Country
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LeAnn Rimes’ has an unwelcome early Christmas surprise — a bleed on her vocal cord which has caused her to delay several concerts.
In a social post, the country star explains how, during her recovery from flu, doctors found another ailment.
“It completely and utterly breaks my heart to have to announce that I will be rescheduling this weekend’s shows,” reads a handwritten letter posted to Instagram.
“While sick with the flu, my doctor discovered a bleed on my vocal cord, caused by the violent cough that came along with being sick. I am getting better, but I am unable to talk or sing… doctor’s orders!”
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The message continues, “I am devastated to have to do this as there was nothing more that I was looking forward to than celebrating the holidays with you. Please check your emails for rescheduled information and I will see you very soon.”
Rimes’ show Friday (Dec. 9) at the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort is rescheduled for Sept. 29, 2023, and her concert at the The Ryman Auditorium on Saturday will now take place April 8, 2023.
The 40-year-old singer and songwriter’s Joy: The Holiday Show trek is scheduled to continue Dec. 16 at Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City, OR.
Rimes has been in the public eye since her early teens.
In February 1997, at age 14, Rimes won two Grammys – best new artist and best female country vocal performance for “Blue.” She is, to this day, the youngest individual Grammy winner in a lead role. Ten months later, she was named artist of the year at the Billboard Music Awards. She has won 12 BBMA Awards in total.
Also, Rimes has won two Country Music Association Awards, three Academy of Country Music Awards, one Dove Award and two World Music Awards, and more.
She has tallied two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 in 1997 – Unchained Melody: The Early Years and You Light Up My Life: Inspirational Songs, and five leaders on Top Country Albums – those two LPs plus Blue (1996), LeAnn Rimes (1999) and I Need You (2001).
In October of this year, Rimes received the ASCAP Golden Note Award in a special ASCAP Experience, soon after the release of her latest studio album God’s Work.
Peter Cooper, a Grammy-nominated producer, highly regarded Nashville journalist and Country Music Hall of Fame executive, died Dec. 6. He was 52.
His family confirmed the death, posting on Facebook that he died in his sleep after suffering a severe head injury following a fall late last week.
A South Carolina native, Cooper joined the staff of The Tennessean as its prime music writer in 2000 before moving to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014 as museum editor.
“He grew to assume the role of museum senior director, producer and writer, driving several important creative initiatives and bringing a poetic grace to them all,” the hall’s CEO Kyle Young said in a statement. “He developed and implemented mission-oriented programs, exhibitions, podcasts and, as a writer, elegantly described the rich character of the country music story. His talents were immense, but his heart was even bigger, and he touched the lives of those he encountered in immeasurable ways. Our thoughts are with his family during this difficult time.”
For all his talents, many saw Cooper first and foremost as a journalist, who brought tremendous empathy to the subjects he covered, including such titans as Johnny Cash, George Jones and Kris Kristofferson, who reportedly told Cooper that he looked “at the world with an artist’s eye, and a human heart and soul.”
Ricky Skaggs tells Billboard he considered Cooper “one of the most gentle and soft-spoken men I ever knew. His knowledge of music, the writers, the players and singers was really unmatched in Nashville. Our industry lost a vital voice for our times. He will be sorely missed!”
Best-selling biographer/journalist Alanna Nash added, “One of the many things that separated Peter from the rest of us who do this work, aside from just the breathtaking humanity that imbued his writing, was his side gig as a musician and his intimate understanding of the torment artists endure. He wrote journalism from the inside of the story, from its guts, because he lived all the wrenching passion and rode every threadbare highway. You don’t drive Hank Williams’ 300-mile ‘last ride’ from Knoxville to Oak Hill, W.V., as Peter did for a story about the 50th anniversary of Williams’ death, without feeling that same pain.”
Like Tom T. Hall, whom he revered, Cooper was, above all, a storyteller through his reported pieces and his own career as a performing singer/songwriter. An accomplished musician, he released several albums as part of the duo Eric Brace & Peter Cooper and was in the trio Eric Brace, Peter Cooper and Thomm Jutz.
His songs had been recorded by John Prine, Todd Snider, Bobby Bare and Mac Wiseman, among others.
Cooper received a Grammy nomination in best children’s album for 2011’s I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, a tribute album to the songwriter’s story songs.
A memorial service will take place in early 2023. In lieu of flowers, his family asks that donations be made to the Baker Cooper fund to support his 12-year-old son’s education care of Wells Fargo Bank or to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
–Assistance in preparing this story provided by Jessica Nicholson.
Blake Shelton is the latest People cover star, and the country crooner opened up about stepping back in his career to focus on time with his family, which includes wife Gwen Stefani and stepsons Kingston, Zuma and Apollo.
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“They’ve taught me something about myself that I never knew: I’m more than just a country singer or a goofy guy. I’m someone they actually lean on, and that’s not a responsibility that I ever had and not something that I ever considered even being into,” he said of his family, noting that he feels a “different kind of self-worth” around them. “Maybe it’s the opposite of self-worth because you put yourself way down on the rung, and they move up ahead of you.”
Stefani shares Kingston, Zuma and Apollo with ex-husband Gavin Rossdale. The former couple were married for 13 years — and dated for nearly six years before that — but parted ways in 2015. Shelton and Stefani tied the knot in 2021, and have been going strong ever since.
“Gwen and I have done so much traveling and touring and work the first half of our lives that now we’re like, ‘Hey, I’m good to put my sweatpants on at 6 p.m. and watch Ozark eight times,’” Shelton said. “That’s our life now, and we love it.”
“Even though I’m a stepparent, I take that job very seriously. The kids see me as a very important person in their life,” the “Boys ‘Round Here” singer added. “[When they ask,] ‘Why isn’t Blake here?’ I take that stuff to heart. I’ve made plenty of money, but you can’t buy time back. I don’t want any regrets.”
In October, Shelton revealed that after next season, he will be leaving NBC’s The Voice, which he has been a coach on since the show premiered in 2011. “The holdup over the years has been that it’s a hard thing for me to let go of. I’ve been here literally since the first minute,” he told People. “When I started on The Voice, that was 10 years into my career as a country artist. I never really made it to the A-level of country artists until I became a coach. The show did a hell of a lot more for me than I brought to the table at the time. I’ve far exceeded anything I thought I could ever accomplish in the entertainment world.”
Next Tuesday’s (Dec. 13) two-hour The Voice finale will feature a star-studded parade of guest stars on hand to celebrate the crowning of season 22’s champion. At the end of the night, a winner will emerge after the final showdown between finalists bodie, Omar Jose Cardona, Baryden Lape, Bryce Leatherwood and Morgan Myles.
But before that happens, viewers will be treated to a cavalcade of all-star collaborations, including Kane Brown performing the title track from his Different Man album with coach Blake Shelton, whose team has three slots in the final five. Kelly Clarkson — who will return as a coach for season 23 in March — will sing a solo version of her Ariana Grande Christmas duet “Santa, Can’t You Hear Me” from her When Christmas Comes Around…” holiday album.
In addition, Maluma will be on hand for a run through his Billboard Latin Airplay chart No. 1 “Junio,” OneRepublic will play their top 5 hit “I An’t Worried,” Adam Lambert will take on his cover of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” (which will appear on his upcoming album, High Drama), Breland will make his Voice debut with “For What It’s Worth” and returning season 21 winner Girl Named Tom will perform “One More Christmas” from the trio’s debut EP.
In his swan song, lone original coach Shelton could be poised to add a ninth win to his already record-setting Voice resumé with three of his team members in the mix (Leatherwood, Lape and bodie) after Tuesday night’s (Dec. 6) semi-final round.
The Voice‘s season finale will air from 9-11 p.m. ET.
Shania Twain proved just what makes her a Music Icon when she accepted that prize and performed a medley of her hits at Tuesday’s (Dec. 6) People’s Choice Awards.
One of the highlights of her performance — which included her breakthrough 1995 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Any Man of Mine,” her crossover late-’90s pop smashes “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!,” and her latest single “Waking Up Dreaming” — is when the pink-haired singer swapped the famous spoken-word “Brad Pitt” line from “Impress” for a fellow Canadian star.
“OK, so you’re Ryan Reynolds!” she said sassily as the cameras cut to the surprised Deadpool star, who was on hand to accept the People’s Icon award later in the evening. Reynolds mouthed, “Oh my God, me?!” from the audience.
In addition to the performance, Twain also gave a heartfelt acceptance speech as she accepted the Music Icon award from her friend, actor Billy Porter.
“Am I dreaming? I really am, I think,” she said to start. “Thank you so much for presenting me with this award and for highlighting my work as having a significant impact. I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to say, but that’s always my wish: to inspire people with my music. I always miss my mother right now at these moments in life. She would have loved watching her little girl living this moment right now. But my fans, my friends, my team – you are the ones who really fill that space. Not my mother’s space, but you’re here with me and you’re celebrating, we’re celebrating together, and you’ve made me feel loved and special my whole working life. And I will always be grateful for that, thank you.
“From a very young age, I turned to songwriting as a form of escapism,” she added. “This is my go-to place. It never occurred to me how powerful lyrics can become when you’re able to record them and share them with the whole world. It’s a great honor to be respected as a songwriter. But the biggest honor for me is knowing people have found strength and inspiration in what i have to sing, in my work. So thank you, I love you for that.”
She also highlighted her role as a fashion icon, noting that early in her career, she was just piecing outfits together with what she had. “I just went to my closet and picked out whatever I had, or went to a department store and picked out the budget things, because I didn’t have a big budget. With that, a sharp pair of scissors and a big imagination, i just cut and pulled and chopped … and hoped for the best.”
Twain ended the speech with some words of inspiration for her young fans. “I just want to say: Giddy-up, kids. Embrace your individuality and your crazy ideas. Just be brave. Let’s remember, there is power in numbers, we are in this together, love is love, and when a door slams in your face, take a freaking run and leap at your door and kick it down! You won’t regret it.
“All I have to say is: Be the queen of you,” she concluded, tipping a cowgirl hat to her upcoming sixth studio album, Queen of Me, due Feb. 3, 2023.
Kenny Chesney was king of the road among country artists in 2022. The touring titan led all country acts reporting to Billboard Boxscore by grossing $135,046,047 from 41 stadium and arena shows on his Here and Now tour.
The total was also enough to land him at No. 9 on the all-genre Billboard Boxscore year-end tally. Additionally, he drew the highest attendance among country acts, attracting 1.3 million people. Chesney last topped the tally in 2018 with $114.3 million from 42 shows on his Trip Around the Sun stadium tour that drew 1.3 million people. (A limited 21-date arena tour in 2019 grossed $19.2 million.)
The Here and Now Tour included dates originally scheduled for 2020 and then 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic caused cancellations and postponements.
“We had missed each other so much,” Chesney tells Billboard of his fans. “I think we’d almost forgotten how good it was, and once we got there and felt that love – both off the stage and from the people – the word was out. We always have crazy great audiences, but this year, No Shoes Nation wanted to be there, to share the moment in a way where we were making up for those years we couldn’t come together and rock.”
Chesney’s manager Clint Higham agrees, telling Billboard, “The people of No Shoes Nation are such intense fans, the being together after four years created its own energy and momentum. We found ourselves adding seats in so many markets to try to meet the demand because whether it was the people who’d held their tickets for over 1,000 days in many cases or the people buying those new tickets who felt the buzz and wanted to be there, it was a whole new level of demand based on what Kenny gives people.”
Coming in at second place — and No. 11 on the all-genre chart — Morgan Wallen grossed $128,718.950 from 66 shows on his first full arena outing. Wallen dominated the album charts as well: In September, his Dangerous: The Double Album broke the record for the most nonconsecutive weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 by a singular artist with 86 weeks, surpassing the 85 weeks tallied by Peter, Paul & Mary’s self-titled album in 1962-1964.
Chris Stapleton, who led the tally last year with $33,884,658 from 32 shows, came in third in 2022 with a gross of $83,080,631 from 69 shows.
Country icon George Strait played only 10 shows to roll into fifth place, grossing $50,048,167 from 263,285 fans.
Fellow legend Reba McEntire was the only woman to make the top 10, grossing $27,506,847 from 27 shows. The outing has been extended into 2023 and will include her first headlining Madison Square Garden show.
Absence, it is said, makes the heart grow fonder, and touring musicians ought to know.
The travel, the time spent waiting and prepping in the dressing room and the let-down moments after the show is over are all windows of time ripe for gnawing self-reflection and what-ifs. Time apart can indeed change a heart, and Russell Dickerson figured that out roughly a decade ago, when a breakup with Kailey Seymour forced him to confront a gaping hole as he traversed the club circuit as a newly single man.
“We had just broken up, and I was looking for anybody,” he remembers. “I was like, ‘I’m going to be out here on the road. Might as well see if I can find a wife out here.’ It didn’t work. But at the time, we were just playing crappy bar after crappy bar. I’m giving it my all, nobody’s showing up, I’m lonely, I just left my future wife back in Nashville.”
A lot turned around on that particular tour. Dickerson’s mindset changed; they reunited and married in May 2013. Kailey was the inspiration — and the videographer — for his first hit, the 2017 single “Yours,” and she’s again a looming figure in the plot of “God Gave Me a Girl,” penned during several days of focused songwriting last spring at the Middle Tennessee home of songwriter Ashley Gorley (“She Had Me at Heads Carolina,” “Take My Name”).
On the second or third day of the retreat, after they had written several songs and emotional walls were down, Zach Crowell (“Body Like a Back Road,” “Waves”) suggested a solid potential title, “God Gave Me a Hometown,” that the quartet started playing with and reshaping. In the process, Dickerson turned it into “God Gave Me a Girl,” a title that checked at least two boxes for him.
“I love alliteration,” he says, “and my reputation precedes myself as the love song guy.”
Chase McGill (“5 Foot 9,” “Never Say Never”), working with an electric guitar borrowed from Crowell, started playing with a random tone — a little glassy, a little dirty — and created a melancholy riff that rises slowly before tumbling back to its starting point. Gorley toyed with the word “gave” — “God gave me a girl, girl gave me a kiss/Kiss gave me a feelin’ that I still get” — and halfway through the chorus, they knew they were on to something with a worthwhile lyrical bent and a melody that fits, climbing as it progresses through the initial lines of the chorus.
“The key to melodies is where it’s repetitive, but changes,” says Gorley. “I know that sounds crazy, but it has a little bit of rise where it’s repeating the rhythm, but then the melody changes and has tension and release.
“I want you to almost be able to sing along during the first chorus,” he continues, “like where you can kind of join in when you’re singing a song and you don’t really know it.”
As they kept building the lyric around shades of the word “give,” it changed tense and reversed roles between the couple: “She gave me her hand, I gave her a ring.” And finally at the end, the singer credits the Almighty for shifting his viewpoint: “I knew what I wanted but He knew better/ God gave me a girl.”
“I almost wanted God to come out of nowhere, because that’s kind of how it happens for me,” McGill says. “You’re going along, you’re doing your thing, and then God interjects. Then from that point on, it’s a progression of the changes in your life.”
The song’s progression is a familiar one to many adult men. The protagonist spends part of verse one trolling at night — “I gave my all to those empty bars” is a direct reference to Dickerson’s touring when he and Kailey had broken up — and by verse two, after the divine intervention, his friends adjust slowly to his shifting priorities. By the bridge, he pledges to “give her the world” after recognizing some sort of destiny brought the couple together.
“I feel like it was God who changed my mind, that convinced me that this was my wife,” says Dickerson, further connecting the song to his actual life. “As soon as I broke up with her in college, all the peace left my body. And that’s just a spiritual thing, like I was being convinced that she’s my wife, this is happening, we’re doing it.”
At the end of the March 30 writing session, Crowell produced a demo built around Dickerson’s vocal and McGill’s guitar work. At some juncture over the next few months, the vocal was mistakenly erased, and Dickerson recorded another version.
But that also meant he had more repetition before the tracking session at Nashville’s Sound Stage on June 22. Crowell and Dickerson co-produced the date, fashioning an arrangement that gradually unfolds from the original demo’s sound — the glassy guitar and programmed percussion — to a full band. The musical elements all help to keep it from becoming overly mushy.
“That probably goes back to that guitar riff and that guitar tone,” Crowell says. “It’s not so pretty, light and fluffy, and the other production stuff I did hopefully all ties into it. If it’s a pretty poem as a lyric, it’s nice that the track may have a little bit of a slight edge to it that makes it a good Russell Dickerson song.”
The other production elements included some cloudy, atmospheric sounds and a slide guitar that lend a slightly mysterious aura.
“The mystery is definitely a good thing,” says Crowell. “There’s a little tension in it, but it’s not a bunch of dark, eerie chords or anything. It’s all still hopeful.”
Ultimately, “God Gave Me a Girl” embraces the natural femininity of a love song, offset with a touch of grit. “It doesn’t feel like a ballad,” Gorley says. “I’m a piano guy, so every day, I fight the temptation of writing a ballad. To just write a love song on piano, super slow, every day would be great, but I’ve worked that out of my system. And so I’m always looking for some way for it to feel fun or celebratory or something like that. This one pulls that off.”
The writers weren’t the only fans. “Our real test for songs is always playing them for our girls,” says McGill. “My four-year-old and three-year-old are old enough where they can sing along with Daddy’s songs and whatnot. Me and my wife can always tell if they request it in the car. When they did that, I was like, ‘Maybe we got a little hit here.’ ”
Triple Tigers released “God Gave Me a Girl” to country radio on Nov. 18. Dickerson felt they had a commercial winner on their hands even before they finished writing it, and its release suggests his assessment that day still holds true: “I think we’re headed to hitty city with this one.”
The SHOWTIME mini-series George & Tammy, based on the lives of country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette, premiered on Sunday (Dec. 4) with 3.3 million Live+Same Day linear viewers across Showtime, Paramount Network and CMT, with SHOWTIME calling the series the most-watched premiere in its nearly 50-year history.
The series, starring Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon, chronicles the lives of one of country music’s most well-known couples. Though Jones and Wynette were wed for only six years (1969-1975), they are inextricably linked in the canon of country music, known for both their own solo hits, as well as a string of hit duets including “We’re Gonna Hold On,” “(We’re Not) The Jet Set,” “Golden Ring” and “Two Story House.” The series unfurls the both the tumultuous and romantic aspects of their relationship, with the first episode, “The Race Is On,” centering on Wynette’s whirlwind romance with Jones while still married to songwriter Don Chapel.
“George & Tammy made history as the most watched SHOWTIME premiere ever, thanks to the mesmerizing performances of Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon,” said Chris McCarthy, president/CEO of Showtime & Paramount Media Networks, via a statement. “The riveting and complicated tale of the king and queen of county music is a testament to the creative firepower of Abe Sylvia and our incredible partners at Freckle Films and 101 Studios, led by David Glasser.”
The series is based on the book The Three of Us: Growing Up with Tammy and George, which was written by the couple’s daughter Georgette Jones, who is also a singer-songwriter (Wynette also had three children with former husband Euple Byrd). Future episodes will air exclusively on SHOWTIME on-air, on demand and streaming.
Morgan Wallen‘s stacked 2023 tour just got even busier, with the singer-songwriter adding 14 new shows across 13 cities to his massive 2023 One Night at a Time World Tour, making for back-to-back nights at 10 stadium shows.
The outing will visit 26 stadiums, plus arenas, amphitheaters and festivals over four countries and two continents. The tour launches overseas March 15 with concerts in New Zealand and Australia (featuring HARDY), before the trek returns to the United States starting April 14 with a show at Milwaukee’s American Family Field (also featuring HARDY).
The tour will also visit New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park with Parker McCollum, before concluding Oct. 7 at Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Wash. ERNEST and Bailey Zimmerman will open shows across all tour dates, U.S. and internationally.
Wallen also recently released the three-song sampler One Thing at a Time, which includes the tracks “One Thing at a Time,” “Tennessee Fan,” and “Days That End in Why.” He also has a new single at country radio, with “Thought You Should Know” residing in the top 20 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart.
New 2023 Tour Dates include:
April 14: American Family Field, Milwaukee, WI
May 19: MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
June 1: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
June 8: Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater, Virginia Beach, VA
June 14: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, PA
June 22: Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL
June 29: Ford Field, Detroit, MI
July 6: Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO
July 14: Petco Park, San Diego, CA
July 19: Chase Field, Phoenix, AZ
Aug. 17: Fenway Park, Boston, MA
Sept. 14: Budweiser Stage, Toronto, ON
Sept. 15: Budweiser Stage, Toronto, ON
Oct. 3: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC
Bailey Zimmerman‘s “Fall in Love” becomes the first rookie single to top Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart in 2022. The song, released on Elektra/Warner Music Nashville/WEA, jumps from No. 5 to No. 1 on the survey dated Dec. 10, up 16% to 26.5 million audience impressions in the week ending Dec. 4, according to Luminate.
The track – which Zimmerman co-authored with Gavin Lucas and Austin Shawn, who also solely produced it – marks the first Country Airplay leader for a freshman single since the chart dated Oct. 23, 2021, when Elvie Shane’s “My Boy” reached the summit.
“Two years ago, I quit my job to make music and now we have a No. 1 song,” says Zimmerman. “All I got to say is God is good and I’m very thankful for country radio and all the fans that support me and my music. Love y’all a lot!”
“Fall in Love” is the first single from Zimmerman’s debut collection Leave the Light On, which arrived on Top Country Albums at its No. 2 peak in October. The set has spent its first seven weeks in the top 10, ranking at No. 8 on the Dec. 10 tally with 17,000 equivalent album units earned Nov. 25-Dec. 1.
The 22-year-old from Louisville, Ill., worked at a meat processing plant and on a gas pipeline, among other jobs, before segueing to a career in music. He gained traction by posting videos on social media and now boasts 1.8 million followers on TikTok.
In September, Zimmerman made history when he became the first act to place three career-opening entries in the Hot Country Songs top 10 simultaneously, since the chart began as an all-encompassing genre ranking in October 1958, as “Fall in Love” accompanied “Rock and a Hard Place” and “Where It Ends.”
On the Dec. 10 Hot Country Songs chart, “Fall in Love” pushes 7-5 for a new best. It collected 7.2 million official U.S. streams and sold 2,000 downloads in the latest tracking week.
Meanwhile, “Rock” ranks at No. 9 on Hot Country Songs after it opened at its No. 2 best in June. It drew 10.8 million clicks and sold 1,000 in the latest frame. The song also rises to a new No. 44 high on Country Airplay (1.6 million, up 18%) and is now being promoted as the radio follow-up to “Fall in Love.”
‘Whiskey’ Straight Up
Nate Smith scores his first Country Airplay top 10 as his initial entry “Whiskey on You” pushes 12-10, up 8% to 18.2 million in audience.
The single, which Smith co-penned, ranks at No. 13 on Hot Country Songs after it reached No. 11 in October. It corralled 4.8 million streams and sold 1,000 downloads in the latest tracking week.
Like Zimmerman, the 23-year-old Smith, from Paradise, Calif., also scored early success on TikTok prior to signing to Sony Music Nashville’s Arista Nashville roster in November 2021.
Bryan Does ‘Good’
Zach Bryan scores his first No. 1 on Country Digital Song Sales as “The Good I’ll Do” blasts in atop the list. It sold 5,000 downloads Nov. 25-Dec. 1. The song is Bryan’s second top 10 in as many appearances, after “Something in the Orange” hit No. 4 in November.