed to meet him in Las Vegas in July 2022. Among other claims, she alleged that while having sex with Allen in his Las Vegas hotel room, he ejaculated inside her without her consent and secretly filmed the encounter.
The woman further claims that, after being unable to fully delete the video from the sleeping Allen’s phone, she left with it and booked a new flight back to her home in Sacramento, where she reported the incident and turned the phone over to the local police department. The Sacramento police subsequently reported it to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, though Billboard‘s request for any public records linked to the report, submitted to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police through an online portal, was not immediately fulfilled.
The attorney who filed both cases, Elizabeth A. Fegan, said in a statement to Billboard that the new claims represented a “distinct pattern of behavior” by Allen and said she had “heard from others who share similar experiences.”
Allen’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment on the second lawsuit. UTA and The Familie did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether their status with Allen had changed following the new charges.
Allen’s career had been on an upward trajectory since his first single for BBR, “Best Shot,” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart in 2018. He scored two subsequent No. 1s with “Make Me Want To” and “Freedom Was A Highway” (with Brad Paisley), while “Down Home” reached No. 2. BBR was working Allen’s newest single, “Be Alright,” to country radio last month when the first lawsuit was filed, but stopped working it after the label suspended Allen. It reached No. 57 before quickly falling off the chart.
Luke Combs sends his 17th consecutive career-opening single to the top 10 of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, as his crossover hit “Fast Car” keeps on driving, rising from No. 11 to No. 6 on the June 17-dated list.
In the week ending June 8, the song surged by 27% to 22.6 million audience impressions, according to Luminate, good for Greatest Gainer honors for the third time in four weeks.
“Fast Car” – originally a No. 6 Billboard Hot 100 hit for Tracy Chapman, who wrote the song, in 1988 – concurrently bullets at Nos. 15, 18 and 25 on Adult Contemporary, Adult Pop Airplay and Pop Airplay, respectively.
The cover follows Combs’ “Going, Going, Gone,” which led Country Airplay for two weeks in March, becoming 15th No. 1. His debut entry, “Hurricane” dominated for two weeks starting in May 2017.
Combs has a second solo single climbing Country Airplay, as “Love You Anyway” lifts 15-13 (14.2 million, up 7%). Plus, he’s featured on Riley Green’s “Different ‘Round Here” (Big Machine Label Group), which rises 45-42 (2 million, up 13%).
Combs’ “Fast Car” is the first Country Airplay top 10 remake of a Hot 100 top 10 since Reba McEntire’s “Because of You” with Kelly Clarkson reached No. 2 in September 2007. It updated Clarkson’s original, which hit No. 7 on the Hot 100 in November 2005.
Before that, two such covers hit Country Airplay in 1999: Alabama’s “God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You” featuring *NSYNC hit No. 3, after *NSYNC’s original reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 that year, and Mark Chesnutt’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” led for two weeks after Aerosmith’s original topped the Hot 100 for four frames in 1998.
Top-Shelf ‘Whiskey’
Justin Moore and Priscilla Block’s “You, Me, and Whiskey” also hits the Country Airplay top 10, ascending 12-10 (17.1 million, up 13%). It’s Moore’s 14th top 10 and first since “With a Woman You Love” became his 10th No. 1 last September.
Block achieves her first top 10, after her debut single — “Just About Over You” — reached No. 14 in December 2021 and “My Bar” hit No. 26 last September.
Additional reporting by Gary Trust.
“It feels so good to be at the 50th anniversary of CMA Fest!” “Buy Dirt” hitmaker Jordan Davis told the crowd Thursday (June 8) at Nissan Stadium. It was a sentiment that was repeated through the evening, as CMA Fest commemorated a milestone — five decades as one of country music’s premier connection points between […]
The most glaring elements of Lainey Wilson’s new single, “Watermelon Moonshine,” are its thematic similarity to Deana Carter’s 1996 classic “Strawberry Wine” and a lonesome slide guitar.
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But one of the track’s most daring aspects is so subtle that most listeners are unlikely to even think about it. The melody in the chorus is surprisingly similar to the one in the verses, which is a distinct departure from the way most modern songs are constructed. Consumers’ attention spans, it’s widely believed, are short, and writers and producers are generally sensitive to changing the tone of songs every few bars to keep listeners on board.
Wilson had that issue in mind even as “Watermelon Moonshine” came together.
“When we were working on that chorus, I remember thinking, ‘OK, this sounds really, really similar to the verses,’ because I try to make sure that my verses and my chorus sound completely different from each other,” she says. “We decided to go up, you know, melodically on certain words and down on certain words. We kind of massaged it to where it was just different enough. But it really just kind of felt like a lullaby, and I didn’t want to mess with that too much.”
The base melodies for those two sections originated with songwriter Josh Kear (“Need You Now,” “Most People Are Good”) building on the title “Watermelon Moonshine,” which he came up with in a simple brainstorming exercise.
“One morning, I made two lists — months before we wrote this song — ‘Things I love,’ ‘Things I strongly dislike.’ Not a fan of the ‘hate’ word,” he notes. “Then I looked at the lists and tried to combine my likes and dislikes into titles. My least favorite food of all time is watermelon and my least favorite alcohol is moonshine … I think I turned those lists into a handful of titles, but ‘Watermelon Moonshine’ is the only one I ever resonated with enough to try writing it.”
Kear was scheduled for an appointment on Jan. 12, 2022, with Wilson and Jordan M. Schmidt (“wait in the truck,” “God’s Country”). But he was under the weather and the COVID-19 omicron variant was raging, so to play it safe for his co-writers, he worked through Zoom. That morning, he dialed up the “Watermelon Moonshine” title and proceeded to write most of the first verse and chorus, waxing nostalgic about a first sexual experience. The top line’s persistence was decidedly not an issue.
“I find the melody somewhat hypnotic,” he says. “If anything, I felt like the melodic consistency allowed me to stay lost in the story without getting distracted.” Wilson and Schmidt immediately recognized that “Watermelon Moonshine” had a similar plot and title to “Strawberry Wine,” though Kear didn’t quite figure it out until later in the day.
“By then, I was so in love with the song as it was, I wasn’t really worried about it,” he says. “I felt like what we were creating was worthy in its own right. I also figure the world can probably handle a loss-of-innocence song involving alcohol once every 25 years or so.”
Wilson and Schmidt, working at Schmidt’s studio, helped guide the second verse, in which the woman recalls having her initial experience with both alcohol and sex at the same time. That, of course, spurred Wilson’s memories of her first taste of liquor. “I remember being 17 years old, and taking a few sips of whatever it was that we were trying to hide from everybody, and that I wanted to be drunk,” recalls Wilson. “I wanted to feel like I was drunk, so in my mind, I was like, ‘I think I’m a little tipsy,’ when the truth is, I probably got more tipsy off mouthwash.”
Written in the key of C, the bridge transitions into a B-flat chord — a departure from the natural key signature — and as a result, that section almost feels like a modulation to a new key, though it quickly returns to more standard triads. “This is one of my favorite bridges,” Schmidt says. “I do feel like our contributions altogether for that bridge took the song to a new level and kind of broke the monotony of it a little bit, and kind of makes the listener have to engage again, if they were becoming disengaged at all.”
Schmidt produced a demo that relies on finger-picked guitar, using reverb on Wilson’s voice in the chorus to demonstrate the song’s dreamy nostalgia. Producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Brothers Osborne) reworked it in the studio with Charlie Worsham strumming guitar to create a pulse at a slightly faster speed. Rob McNelley drew out the slide guitar for a long, aching sweep.
“I remember everybody just kind of feeling extremely laid-back, like a melancholy feeling,” says Wilson. “It did seem like everybody in the room was reflecting as they were playing. I know I definitely was.”
After the fifth or sixth take with the band — which included bassist Joel King, guitarist Aslan Freeman and drummer Brad Pemberton — it felt like that bridge section needed even more separation from the rest of the song. Joyce left space in the track for an additional guitar segment, filled later with a descending passage that keeps the melancholy while injecting a new creative thought. Additionally, it breaks up a sentence: The last line of the bridge is a lead-in to the third chorus, and by dropping the guitar into the middle of that thought, the new material leaves the listener in bittersweet suspense.
“It did take me a second when I heard the master to switch gears in my head; like, ‘Oh, this is how Jay envisioned it,’ ” Schmidt says. “Now I’ve gotten used to it and I love it. He’s one of those producers where he’ll never take it in the way you think it should go. He’ll take it the way he thinks it should go. And I appreciated that about him. I don’t know him — I’ve never even met the guy — but I feel like I know him through his productions.”
Wilson sang all through the process — on the demo, on every take during the tracking session and in vocal overdubs at a later date — finding small nuances to exploit as she progressed, though the final version doesn’t sound much different than her performance on the demo. “I literally did maybe three passes,” she recalls of her overdub appointment, “because I still wanted it to feel real and raw, and not completely overdone.”
Stoney Creek released “Watermelon Moonshine” to country radio via PlayMPE on May 9, as a follow-up to “Heart Like a Truck,” which peaked at No. 2 on Country Airplay. Two days later, Wilson won four Academy of Country Music Awards, including album of the year, for Bell Bottom Country. “Watermelon,” the project’s sophomore single, moves No. 55-47 on the Country Airplay chart dated June 10.
Should there be cause for a No. 1 party, watermelon moonshine is certain to be on the drink menu.“Better be there,” she says, promising a buzz: “I will give you a glass of mouthwash.”
Jana Kramer will soon welcome her third child and her first with fiancé Allan Russell. Kramer said via social media, “We’ve been keeping another secret from you guys…but I’m pregnant!!!! Beyond blessed and grateful for this baby to be a part of our story.” Kramer also told People, “I didn’t think it would ever happen […]
Chris Stapleton has canceled his scheduled outdoor concert in Syracuse, New York, due to ongoing air-quality issues caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires. The upstate cancellation follows a series of called-off events throughout New York City on Wednesday night (June 7), including Broadway performances and sports games. “Due to the ongoing air conditions in the […]
Carly Pearce, Lily Rose, Madeline Edwards and Lady A member Hillary Scott joined Beverly Keel, Middle Tennessee State University dean of the College of Music and Entertainment, to discuss the ongoing struggle of women artists in country music. The panelists discussed building careers despite the general lack of support from country radio, while also celebrating the supportive community women artists have cultivated.
Keel noted a recent study from Dr. Jada Watson and Jan Diehm of The Pudding that showed that country radio plays back-to-back songs from women artists less than 1% of the time. The stats from the study are even worse for women of color and LGBTQ+ artists — though the greater country music industry has made strides in welcoming a more diverse range of country music artists.
Edwards noted that when she was having conversations with executives at Warner Music Nashville, where she signed last year, she asked them, “Are you signing me because this is a checkbox on your social consciousness and you just need to sign a Black female right now, or is it about me and believing in my music?”
“It’s good to ask those questions and wrestle with those kinds of things,” she continued, “because I truly believe that [Warner Music executives] have my best interests at heart. It really is about my music and that gives me a lot of encouragement.”
Rose spoke of the tireless, dedicated work that CMT’s Leslie Fram has done to support women artists in country music, most notably, the CMT Next Women of Country franchise. Earlier this year, CMT’s Next Women of Country celebrated its 10 year anniversary.
“We’ve all grown up in a society where in entertainment and movies and TV, the women are kind of pitted against each other,” Rose said. “At the 10 year anniversary, they had almost every single woman from the 10 classes. And you just look around, it’s like 110 female artists, the camaraderie’s through the roof, the vibes are great. It’s really cool that we all have each other’s back … Even having conversations like this, where we get to be vulnerable and talk about the things that are potentially not progressing and what we can do to make them stronger and more hopeful for us moving forward.”
Pearce offered a personal anecdote that highlighted the camaraderie of women artists in country music, sharing how Scott showed her kindness and an example of welcoming in the next generation of women artists into the country music fold.
“We were traveling overseas, and it is not glamorous,” Pearce said. “You have to take these ferries through the night. [Hillary] did not even have speak to me, but she came in and she was like, ‘How are you getting over to Ireland? I said, ‘I’m going on a ferry,’ but she said ‘No, you’re not. You’re going with us.’ She knew as a female how hard it was to travel in those kind of circumstances. She let me ride on her plane and she bought me a room at the hotel [they were staying at]. She has shown me true kindness and humility. To meet somebody that has influenced you so much and for them to exceed your expectations, it pushes me to make sure that somebody one day will say that about me.”
“I feel like there’s a theme we’ve been circling around this whole time, which you can apply to life in general,” Scott summed. “Show up and be there for whoever you’re in front of and be the person you wish you had.”
On Wednesday (June 7), Billboard hosted a series of intimate conversations and panels with country legends like Garth Brooks and rising stars like Jelly Roll. Titled Billboard Country Live in Conversation, the one-day ticketed conference for fans and industry insiders took over Marathon Music Works in Nashville. Jelly Roll closed out the eventful day, during […]
After seeing Maren Morris offer her own interpretation of his iconic style, Willie Nelson has some thoughts. On Wednesday (June 7), Morris graced the cover of Billboard alongside drag stars Eureka O’Hara, Landon Cider, Sasha Colby and Symone. Surrounded by all kinds of different drag, Morris decided to dress in full Willie Nelson drag, complete […]
Morgan Wallen had some long-awaited, great news for fans on Wednesday (June 7) morning. After cancelling six weeks of shows on doctor’s orders a month ago to go on vocal rest, the “Last Night” singer announced in an Instagram Story “we back.”
The story included a photo of Wallen sitting on the back seat of his fishing boat, arms outstretched, with the message “Also, the doc cleared me to talk and sing… we back.” That was the best-case scenario after Wallen announced on May 9 that he would have to put his tour on ice for more than a month to rest his strained voice, crossing off shows through June 17.
“I’m just gonna go ahead and get straight to it. I got some bad news from my doctors at the Vanderbilt Voice Center yesterday. After taking 10 days of vocal rest I performed three shows last weekend in Florida and by the third one I felt terrible,” the singer said at the time.
“So I went in and go scoped yesterday and they told me that I re-injured my vocal cords and that I have vocal fold trauma,” he added in the intense video. Wallen said his doctor’s advice was that he go on vocal rest for six weeks.
“They told me that if I do this the right way, I’ll get back to 100% and they also said that if I don’t listen and I keep singing, then I’ll permanently damage my voice,” Wallen said of his doctor’s diagnosis of vocal fold trauma after playing three shows in Florida, where he reinjured his vocal cord. “So for the longevity of my career, this is just a choice I had to make. I hate it. But I love you guys, and I appreciate all the support that you always give me.”
Wallen said his plan was to listen to his doctors, who advised him to not to talk at all, but cleared him to make the tour cancellation announcement. In addition to the cancelled shows, Wallen also had to skip out on last month’s Academy of Country Music Awards and push his 2023 festival appearances to 2024.
At press time the next scheduled date on Wallen’s One Night at a Time tour with HARDY, ERNEST and Bailey Zimmerman — according to the singer’s official website — was a June 22 show at Wrigley Field in Chicago. At the time of the cancellations, a Wallen spokesperson said tickets for the original dates will be honored for all rescheduled performances, with a 30-day refund window open at the point of purchase when the new dates are announced.
Wallen made news after canceling a planned show at Oxford, MS’s Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on April 23 after his opening acts performed and just moments before he was to take the stage. “I thought I was going to be good to go and I just wasn’t,” he said in a message to the 60,000 disappointed fans who were sent home that night without seeing him.