Country
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The lives of country artists’ spouses can be challenging — their partners spend long periods of time on the road, often chew up their home time with business meetings and songwriting appointments, and get interrupted periodically by strangers when the couple is out in public.
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So it’s telling that Lauren Akins, who celebrated her 10th anniversary with Thomas Rhett last October, sweetly defines herself by that relationship in the profile on her Twitter page: “Blessed to be married to my best friend.”
Rhett clearly remains enamored of his wife, documenting their lives together through much of his material, including “Life Changes,” “Look What God Gave Her” and “Star of the Show.” Part of that appreciation is his recognition of the abnormal scenario she freely embraces.
“Anyone married to someone in the spotlight, it takes a very special human being,” he says. “The amount of days I’ve been gone, the amount of times I’ve let work overtake my family life, the amount of times I’ve said yes to stuff that I probably should have said no to — and [she was] there with me the whole way.”
His newest single — “Angels (Don’t Always Have Wings),” which Valory released to country radio via PlayMPE on Jan. 23 — reflects both his gratitude for her and some degree of guilt for his job’s infringements, though Rhett didn’t necessarily intend to be the voice delivering that message.
“Angels” emerged from a co-writing appointment with Teddy Swims, a multigenre singer-songwriter who made Rhett a featured artist on his rhythmic 2021 track “Broke.” “Teddy Swims is like if Chris Stapleton started an R&B band,” Rhett says. “That’s what he sounds like — absolutely insane.”
Rhett aimed to write something that Swims might not typically record: a “frickin’ country ballad that the chorus is just at the tip top of his range,” says Rhett. “Selfishly, I wanted to hear Teddy singing something like that.”
The night before the session, Rhett read a book that raised the possibility of meeting an angel who presents in the physical world as a human being. From that idea, he drifted to the phrase “Angels (Don’t Always Have Wings)” and decided the concept applied to his wife. He introduced that idea during his Nashville writing date with Swims, Josh Thompson (“I’ll Name the Dogs,” “Ain’t Always the Cowboy”) and songwriter-producer Julian Bunetta (“Craving You,” “Beer Can’t Fix”). Everyone bought into it, with Rhett leading the charge.
“You have to stand around with, like, trash cans to pick up all the stuff leaking out of him,” Bunetta says. “You can’t pick it up fast enough. He’s one of the most prolific writers I have ever been around.”
They wrote “Angels” in a waltz time signature, placing the song’s female subject on a pedestal while the singer, self-described as a “mess of a man,” takes responsibility for his own failures and a “selfish heart.” It is, agree Rhett and Bunetta, an exaggeration of Rhett’s character, though Rhett expected Swims to sing it in the end anyway.
“It’s not like every movie that Robert De Niro is in, he had to live,” Bunetta reasons. “The greatest artists have always been able to interpret the song the way it needs to be interpreted. Whether or not they lived that is sort of beside the point.”
They fashioned “Angels” with the music and lyrics working in tandem to wring maximum emotion out of the experience. It starts humbly and conversationally in its opening verses, rising in the chorus to a higher melodic plain. In the process, it uses a fairly small number of words, allowing the phrases — and the song’s heart — to unfold slowly.
“The use of space in songs is good,” Bunetta notes. “Sometimes space says what needs to be said.”The mix of sweet adulation and self-abasement proved dramatic, reaching the climactic, semi-spiritual line in the narrative just before the chorus’ end: “I don’t know why you were patient and wasted good savin’ on me.” The foursome felt a bridge was needed to complete it, and they wrestled with numerous ideas before Thompson asserted himself, using “wings” as both the last word in the chorus and the first word in the bridge.
“He is the least-vocal songwriter that I write with — and by least vocal, I mean the person that is not just shouting out every melody and lyric that comes to his brain,” Rhett says. “I think he kind of allows the write to happen. He just kind of tucks away in a corner with his laptop that’s from 2001 because he’s too old school to upgrade. We got stuck; he just spat out that bridge. And we were just like, ‘That’s what it was supposed to be the whole time.’”
Swims sang over a drum loop and acoustic guitar for the Bunetta-produced demo, but by the next morning, Rhett was already having second thoughts about who should sing it. He checked in with Swims periodically to gauge what was happening with “Angels,” and after several months, got Swims’ permission to keep it for himself. Rhett recorded it with producer Dann Huff (Kane Brown, Brantley Gilbert), who honored the song’s spacious needs.
Rhett, meanwhile, needed private space for his vocal. The chorus tested his falsetto in a way that he had never quite encountered before in the studio, and he wasn’t certain he could capture the song’s vulnerability in front of a producer and engineer. So he holed up in his home studio and sang 60 or 70 takes, which would later be compiled into one vocal.
“I really just wanted to lock myself in that emotion alone and see what would come out,” he says. “The intricacies of my voice breaking up or the falsetto not being perfect — that’s the realness of it.”
After Rhett’s album Where We Started arrived April 1, 2022, his manager, G Major Management founder Virginia Davis, saw particularly strong fan reaction to “Angels,” and she encouraged Bunetta to explore a remix. He redid the bass and drums, and added a piano with a tremolo effect in the opening bars. “I thought that the intro, if we’re going to radio with this song, needed some ear candy to perk your ear up,” says Bunetta.
“Angels” debuted at No. 51 on the Feb. 11 Country Airplay chart and moves to No. 32 in its second week. The song also continues to generate direct messages on social media as fans adopt a song Rhett wrote about his wife as their own.
“It was really cool,” he says, “to watch something so personal resonate on such a large scale with people from different walks of life.”
Shania Twain’s sixth studio set, Queen of Me — her first since 2017’s Now — flies in at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart (dated Feb. 18), becoming her seventh top five entry.
Released on Feb. 3, the LP earned 38,000 equivalent album units, with 34,000 in album sales, in its opening week, ending Feb. 9, according to Luminate.
On the all-genre Billboard 200, Queen starts at No. 10, awarding Twain her sixth top 10.
The set, whose 12 songs Twain co-authored, is her first of new material since Now, which opened at No. 1 on Top Country Albums and the Billboard 200 in October 2017. Now marked Twain’s fifth No. 1 on Top Country Albums and her second on the Billboard 200.
Twain first appeared on Top Country Albums in 1993 with her No. 67-peaking self-titled debut set. She then reigned with The Woman in Me, which spent 29 weeks at No. 1 in 1995-96; Come on Over (50 weeks, 1997-2000); Up! (six weeks, 2002-03); Greatest Hits (11 weeks, 2004-05); and Now (one week, 2017).
In between Now and Queen of Me, Twain’s Not Just a Girl: The Highlights soundtrack, which accompanied her career-spanning Netflix documentary, opened at its No. 15 Top Country Albums peak last September.
With its 50 frames atop Top Country Albums, Come on Over is tied for the second-longest reign with Luke Combs’ This One’s for You, which began its rule in June 2017. Since the chart premiered in January 1964, Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album boasts the longest command: it racks up its 94th week in the penthouse on the latest list, with 46,000 units (up 8%).
Meanwhile, Twain joins five other acts with top five titles on Top Country Albums in the 1990s, 2000s, ’00s and ’10s: Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw, as well as Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton, both of whose streaks date back to the ’60s.
Singer-songwriter Jordyn Shellhart’s family moved to Nashville when she was 10, dedicated to assisting the precocious musical talent pursue her dreams. Within a few short years, Shellhart’s aspirations were shifting to reality; by age 16, she had inked her first publishing and record deals and played on the Grand Ole Opry stage.
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This was the mid-2000s, at a time when another talented teen named Taylor Swift was just beginning to turn the country music scene upside down.
“It was on the heels of that phenomenon, so people were more willing to sign younger artists and I was a benefactor of that,” Shellhart recalls. However, things quickly went sideways. “I lost my voice and my record deal and had to totally regroup. I started over as a songwriter, trying to figure out what my life looked like in music without being a singer. It was pretty jarring at the time, but looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
While working with vocal coaches to reclaim her voice, Shellhart became laser-focused on songwriting, earning her first cut at age 19 when Don Williams recorded “I Won’t Give Up on You.” More cuts followed, including “Secondhand Smoke” and “I Guess They Call It Fallin’,” both recorded by Kelsea Ballerini, “How You Love Someone,” recorded by Mickey Guyton, and “I Always Wanted To,” first recorded by Cody Johnson and later Garrett Hedlund. Along the way, she’s worked in writing rooms alongside legendary songwriters like Lori McKenna, Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin.
Her previous cuts, plus Little Big Town earning a 2021 Grammy nomination for best country duo/group performance for the quartet’s recording of her song “Sugar Coat,” positioned Shellhart as one of country music’s most formidable new songwriters.
But Shellhart felt a yearning to be a performing artist again. Earlier this year, Shellhart, 28, released her debut Warner Music Nashville single, “Who Are You Mad At,” which she wrote with Marc Beeson and Shamblin. A full album is slated for later this year.
“It feels like returning to myself, like coming home,” Shellhart says.
Shellhart spoke with Billboard about her early career success, reclaiming her physical and artistic voice and crafting her upcoming album.
How did “Who Are You Mad At” come about?
Marc and Allen are two of my favorite songwriters, and we write quite a bit together. One day, Alan had this experience with someone that he was telling us about and I think most of us have been on the receiving end of someone’s rage, or disproportionate reaction to something that maybe we didn’t even do. I totally understood what he was going through and just started singing the chorus. It was just born out of that conversation.
This marks a homecoming of sorts for you, after going through a journey of losing — and regaining — your voice. What was that like?
It was a slow process. I was touring and performing a lot and it became difficult. I was never sure if my voice was gonna show up or not. So it was this mental anguish before I would have to sing. From there, it progressed to the point where I couldn’t talk anymore. Looking back, I feel like it was probably sort of a psychological spinout, basically just stressing myself out about it, and it made it worse. I think everyone carries stress differently — and for me, it got locked up right in my throat. It was pretty traumatic, looking back on it.
And you turned to songwriting.
It was by accident. My publisher at the time at Sea Gayle, Chris DuBois, was so supportive of me. He was like, “OK, you have nine months left in your deal, and let’s figure this out. Let’s keep trying to create.” So I started writing by myself for the first time. I learned how to write songs through co-writing at 14, while so many other people start out writing [solo] in their bedrooms. But my formative writing years were in rooms with older, superior writers. It took me losing my voice to go back to that innocence of, “What do I want to say, by myself, as a writer?”
Then you teamed with Lori McKenna and Josh Kerr to write “Sugar Coat.”
Lori was so gracious, and I don’t think Josh or I had written with her much before. I remember that first trip [to McKenna’s home near Boston], we just threw out all of these ideas and wrote two other songs, before she said, “I have this thing that I want to try to write,” and pretty much read what is the chorus of “Sugar Coat.” So we helped finish out the verses and the melody, and in the process, just got to absorb her brilliance that day.
You also wrote “I Always Wanted To” with Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin.
That was one of the craziest co-writes for me. I got the idea for that song in the shower and just started writing the chorus, not really knowing what it was about, but knowing it was from the perspective of a guy who never did the things he wanted to do. It was my first time writing with Tom and Allen together. I shared that chorus, and Allen said he had verses he had written — and they are exactly what you hear in the song. Tom laughed and stared at us and said, “Guys, put that chorus with those verses and let’s go to lunch.” Allen didn’t have a melody with his verses, so I just sang the melody I had for the chorus around those verses and it was seamless. I’ve never had that experience before.
You have a new record deal with Warner and are returning to being a performing artist. Obviously, you are an adult now, but what else is different about being an artist this time around?
I think as a kid, I was so defined by being a singer — I had this death grip on it, because it was the only thing I felt like was worthy about me, and the only thing I had to offer anybody. So having that taken away from me, it made me reckon with my place in the world. So, for the last 13 years, I’ve been learning what it’s like to be human apart from the gifts I’ve been given. Eventually my voice came back, but it took awhile before I was brave enough to try recording again.
You started working with producer Cameron Jaymes, and you will have an album out later this year.
Cameron and I went into making this album with the lowest stakes. He was like, “Let’s just make something for you and maybe we get more co-writes out of it.” He was pulling favors with our friends who played instruments. Then Warner reached out, because they had cut a few of my songs on their artists. As soon as I started recording with Cameron, it felt like returning to myself, like returning home. I started engaging with Warner and co-chair/co-president Cris Lacy came by the studio and listened to the whole project. I felt like I was being seen and heard in such a real way. I just tried to cut songs that I knew I would feel annoyed if anyone recorded them except me.
As an artist, who would you most want to collaborate with in the future?
I would love to collaborate with SZA. I listen to her lyrics and I just feel a connection, like she speaks the same language as me a bit, and I find that inspiring. But also, just growing up listening to country music, I love storytellers in general. Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Kris Kristofferson, those are people who can just write a song and tell a story.
What was the first concert you remember seeing?
LeAnn Rimes. I saw her in California when I was like eight years old.
What is one song you wish you had written?
“Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
What are your must-haves when you are on the road?
The only thing I require before a show is hot tea or hot water and honey. That’s the only real diva thing I have at this point.
Valentine’s Day isn’t all love and romance, especially for the heartbroken people out there. Kelsea Ballerini captures that feeling in a new six-track EP released on Tuesday (Feb. 14) called Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, and its accompanying short film.
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In the 20-minute clip, the country star details the devastation of her divorce from fellow country Morgan Evans, opening the short film with “Mountain With a View,” in which the 29-year-old sits alone at a breakfast table. “I’m wearing the ring still / But I think I’m lying / Sometimes you forget yours / I think we’re done trying,” she sings.
She then visually portrays equally emotional tracks “Just Married,” “Penthouse,” “Interlude” and “Blindsided” before wrapping up with the reflective “Leave Me Again,” in which she sings, “For a while the shoe fit / But then I outgrew it / And staying only made me get real good at pretend / So, I hope I never leave me again.”
Ballerini originally announced her divorce from Evans in August 2022 via an Instagram Story. “I’ve always tried to share my life with you in a real and vulnerable way, while also protecting layers of my personal life as they unfold,” she wrote in the all-text message. “This is now public record so I wanted you to hear from me directly that I am going through a divorce.”
The couple met in March 2016 while both were co-hosting the CMC Awards in Australia. They became engaged in December of that year, and married Dec. 2, 2017 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Rolling Up the Welcome Mat also follows her 2022 album, Subject to Change, which reflects on her personal growth over the past few years.
Watch the new short film below.
Morgan Wallen rises from No. 4 to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Feb. 18), becoming the top musical act in the U.S. for a sixth total week. He tallied his first five weeks at No. 1 in January-February 2021.
Wallen returns to the top spot thanks to seven charting hits on the Billboard Hot 100, led by “Last Night,” which vaults 27-3 after its first full week of tracking, becoming his fifth top 10 song and highest-charting career hit.
Here’s a recap of Wallen’s seven current Hot 100 hits, all of which are on his new album One Thing at a Time, due March 3:
Rank, TitleNo. 3, “Last Night”No. 13, “Thought You Should Know”No. 18, “You Proof”No. 38, “I Wrote the Book”No. 47, “One Thing at a Time”No. 51, “Everything I Love”No. 81, “Tennessee Fan”
Also fueling Wallen’s return to No. 1 on the Artist 100 is his prior LP Dangerous: The Double Album, which rises 6-4 on the Billboard 200. The January 2021 release, which sparked his first five weeks atop the Artist 100, spends a 106th week in the Billboard 200’s top 10, tying the West Side Story soundtrack from 1962 for the third-most weeks totaled in the region. They trail only the My Fair Lady original cast recording from 1956 (173 weeks in the top 10) and the Sound of Music soundtrack from 1965 (109).
Wallen extends his record for the most weeks spent at No. 1 on the Artist 100 among primarily country acts. Jason Aldean and Luke Combs follow with three weeks on top apiece. Taylor Swift leads all acts with 63 weeks logged at the summit.
Elsewhere in the Artist 100’s top 10, Shania Twain re-enters at No. 8, as she appears in the top 10 for the first time since reaching No. 2 in 2017. Her new album Queen of Me arrives at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 with 38,000 equivalent album units earned, becoming her sixth top 10. Notably, she joins Madonna as the only women with newly-charting Billboard 200 top 10s in the 1990s, 2000s, ’10s and ’20s (Madonna’s streak also includes the ’80s).
The Artist 100 measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
HARDY’s rock-country amalgamation The Mockingbird & THE CROW crowned three Billboard charts — Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums — upon its release, solidifying the singer-songwriter as a genre-fluid purveyor at a time when country and rock are evermore intertwined.
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But back in 2019, HARDY was already mixing things up with his collaborative Hixtape Vol. 1, which featured work with nearly 20 singer-songwriters, including Keith Urban, Cole Swindell, Morgan Wallen and Lauren Alaina. A second iteration, Hixtape, Vol. 2, followed in 2021, with collabs with Midland, Jimmie Allen, Marty Stuart and more.
HARDY recently spoke about the future of his Hixtapes, telling Billboard he envisions releasing a new Hixtape every few years. He also has some definite possibilities in how his Hixtapes could evolve.
“I hope it’s gonna be around forever,” the Mississippi native says, adding that he could see a “Chickstape,” featuring only female collaborators, at some point. “It’s not a real thing yet, but there might be an all-female Hixtape one day.”
He says another iteration of the Hixtape could nod to The Mockingbird & THE CROW.
“I could see doing a rock Hixtape, where I could write a bunch of redneck, ‘He Went to Jared’ type of songs and get rock guys to sing on it.”
He also has a bucket list of artists in mind, including Three Doors Down singer and fellow Mississippi native Brad Arnold.
“I would also love [Caleb] Shomo from Beartooth, or somebody like [ZZ Top’s] Billy Gibbons would be dope. Guys who ride the line of Southern rock and what we do. I think it would be a cool concept,” HARDY says.
In the meantime, the reigning ACM songwriter of the year will launch his The Mockingbird & The Crow tour on Feb. 16, starting in Indianapolis, Ind. The trek will welcome openers Jameson Rodgers as well as HARDY’s Big Loud labelmates, rock band Blame My Youth.
Twelve-time Grammy winning trio The Chicks will take their music global this summer, when The Chicks World Tour 2023 launches in June.
Joining them on the outing are “The Bones” hitmaker Maren Morris, Canadian band Wild Rivers and “Better Way” singer Ben Harper, with each act opening select shows throughout the tour. The tour launches on June 20 in Oslo, Norway and wraps Sept. 18 in Toronto, Ontario. Along the way the Chicks will visit more than 30 cities, including 29 stops in North America. Among their U.S. dates are shows in Nashville, Tennessee (July 27); Grand Rapids, Michigan (Aug. 17); Tulsa, Oklahoma (July 21) and Bethel, New York (Aug. 3).
“Thank you to all our fans for making last Summer so fun! It’s time to get the party going again! We can’t wait to see everyone!” The Chicks said via Instagram.
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Morris also shared the news on social media, saying, “READY TO RUN to 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇮🇪🇳🇴🇸🇪🇳🇱”
Tickets will go on sale for all U.S. shows except for Bethel, Hershey, Columbus, St. Paul, & Sioux Falls on Thursday, Feb. 16 at 10 a.m. local time. Tickets for shows in Europe, UK, Canada, and St. Paul (U.S.) will go on sale on Friday, Feb. 17 at 10 a.m. local time. Tickets for the Bethel, Hershey, Columbus, and Sioux Falls dates will be available beginning Friday, Feb. 24 at 10 a.m. local time.
Prior to the tour launch, The Chicks are slated for their six-concert Las Vegas residency at Zappos Theater starting in May, and will take part in Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday celebration concert on April 30 in Los Angeles.
See the full list of tour dates below:
June 20: Oslo, Norway @ Oslo Spektrum Arena (with Maren Morris)
June 21: Stockholm, Sweden @ Ericsson Globe (with Maren Morris)
June 23: Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Ziggo Dome (with Maren Morris)
June 27: Cardiff, England @ Cardiff Castle (with Maren Morris)
June 28: Glasgow, United Kingdom @ OVO Hydro (with Maren Morris)
June 30: Dublin, Ireland @ 3Arena (with Maren Morris)
July 2: Birmingham, United Kingdom @ Utilita Arena Birmingham (with Maren Morris)
July 4: Manchester, United Kingdom @ AO Arena (with Maren Morris)
July 21: Tulsa, Oklahoma @ BOK Center (with Wild Rivers)
July 22: North Little Rock, Arkansas @ Simmons Bank Arena (with Wild Rivers)
July 25: Louisville, Kentucky @ KFC Yum! Center (with Wild Rivers)
July 27: Nashville, Tennessee @ Bridgestone Arena (with Wild Rivers)
July 29: Knoxville, Tennessee @ Thompson-Boling Arena (with Wild Rivers)
July 30: Greensboro, North Carolina @ Greensboro Coliseum Complex (with Wild Rivers)
Aug. 2: Columbia, Maryland @ Merriweather Post Pavilion (with Wild Rivers)
Aug. 3: Bethel, New York @ Bethel Woods Center for the Arts (with Wild Rivers)
Aug. 5: Gilford, New Hampshire @ Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion (with Wild Rivers)
Aug. 6: Saratoga Springs, New York @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center (with Wild Rivers)
Aug. 10: Hershey, Pennsylvania @ HersheyPark Stadium (with Ben Harper)
Aug. 11: Canandaigua, New York @ CMAC Performing Arts Center (with Ben Harper)
Aug. 13: Bangor, Maine @ Maine Savings Amphitheater (with Wild Rivers)
Aug. 16: Columbus, Ohio – Nationwide Arena (with Ben Harper)
Aug. 17: Grand Rapids, Michigan @ Van Andel Arena (with Ben Harper)
Aug. 19: Des Moines, Iowa @ Iowa State Fairgrounds (with Ben Harper)
Aug. 25: St. Paul, Minnesota @ Minnesota State Fair (with Wild Rivers)
Aug. 26: Madison, Wisconsin @ Kohl Center (with Ben Harper)
Aug. 29: Kansas City, Missouri @ T-Mobile Center (with Ben Harper)
Aug. 30: Omaha, Nebraska @ CHI Health Center Omaha (with Ben Harper)
Sept. 1: Sioux Falls, South Dakota @ Denny Sanford Premier Center (with Ben Harper)
Sept. 5: Vancouver, British Columbia @ Rogers Arena (with Maren Morris)
Sept. 7: Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome (with Maren Morris)
Sept. 8: Edmonton, Alberta @ Rogers Place (with Maren Morris)
Sept. 10: Saskatoon, SK @ Sasktel Centre (with Maren Morris)
Sept. 12: Winnepeg, MB @ Canada Life Centre (with Maren Morris)
Sept. 15: Ottawa, ON @ Canadian Tire Centre (with Maren Morris)
Sept. 16: London, ON @ Budweiser Gardens (with Maren Morris)
Sept. 18: Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena (with Maren Morris)
Billy Strings has added a hot streak of summer 2023 tour dates to his schedule, beginning July 13 with a three-night run at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, North Carolina. The tour is currently slated to wrap up on August 26 at The Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama.
Headlining arena tours is rare for a bluegrass act, but Strings is doing just that. Prior to his summer run, Strings is taking his show on a cross-country tour this spring, featuring several arena shows, including three sold-out nights at Nashville, Tennessee’s Bridgestone Arena later this month.
Last year, Strings released the project Me/And/Dad, featuring renditions of classic bluegrass and country tracks recorded alongside his father, Terry Barber. The album was spearheaded by the songs “Life to Go” and “Long Journey Home.” The project followed his 2021 album, Renewal, and his Grammy-winning album Home, which picked up the golden gramophone for best bluegrass album.
Among Strings’ other recent accolades are being named artist of the year at the 2022 Americana Music Honors & Awards, and winning song of the year (“Red Daisy”) at last year’s International Bluegrass Music Awards.
See the full list of new 2023 tour dates below:
July 13 — Cary, NC @ Koka Booth Amphitheatre
July 14 — Cary, NC @ Koka Booth Amphitheatre
July 15 — Cary, NC @ Koka Booth Amphitheatre
July 19 — Norfolk, VA @ Chartway Arena
July 21 — Bridgeport, CT @ Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
July 22 — Essex Junction, VT @ Midway Lawn at Champlain Valley Expo
July 23 — Essex Junction, VT @ Midway Lawn at Champlain Valley Expo
July 25 — Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion
July 26 — Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion
July 28 — Portland, ME @ Thompson’s Point
July 29 — Portland, ME @ Thompson’s Point
July 30 — Newport, RI @ Newport Folk Festival (sold out)
August 7 — Frankfurt, Germany @ Batschkapp
August 8 — Berlin, Germany @ Huxleys
August 9 — Hamburg, Germany @ Grobe Freiheit 36
August 24 — Knoxville, TN @ Knoxville Civic Coliseum
August 25 — Huntsville, AL @ The Orion Amphitheater
August 26 — Huntsville, AL @ The Orion Amphitheatre
On Feb. 13, 1988, Rosanne Cash’s “Tennessee Flat Top Box” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
The song, about a young boy aspiring to become a country music star, was authored by Cash’s father, the legendary Johnny Cash. The Man in Black’s version reached No. 11 in 1962.
“Tennessee,” from Cash’s LP King’s Record Shop, marked her seventh of 11 Hot Country Songs No. 1s among 15 top 10s banked in 1981-89.
With a quartet of Hot Country Songs No. 1s in 1988 alone, Cash is one of just nine acts with four or more leaders in a single year. Charlie Rich logged a one-year record five No. 1s in 1974, while Buck Owens (1965), Sonny James (1970), Dolly Parton (1974), Merle Haggard (1975), Ronnie Milsap (1980), Alabama (1985) and Garth Brooks (1991 and 1993) have each tallied four, in addition to Cash.
Here’s a recap of Cash’s 11 Hot Country Songs No. 1s:
“Seven Year Ache,” May 23, 1981“My Baby Thinks He’s a Train,” Nov. 14, 1981“Blue Moon With a Heartache,” March 13, 1982“I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” Sept. 7, 1985“Never Be You,” Jan. 25, 1986“The Way We Make a Broken Heart,” Oct. 10, 1987“Tennessee Flat Top Box,” Feb. 13, 1988“It’s Such a Small World,” with Rodney Crowell, April 30, 1988“If You Change Your Mind,” July 16, 1988“Runaway Train,” Nov. 12, 1988“I Don’t Want To Spoil the Party,” June 24, 1989
Cash, who wrote or co-wrote four of her Hot Country Songs No. 1 hits, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015. “This is the award that I’ve always wanted,” she told Billboard at the time. “[The] most compelling force in my life is to be a songwriter, and a good songwriter.”
The versatile artist, now 67, has infused rock, pop, and folk influences during her career. Her 2018 set She Remembers Everything reached No. 16 on Top Country Albums and No. 5 on Americana/Folk Albums.
Jason Aldean will return to the road in July, headlining his 2023 Highway Desperado Tour.
Aldean will welcome “We Got History” singer Mitchell Tenpenny, “Wild as Her” hitmaker Corey Kent, and Dee Jay Silver on the 41-date tour, which kicks off July 14 in Bethel, New York at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. The Live Nation-produced trek is currently scheduled to wind down on Oct. 28 in Tampa, Florida at the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre.
Kent and Tenpenny also announced their opening slots on the tour, with Tenpenny saying, “We can finally announce this tour!! We can’t wait to be on the road with @Jason_Aldean! This tour is going to freaking rock! Let’s get it! See y’all on the the road…”
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Kent added, “Stoked to announce that I’ll be joining @jasonaldean and @m10penny & @deejaysilver1 on the Highway Desperado Tour!”
Aldean’s “That’s What Tequila Does” is currently at No. 8 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, and the track is included on Aldean’s 2022 double album Macon, Georgia. The project also features Aldean’s Country Airplay three-week chart-topper (and Grammy-nominated track) “If I Didn’t Love You,” with Carrie Underwood, as well as the three-week Country Airplay chart-topper “Trouble With a Heartbreak.”
Aldean’s raucous live shows have thrice earned him the Academy of Country Music’s entertainer of the year honor, and in 2019, he earned the Academy of Country Music’s Dick Clark artist of the decade award. Aldean previously told Billboard of the pride he takes in selecting openers for his tours–a few of his previous tour openers have included Kane Brown, Luke Bryan and Eric Church.
“We have a pretty good track record with that,” Aldean said. “There’s a chalk board in that room over there in my manager’s office. Every year we’ll have all the names on the chalk board, every artist on every label that is available, that we think is a possibility. We spend a lot of time making sure we get the best options we can, someone we think is going to work with our crowd and take off in the next year.”
Tickets for Aldean’s Highway Desperado Tour go on sale Friday (Feb. 17) at 10 a.m. local venue time. See the full dates below.
July 14 – Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
July 15 – Hartford, CT @ Xfinity Theatre
July 16 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
July 20 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
July 21 – Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center
July 27 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion^
July 28 – Hershey, PA @ Hersheypark Stadium
July 29 – Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center
August 4 – Charleston, SC @ Credit One Stadium
August 5 – Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
August 6 – Tuscaloosa, AL @ Tuscaloosa Amphitheater
Thu Aug 10 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion
Fri Aug 11 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
Fri Aug 18 – Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford PREMIER Center
Sat Aug 19 – Welch, MN – Treasure Island Amphitheater*
Thu Aug 24 – Estero, FL – Hertz Arena
Fri Aug 25 – Jacksonville, FL – VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
Sat Aug 26 – Orange Beach, AL – The Wharf Amphitheater
Sept. 7 – Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
Fri Sep 08 – Clarkston, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre
Sept. 9 – Tinley Park, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Sept. 14 – Rogers, AR @ Walmart AMP
Sept. 15 – St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Sept. 16 –Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center
Sept. 21 – Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
Sept. 22 – Portland, OR @ RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
Sept. 23 – Auburn, WA @ White River Amphitheatre
Sept. 28 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
Sept. 29 – Irvine, CA @ FivePoint Amphitheatre
Sept. 30 – San Bernardino, CA @ Glen Helen Amphitheater
Oct. 5 – Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
Oct. 6 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
Oct. 7 – Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
Oct. 12 – Kansas City, MO @ T-Mobile Center+
Oct. 13 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Paycom Center
Oct. 14 – Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
Oct. 19 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
Oct. 20 – Louisville, KY @ KFC Yum! Center
Oct. 21 – Toledo, OH @ Huntington Center
Oct. 27 – West Palm Beach, FL @ iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
Oct. 28 – Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre