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Zach Bryan opened up to his fans on Tuesday (Nov. 18) about some hard, deeply meaningful work he’s done on himself over the past few months in an Instagram post about his sobriety and mental health journey. Along the way, the 29-year-old “Pink Skies” singer also revealed that he hasn’t touched any alcohol in two months after confronting what he described as his “toxic” relationship with booze.
“Recently, I went on a motorcycle trip across the country. For 20 days I camped and rode looking for a solution,” he wrote in the lengthy post. “At the end of this ride, I was sitting in a parking lot in Seattle, Washington thinking, ‘I really need some f–king help.’” The singer said that after spending a a decade in the Navy before being “thrown into the spotlight” that he wasn’t fully prepared for, he realized the “subconscious effects” of that sudden fame had on him.
“I was not content but I also feared showing weakness because that’s not who I am or how I was raised. To charge forward and to never settle was the motto,” he said. “I was stuck in a perpetual discontent that led me to always reaching for alcohol, not for the taste, but because there was a consistent black hole in me always needing its void filled.”
Bryan described the anxiety of being “lied about and doxxed” on the internet, as well as helping a close friend following a severe mental break and tending to another best friend who was put into a coma following a motorcycle accident while touring the country and playing five or six nights a week. The resulting stress led to what he described as “earth-shattering panic attacks” and “paralyzing” anxiety. “I thought since I was successful, had the money I always longed for, and had great friends, that I could tough anything out,” Bryan wrote.
He found a therapist and made what he called a “conscious decision to do something about my toxic relationship with booze” and how he copes with major life changes. Bryan then revealed that he hasn’t touched alcohol for nearly two months, something he did in search of his own “personal clarity. I needed to see the world objectively.” The singer said his family supported him on every step of his journey, with conversations about his future, possibly having children one day, his health and girlfriend Samantha Leonard’s happiness pushing him to prioritize not just himself, but his whole family.
“I feel great, I feel content, I feel whole,” Bryan wrote. “There is nothing I need to get me by anymore. If you or any of your friends are too tough, too scared or too stubborn to reach out, know that the most stubborn dumbass on the planet did and didn’t regret it.” Bryan concluded by saying that he doesn’t believe in absolutes, and that one day he might learn to control his habits. For now, though, he wanted fans to know that “it is okay to be weak at times and need help.”
In addition to the stresses Bryan addressed, he also went through a very public, messy breakup with former girlfriend podcaster Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia last year and then got into a dust-up with fellow country singer Gavin Adcock in September following months of back-and-forth.
In the caption, Bryan stressed that he knows he’s one of the luckiest men alive and didn’t share his thoughts in a “greater than thou” effort, but because he knows there are many other people out there silently battling mental health challenges alone. “I hope it helps someone struggling to find words when they’re down on their luck,” he said.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or addiction, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357) is available 24/7.
Trending on Billboard Just two years after singer-songwriter Dasha released her breakthrough hit “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’),” the dance-fueled song has surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, joining the streaming service’s Billions Club. Explore See latest videos, charts and news In reaching the milestone, Dasha becomes just the second solo female country artist to ever […]
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This week, Carly Pearce gets vulnerable about the sacrifices often required to chase the dream of being in the spotlight, while Kashus Culpepper returns with smoldering track about heartbreak and denial. Also issuing new songs this week are Muscadine Bloodline, Waylon Wyatt, Owen Riegling and bluegrass artist Irene Kelley.
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of some of the best country, bluegrass and/or Americana songs of the week below.
Carly Pearce, “Dream Come True”
In her latest, Grammy Award and CMA Awards winner Pearce lays bare the deep sacrifices that have been required for her to chase her dreams in music, from missing a friend’s wedding due to being on the road, to seeing personal life splashed across the headlines. “Nobody tells you everything you’re gonna lose/ Tryin’ to make the dream come true,” she sings softly, putting her heart and vulnerability at the fore on this unfiltered, introspective track. She wraps the song with devastating final lines about about not seeing her mother as often as her parent grows older, and grapples with the temptation to quit music, though quickly remembering how hard not only she, but her parents, have worked for her to have the career she has. Pearce proves yet again why she’s an artist unafraid of writing deep and etching songs that cut to the core.
Kashus Culpepper, “In Her Eyes”
Since breaking through and gaining acclaim with songs such as “After Me?” and “Believe,” Culpepper follows with this eruption of raging soulfulness, as he sings of the tugging truth that a potential lover, whose “hair shined like sin” and who is as deceptive as she is tempting. “In Her Eyes” froths and surges into a percussion and electric guitar-ripped freefall, commandeered by Culpepper’s soul-scraping, angst-fueled rasp of a voice. Culpepper wrote “In Her Eyes” with Oscar Charles and Brent Cobb, and the song is part of Culpepper’s upcoming project Act I, out in January 2026.
Muscadine Bloodline, “Peter From Picayune”
Duo Muscadine Bloodline delivers its second album of 2025 with Longleaf Lo-Fi, veering from the grizzled rock and full-bodied sound of …And What Was Left Behind and offering up a scaled-back, low-production project that feels tailor-made for the season. Among the standouts is an official studio version of a song the duo first previewed for fans a few years ago. The duo’s Charlie Muncaster and Gary Stanton are heartfelt and unhurried as they unfurl a vivid tale of South Mississippi native Peter, a young man who enlists in the Marines to serve his country when he doesn’t have enough money to enroll in college. They chronicle his deployment overseas and his determination in the heat of battle, with the acoustic-centered production lending extra somberness to lines such as “That boy wouldn’t want a welcome home parade/ Wouldn’t wanna talk about it anyway,” as the song stands as a stellar, humble tribute to military members and their sacrifices.
Waylon Wyatt, “Frostbite”
In his latest, Arkansas native Wyatt delivers a haunting performance, with his voice threading through somber fiddle, organ and guitar. He draws a parallel between the bitter ache of heartbreak and loneliness and the stark, frozen quiet of deep winter. “I’ve been yearning for some burning back in my life/ But it seems to me to be more like frostbite,” he sings, as he distills the yearning for love and sting of loss into piercing lyrics.
Owen Riegling, “Phone Call From Home”
Canadian country singer Riegling has been piling up the career milestones this year, signing with Big Loud, and seeing his album Bruce County (From the Beginning) named album of the year at the Canadian Country Music Awards. He follows his breakthrough with songs such as “Taillight This Town” with this slice of polished, swaggering country-rock, which conveys feelings of chasing dreams through long flights far from home, and piling up bleary-eyed late nights and long days — but still knowing that that familiar feeling of home is there on the other end of the line. Here, Riegling offers more evidence why his smooth vocals and vibrant songwriting are making him an artist on the cusp of wider acclaim.
Irene Kelley feat. Kruger Brothers, “Coal Dust”
Kelley teams with The Kruger Brothers as she pays homage to her grandparents’ story of being hardworking immigrants seeking to build a new life in the United States, and particularly her grandfather’s journey of working in the unforgiving coal mines in order to provide for his family. Kelley’s warm, conversational singing style is astutely complemented by warm guitar, banjo and mandolin. Kelley wrote this tender tribute with Bobby Starnes.
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When the country music industry comes together for the 59th annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards on Nov. 19, the event could be considered a convention of the unconventional.
The ballot is stacked with artists and projects that are quirky and/or test the genre’s boundaries. New artist of the year nominee Shaboozey shifted over the last year from an R&B-flavored outlier to a major country artist. New artist contender Stephen Wilson Jr. packs a rough-cut blues-rock sound. Americana import The War and Treaty is a vocal duo finalist. Post Malone‘s F-1 Trillion is an album of the year option by a pop artist. Jelly Roll‘s musical event entry with Brandon Lake, “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” relies on a dramatic gospel performance. Vocal group finalists The Red Clay Strays paint an alternative country shade on the format. And six-time nominee Ella Langley, who was signed in New York and employs out-of-the-country-box marketing, broke out with “you look like you love me,” a Riley Green-assisted recitation that casts the female protagonist as sexually aggressive, which is uncharacteristic for country.
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“For Ella to come out and say, ‘Hey, it’s been a while,’ and take it from there, [she] just puts it out there,” Big Machine Label Group president/CEO Scott Borchetta says. “It’s amazing.”
Even some of country’s primary artists are using final-five videos to bring unconventionality to the format. Lainey Wilson‘s”Somewhere Over Laredo” employs computer imaging to drop the singer out of an airplane without a parachute and land her in the middle of a desert where the scenery rolls and folds beneath her. And Chris Stapleton‘s “Think I’m in Love With You” clip finds an eccentric character — comparable, perhaps, to Seinfeld’s Cosmo Kramer — dancing weirdly through his neighborhood unnoticed in a plot with deeper lessons about the afterlife.
All of these artists and nominated projects challenge country’s norms in different ways, each of them operating as a satellite hovering around the genre’s core. Since each of them tugs against the center from a different point in its orbit, country is operating — for the moment, at least — with an enviable sonic balance.
“Country has always been one of those formats where there’s a sound, there’s a look,” says Johnny Chiang, SiriusXM/Pandora vp of music programming, country. “But yet, over the past three or four years, and still today, I can’t think of a radio format that’s more diverse in sound than country.”
Historically, the genre has adhered closely to a central identity, guided to a degree by the traditionally minded segment of its customer base. A strong preservationist wing tended to guard against country losing its basic identity, and that part of the audience had some representation among the format’s creative class.
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But country has increasingly appealed to a younger demographic — particularly since the streaming business has matured — and that faction of its consumers grew up with a wider range of music. That’s reflected in the breadth of the country music those listeners are willing to engage. The variety of acts and projects on the awards ballot shows that diversity.
“It’s not necessarily that the CMA, as an organization, is rewarding them,” suggests BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville executive vp of recorded music JoJamie Hahr. “The consumers are telling us who the superstars are, and everybody who votes for the CMAs are listening.”
Those listeners don’t generally see country music in the same way that previous generations might have viewed it. Cheating, heartache and drinking were once perceived as the genre’s primary topics. Breakups are still key and so is drinking, though it’s as much a symbol of partying as a means of drowning sorrow. Those changes have made it easier to connect with audience segments that likely would have ignored country in the past.
“It’s rebellious, a little bit edgy,” Borchetta says of current country. “There’s not a lot of super-successful young rock bands right now, and I think country’s benefiting from that because these guys are out touring like rock bands did back in the day.”
The current wave of country artists is also better equipped to interact with the industry’s infrastructure. Its creators are increasingly educated through music business programs at Nashville’s Belmont University or Murfreesboro’s Middle Tennessee State University, where they’re trained to think more strategically about their careers. And since they’ve usually released an EP or two and built a following on social media before they sign with a major label, they also have a handle on what makes them unique.
The executives have likewise attended the music-business programs in large numbers, and they’re more prone to appreciate inventive marketing and branding strategies. There’s still pressure to conform to existing career templates, but artists and their teams are generally more focused on forging unique paths than in some previous eras.
Megan Moroney, whose voice benefits from an identifiable catch and smoky tone, rode her uniqueness to a female vocalist nomination. And while she met with pressure to smooth out her sound, producer Kristian Bush, who came to prominence as one-half of Sugarland, helped her resist.
“They were trying to get me to make Megan’s vocal cleaner,” he recalls. “And I was like, ‘No, man, this is what’s cool. This is her fingerprint.’ I’m an artist. I can tell you exactly what this is, right? This is what makes you [unique]. So don’t take it away from them. Turn it up. That’s kind of the way I treat my production stuff, which is, ‘Let’s find out what’s cool about you, and let’s just make that really loud.’ “
While the unconventional efforts might widen the country universe, the genre’s core is still significant. Nominees such as Green, Lainey Wilson, Cody Johnson and Zach Top become even more important in establishing a home base that holds all the satellite sounds together.
“I texted [Leo 33 label head] Katie Dean on my way home [on Nov. 12] because I heard a new Zach Top on [SiriusXM’s] The Highway,” Hahr notes. “I’m so thankful that a Zach Top exists, because the song was so cool. What he has done paving the way in the format, to bring back that ’90s country sound, I think it just makes our format maybe the most unique because we’re welcoming all sorts of sounds and, really, a combination of formats.”
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That provides some perspective, perhaps, regarding fans’ fervor surrounding Morgan Wallen. He moves freely between country’s center and its more expansive sounds, essentially representing the format’s elasticity.
“Morgan Wallen is country’s representative in today’s music and how today’s consumer, especially younger consumers, are blurring the genre lines,” Chiang suggests. “They love Morgan. One song sounds country, the next one is hip-hop, and he has collabs and so on. They love that, too, and they don’t punish him. They don’t say, ‘Well, you’re not supposed to sound like this.’ We have a whole generation of consumers that don’t think that way.”
Thus, the range of the CMA ballot adheres to a belief in risk and unconventionality that has long been heralded in country’s C-suites, though not always observed. Borchetta, for one, is following this batch of norm-busting nominees with other singular acts, such as bluesy Preston Cooper and the shape-shifting Jack Wharff Band.
“This format always does best,” Borchetta says, “when the net is the widest.”
Trending on Billboard Eric Church is giving fans a preview into the cinematic concert extravaganza that his fans will see in February, when Eric Church: Evangeline Vs. The Machine Comes Alive hits IMAX theaters in the United States and Canada for two nights only, on Feb. 11 and Feb. 14, 2026. Explore See latest videos, […]
Trending on Billboard Luke Bryan and Ella Langley are getting into the holiday spirit, releasing a new collaboration as part of Bryan’s new three-song EP, Luke Bryan Christmas, which dropped Friday (Nov. 14). Explore See latest videos, charts and news Bryan and Langley team up for a rendition of the holiday classic “Winter Wonderland,” which […]
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Whatever has been ailing Dolly Parton is nothing that a bestselling book can’t fix. The superstar, dressed in a black leather top and pants adorned with glittery silver and gold stars, was out and about this week touting her new book, Star of the Show: My Life on Stage.
Parton made the rounds in Nashville following the book’s Tuesday release, posting on Instagram her stops at Barnes & Noble, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Costco and Target, where she was making sure her newest release was front and center. She even tried some tasty treats at Costco, and then at Target jokingly used the book as a weight, hoisting it up in the air a few times, jokingly declaring, “This is heavy. This is how I built up my chest.”
Written with Billboard Country Update editor Tom Roland, the book celebrates Parton’s nearly 60-year career as an entertainer. It is the third in a trilogy, following Songteller, which focused on her lyrics, and Behind the Seams, which highlighted her fashion. Star of the Show features more than 500 photos, stories about her decades of touring and a list of all her performances.
Parton made news in September when she postponed her December dates at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to September 2026, telling fans, “As many of you know, I have been dealing with some health challenges, and my doctors tell me that I must have a few procedures. As I joked with them, it must be time for my 100,000-mile check-up, although it’s not the usual trip to see my plastic surgeon!”
Concern for Parton hit overdrive in October after her sister Freida posted on social media that she had been “up all night praying for my sister, Dolly,” adding “Godspeed, my sissy Dolly.” The next day Parton posted a video suggesting her health issues were of no great import. “I know lately, everybody thinks that I am sicker than I am … do I look sick to you?! I’m workin’ hard here,” she said, dressed to the nines in a red top and black pants. She stressed she wanted to put “everyone’s mind at ease… I’m OK. I’ve got some problems that I mentioned,” adding that she didn’t take care of herself while she was tending to her sick husband, Carl, who died in March. She added she was having “a few treatments here and there” at Vanderbilt’s Medical Center but stressed “I am okay…. I don’t think God is through with me and I ain’t done working.”
This Sunday, Parton will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars’ annual Governors Awards in Los Angeles. The award is given “to an individual in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry by promoting human welfare and contributing to rectifying inequities,” according to the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The award recognizes Parton for her decades-long humanitarian efforts, including the Dollywood Foundation, which inspires the children of East Tennessee — her home state — to achieve educational success, as well as her Imagination Library, which provides pre-school children with a book a month.
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On Tuesday evening (Nov. 11), Save the Music’s sixth annual “Hometown to Hometown” event put a spotlight on the power of music education to inspire creativity and launch careers, while also raising money to aid the current and future generations of students to have access to quality music technology. The event was held at Nashville’s City Winery, raising over $250,000 to support music education in under-resourced public high schools.
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Singer-songwriter Dasha opened the evening with a performance of “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’),” and also co-hosted the evening alongside FEMco founder Leslie Fram. They led the way in celebrating the night’s 2025 champions of the year, artists Lee Ann Womack and Old Dominion, as well as music industry leader Cameo Carlson.
Lee Ann Womack performs onstage for Save The Music’s 6th Annual Hometown to Hometown Event at City Winery Nashville on November 11, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Carlson is the CEO of mtheory, and manages Grammy-nominated artist Mickey Guyton. Carlson is also an instrumental part of organizations and programs including Nashville Music Equality and the Equal Access program. Carlson began her career in terrestrial radio before transitioning into the digital music arena as head of label and artist relations at Apple, helping to spearhead the early iTunes juggernaut. Carlson’s career has also included executive roles at Universal Motown Republic. Prior to her work at mtheory, she led digital strategy at Borman Entertainment.
Guyton honored Carlson with a performance of “Better Than You Left Me,” while music industry exec Rachel Whitney presented Carlson as a champion of the year honoree. Carlson also joined Fram onstage as the two shared a conversation about Carlson’s career.
“The real thing for me is staying open-minded,” Carlson said of her early career roles. “Being that first-gen [college] student who didn’t have a network of any kind to walk into, I didn’t know what possibilities there were and weren’t, so I kept an open mind. I was taking opportunities that presented itself in front of me that sounded cool and sounded different, and I wound up in this space of kind of being an interpreter between what the tech needed and what the music industry did and I liked that niche…there’s no way you could have charted out the path that I wound up on.”
In her role at mTheory, she and her team provide services to aid artist managers in their complex myriad of roles.
“The managers, in the ecosystem of an artist, they are the one person who has to know everything, they have to do every single line of business. It is an impossible job. There’s never been a manager that goes to bed at night and says, ‘I did everything I could for my artist today,’ literally doesn’t exist. So the job starts at impossible, and our mission statement is that we support the impossible. We put services in place to help managers.”
Mickey Guyton performs onstage for Save The Music’s 6th Annual Hometown to Hometown Event at City Winery Nashville on November 11, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Womack performed “A Little Past Little Rock” and “I Hope You Dance,” the latter being a five-week Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper in 2000. Songwriter Bernie Taupin presented Womack with her accolade, telling Womack, “Honoring this woman is such a pleasure for me, I cannot even begin to tell you. I’m preaching to the choir here and you all know, it’s been happening for years, art and music is getting siphoned out of the educational system.” He added, “Music is a life force and the life blood of my industry… It was my education, and we should not let it be drained out of the educational system.”
“Thank you to Save the Music so much for keeping music in schools… we all know, helps them with their test scores in math and science and tech-related things, and not only that, but emotionally, giving them an emotional outlet to express themselves,” Womack told the crowd. “I want every child to have the opportunity to hold a musical instrument in their hands. It’s so important. I can tell you from personal experience, music is so important in these schools. It can be the reason a kid gets up in the morning. It can be the reason they want to go to school, it can be the reason they want to have a better score on that math test or that science test. I thank Save the Music so much for keeping music in schools.”
Old Dominion performed “One Man Band” and a song the band has referred to as a “love letter to Nashville,” this year’s “Good Night Music City.” The band was presented with its accolade by Sony Music Nashville Chairman/CEO Taylor Lindsey. Earlier in 2025, Old Dominion spearheaded raising almost $300,000 for music programs through several initiatives, among them by donating a portion of proceeds from their seven-night run of shows at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
“My hometown was about the size of this room,” recalled Old Dominion lead singer Matthew Ramsey. “I know what it’s like to grow up in an area where resources are not readily available. I was definitely that kid that felt like music was sometimes the only reason to get up. I know what everyone is talking about here… and I appreciate Save the Music and what they’re doing. We are so honored to be part of it in a small way.”
Later in the evening, Nashville-based Johnson Alternative Learning Center’s principal Franklin and music teacher Mr. Hanna spoke of how music technology and music education have impacted their students. Additionally, one of the school’s senior students Janie, who is learning podcasting through a Save the Music J Dilla Music Technology grant, offered a powerful testimony of how music technology has been beneficial.
Dasha, Fram and singer-songwriter Pynk Beard delivered encouragement for the crowd to raise money for the cause. The event raised $250,000 to support new music technology programs in Nashville as well as the honorees’ hometowns of Washington, D.C. (Old Dominion) and Dallas, Texas (Womack).
Since its launch in 2019, Hometown to Hometown has raised $1.2 million, aiding 18 high schools with resources and state-of-the-art music technology equipment. The sixth annual Save The Music’s “Hometown to Hometown” event was sponsored by Gibson Gives, Love Tito’s, Messina Touring Group, Morris Higham Management, mtheory and SiriusXM.
Dasha performs onstage for Save The Music’s 6th Annual Hometown to Hometown Event at City Winery Nashville on November 11, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee.
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As he gears up to release his new EP Appaloosa on Friday (Nov. 14), country singer Orville Peck broke down the current phase of his career in the latest episode of Billboard‘s Takes Us Out.
Peck sat down with Billboard’s Tetris Kelly at Los Angeles’ Beachwood Café, where the pair chowed down on comfort food and took a look at the state of Peck’s career today. “[I’ve been] going back to my roots, in terms of just diving into the creativity and the artistry and the references that I grew up loving,” Peck says. “[Appaloosa]’s also got a very constant air through it in terms of lyrics, of just kind of being unconcerned with what things should sound like or look like. I’m really just making music for myself again.”
The singer, who spent the last few years rising through the ranks of country music and becoming a breakout star in his own right, says that his work with friends and former collaborators such as Noah Cyrus and Willie Nelson only further helped bolster his confidence about his own artistic output. But he points to one country superstar as his dream collaborator.
“I mean, I always say Dolly [Parton], I would love to work with Dolly,” he says. “I got Willie Nelson, he was really neck-and-neck with her, so she is the last one on my absolute bucket list that I would die to work with.”
As a disruptive force in the country space, and one who has often advocated for greater diversity and equity within the genre, Peck points out that he’s happy to see some progress finally being made for the genre he calls home. “I feel better about it. I think there’s a lot more people now feeling like they can make country music and not be within the sort of homogenized idea of what country ‘needs’ to be,” he says. “That’s amazing, not just for queer people, but for black people, for brown people, there’s a lot more artists who feel validated to be a part of that.”
But, he points out that country is “tricky” when it comes to progress, and says that the work is far from over. “There is some attachment to country with the culture of country,” he says. “In some ways we’re making a lot of progress, and then in some ways, that progress is making some people want to stand firm in their gatekeeping of country. It’s a constant conversation.”
He points to the recent rule change at the Recording Academy, dividing the previously existing best country album category into two separate lanes for “traditional” and “contemporary” country albums, as an example of his point.
“I actually think it makes sense, personally,” he says. “I think in the last 10-15 years, there has been more of a split between radio-pop country, which tends to be more about a certain type of culture than a sound. And then I think there’s the other side of country that is a more traditional, referenced type of country that’s more about the songwriting … that feels like it’s more open culturally to anyone who wants to express themselves in that.”
During the new interview, Peck also chats about his time playing the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club on Broadway, his favorite song off of his new album and the “diet illegal” activities he and his friends got into growing up. Watch the full episode of Takes Us Out above.
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Three years after the legendary Ernest Tubb Record Shop closed in 2022, the iconic establishment is gearing up to celebrate its official reopening during a celebration set for Nov. 13.
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The late Country Music Hall of Fame member Tubb, known for hits including “Walking The Floor Over You,” “Soldier’s Last Letter,” and “Waltz Across Texas,” first opened the Ernest Tubb Record Shop on Nashville’s Commerce Street in May 1947. Since 1951, the Ernest Tubb Record Shop has been in its current location at 417 Broadway in downtown Nashville.
While the shop sold vinyl records and music songbooks, it also became a heralded performance spot due to Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree, where artists who were performing on Saturday nights at the Grand Ole Opry (then centered at the Ryman Auditorium) would head to the nearby shop afterward to perform late-night sets that would broadcast on WSM radio. Over the years, Tubb, who joined the cast of the Opry in 1943, welcomed and encouraged artists including Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams, Patsy Clin, and Johnny Cash, giving younger artists valuable career exposure. Over time, the shop became a home for community and camaraderie. Tubb was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, and won the Academy of Country Music’s pioneer award in 1980. Tubb died in 1984.
The same year the shop closed, brothers Jamie and Bryan Kenney, co-founders of management company Tusk Brothers Entertainment, bought the four-story building. The brothers are the team behind Nashville’s Wedgewood-Houston bar Never Never, as well as Reunion Bar & Hotel in East Nashville. They teamed with Tubb’s grandson Dale Tubb, as well as top-flight Nashville session musician Ilya Toshinskiy, to revitalize the record shop.
“The first time I met these guys, they said, ‘We’ve been entrusted with this important piece of history,’” the younger Tubb tells Billboard. “Everything they do from a storytelling standpoint is to preserve and tell that story properly, to preserve the essence, the bones and the spirit of this place.’”
Now, the building that houses the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, has been revitalized to not only revive the record shop, but make use of all four stories, adding performance spaces, a honky-tonk and an open-air rooftop bar. The walls have the original exposed brick.
Ernest Tubb Record Shop
Andrea Behrends
In the process of preserving the building, the brothers got a first–hand look at the memorabilia Tubb’s grandson had kept over the years, such as journals where the country artist scribbled song ideas, a letter from Minnie Pearl telling Tubb she’d dropped off muffins for him, or a telegram from Johnny Cash telling Tubb that one of Cash’s children had been born. There is another letter from Cash, wherein the Man In Black was attempting to get a meeting with Tubb to discuss playing on the Grand Ole Opry. Much of that memorabilia now lines the walls of the building’s four floors.
“We saw the depths of his influence in a totally new way,” Jamie Kenney says. “[Ernest] was truly the godfather, the kingpin of country music.”
“It’s still very in line with what he did,” Dale Tubb says of the venue’s continuation of his grandfather’s legacy. “He partied hard. Granddad would be slinging booze in here. This place evolved, just like the music did. Music evolves as society evolves.”
The first floor features a honky-tonk with two bars and two stages (including the original stage of Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree), as well as photos of Tubb with his fellow country stars. Throughout the venue, there is more memorabilia, such as Tubb’s guitars, cowboy boots from the 1940s and a revolver Tubb used as a prop when filming the western The Fighting Buckaroo.
“The story that the first place Patsy [Cline] played in Nashville was the Midnite Jamboree; well, here’s the thank you letter from that night. What are the odds that it’s still in mint condition and didn’t get tossed or hidden in someone’s private collection?” Dale Tubb says. “You could immediately tell there was a sense that these guys care about this type of environment. There’s a true respect for the music.”
On the second floor is the record shop, with vinyl records for sale on wooden shelves, along with branded merchandise, another bar and space to host live acoustic performances in an intimate setting. The third floor offers a private event space, outfitted with vintage lighting and a bar, offering an exclusive setting for industry showcases, album release parties and label events.
Ernest Tubb Record Shop
Andrea Behrends
“Through the whole project, we want to honor the music business, because the music business is the piece that built this,” Jamie says. “We’ve been touring all the labels and the Opry and publishers and artists and just kind of saying, ‘We’re the stewards of this, but this is yours.’”
The basement has been revamped to become The Forty Seven lounge, which showcases wood-paneled walls, vintage accents and velvet seating — all paying tribute to 1947, the year Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop first opened. The Kenney Brothers estimate the remodeled venue has a capacity of around 1,000 people.
“Ernest Tubb seemed to be the classic gatherer of the people, and he was very ahead of his time,” Jamie says. “He always honored the past, but he would always grab the younger artists of his day, people that were up-and-coming. We want to reflect that, too. All these things we’re calling ‘country-adjacent’ or ‘folk,’ ‘Americana.’ I think he would have loved that. It’s going to be a curated artistic aesthetic.”
On Nov. 15, the longtime Midnite Jamboree will return to Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop, airing on WSM 650 AM radio.
“The soul of the record shop was the performances and these country stars wandering over from that alley 200 feet away, after they performed at the Opry, grabbing a flask of whisky or a six-pack, jumping onstage and having a party,” Bryan says.
“We don’t just want to save the record shop,” he adds. “We want to restore the DNA of what made it great and give it a new iteration, so it has many more years.”
Ernest Tubb Record Shop
Andrea Behrends
