Country
Page: 36
As the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual IBMA Week launches in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jerry Douglas is among the storied honorees: The 30-time IBMA Award recipient will be inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on Thursday (Sept. 26) by fellow bluegrass luminary and 2023 honoree Sam Bush.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Over the course of nearly five decades, Douglas’s contributions and influence on genres including bluegrass, country and Americana have been indelible, thanks to his masterful, pioneering musicianship on the dobro, as well as his work as a producer (on more than 100 albums), bandleader, and songwriter.
“It’s not something you expect,” Douglas, 67, tells Billboard of the induction. “I was shocked, surprised, and humbled, all those things. It’s the acceptance that’s really cool about it, being accepted in a place along with Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs [both members of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1991]. You don’t think about your name being mentioned in the same paragraph as those guys, but sometimes it happens.”
Trending on Billboard
The Bluegrass Hall of Fame honor isn’t the only award he could take home Thursday evening: he’s nominated in other three IBMA categories, including album of the year (for co-producing Tuttle’s City of Gold), resophonic guitar player of the year and collaborative recording of the year (for Authentic Unlimited with Jerry Douglas’ Fall in Tennessee).
The induction comes a week after his Sept. 20-released new album The Set (out on Nolivian Records), marking the 16-time Grammy winner’s first album in seven years.
Together with his Jerry Douglas Band cohorts — Mike Seal (guitar), Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) and Daniel Kimbro (bass) — Douglas offers up reimaginations of six beloved older songs alongside five new compositions. The album takes its name from Douglas’ intent to capture more of the essence of the group’s live shows.
The songs on The Set span decades and styles, such as “From Ankara to Izmir,” which Douglas had previously included on his 1987 album Changing Channels.
“When I cut the song, I envisioned it as a different thing,” he says. “When you write a song and record it soon after, you don’t really know that song. It takes on different features and becomes something different than it started as. I originally cut it with lap steel and made it tougher sounding. Later on, I started playing it on dobro instead. Now, it’s a combination of electric guitar, bass, dobro, upright bass, and fiddle. It covers all the bases, but we have space in there, too.”
The lead single from The Set is a rendition of The Beatles’ 1968 song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Songs written by each bandmember are also featured including Sedelmyer’s “Deacon Waltz,” Kimbro’s “Loyston,” and Seal’s “Renee.”
“This is a band record. Everybody had a hand in it,” Douglas says. “I may have picked the songs and produced it, but everybody’s personality and music are on the record.”
Ohio native Douglas moved to Music City in 1978, initially to play for the country vocal group The Whites. He released his first solo album, Fluxology, a year later. His first Grammy nomination came in 1982 for his work on The Whites’ album You Put the Blue in Me.
“I moved to Nashville at a good time,” he recalls. “It was right after what we called ‘The Urban Cowboy Scare,’ when everyone had a mechanical bull and bruises. But when I got to Nashville, Ricky [Skaggs] broke out and Emmylou [Harris] and Randy Travis and all these traditional artists and I was playing so many of those records and dobro was on radio.”
His musical dexterity made Douglas an in-demand session musician; he’s played on over 1,500 albums including projects for George Jones, Garth Brooks, Paul Simon, Emmylou Harris, Sierra Ferrell, Dierks Bentley and James Taylor. He’s earned the Country Music Association Awards’ musician of the year honor three times.
He’s also seen the ebbs and flows of music emanating from Nashville — for better and for worse. “The music is cyclical and here in Nashville I’ve seen it turn over three or four times. The last one was the bro-country movement, which is finally dead, thank God. It resides along with disco in hell somewhere. Now we’ve entered a totally new [time] where so many people are coming from different genres to country music.”
Over the decades, in addition to serving as band leader for his own group and the Grammy-winning The Earls of Leicester, he played as part of The Country Gentlemen while still a teen and has been part of bands including Boone Creek and J.D. Crowe and The New South (his work with the group earned Douglas his first Grammy win). He’s been a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station since 1998 and earned a wellspring of attention thanks to his work on the RIAA-certified eight-time multi-platinum soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
Along the way, Douglas says he’s gleaned wisdom in the finer points of pulling together a group that heightens the musicians’ individual strengths.
“It’s all in the cocktail. How does this person support this other person? And that’s what it’s all about in a band — support. You can’t be practicing your next solo while someone else is soloing. I’ve seen that happen onstage. The cardinal rule is to listen to who’s playing before you. Listen to everything that’s going on around you, because you can pull all those things together and go in different directions. Just things you pick up along the way, like J.D. Crowe, when he would sing, he did not play, and then he would play coming out of that [singing] and that was like he’d just signed his name.”
Elsewhere on The Set, with “Something You Got” Douglas revisits his collaboration with Eric Clapton from Douglas’ 2012 Traveler album, with Douglas offering up lead vocals this time around.
Douglas says of Clapton, “He’s very, very philanthropic. It’s great meeting these fellows late [in life] like this. With James Taylor and Eric Clapton, those guys at one point, you wouldn’t have been able to get close to ’em, just because of the way they were. But through all of that, they are very well-read, intelligent people, and it’s wonderful to be around them. There’s so much history whenever you talk with those guys because they’ve been there and done everything you can do in the music business. I just happened to be lucky enough to hang around them once in a while. And icons like [guitarist, Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and “Nashville Sound” architect] Chet Atkins, I loved being around Chet. You’d just hang on every word he said because everything he said had like three meanings and they were all good. But he had done everything, too. How many people produced the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton?”
The new version of “Something You Got” is notable, as Douglas is known as a performer who often sings lead vocals.
“I sang when I was a kid, until I started playing dobro and it just took over. I can find parts pretty easy, baritone and low tenor and things like that, but I wasn’t as comfortable in the lead role until I had a band and somebody needed to sing, so I was going to try it first. It’s funny how it surprises people when they do hear me sing, but I’ve been listening to the best singers on earth for 50 years and I know what not to do. I’m not a singer like Alison [Krauss] or Vince Gill. I’ll have them sing and I’ll play, because what I’m most comfortable doing is backing a singer.”
As he has looked up to his musical forebears, Douglas has also been a mentor and champion for artists including Tuttle and Billy Strings, as the sound of bluegrass continues to broaden and evolve.
“Historically, [bluegrass and jazz] come from the same place, but with jazz it’s more complicated while bluegrass is more rooted in the rudimentary chords, not a lot of diminished minors. Bluegrass music is more about social context in a way, but the social context that it was based on was a long time ago, and things have changed. That’s why now women are so well represented in the music. Growing up, as a kid, I didn’t see that many women [playing bluegrass], and if they did play, they were delegated to play the bass, which is a very important part of the music, but usually, it doesn’t really present you as the star on stage. I mean, some people can pull that off.
“But Missy Raines [the first woman musician to win the IBMA bass player of the year honor in 1998] turned it into a completely different thing. She has such a vocabulary with her bass [playing] that is different. And she’s a strong person who stuck it out when she was just kind of looked over when she shouldn’t have been [looked over]. The same with Molly [Tuttle] and [banjo virtuoso] Alison Brown. I like that it’s becoming more inclusive for everybody because back in Bill Monroe’s early days, it wouldn’t have been.”
Part of that evolution is being led by a new generation of bluegrass artists, including Strings, Tray Wellington, Wyatt Ellis and more.
“If it didn’t evolve, it would fade,” Douglas says. “The kids coming up who are playing are just incredible, and I know the internet has a lot to do with it. I had to sit there and listen to a record player, and I couldn’t slow my record player down either. So I had to put an ear on what was happening and try to figure it out. I didn’t have anything to see to give me an idea of what to do next. I didn’t even know if I had the thing tuned right at first. Now, you can study your favorite player online and pick up little things from that.”
As the countdown continues to the 58th annual CMA Awards, set to air live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Nov. 20, country music fans will be anxious to see who takes home the evening’s top prize — entertainer of the year. This year, the nominees are Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen and Lainey Wilson.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Luke Bryan, a two-time CMA entertainer of the year winner himself, is offering his thoughts to Billboard on who could potentially take home this year’s EOY accolade.
Trending on Billboard
“I look back at when I won CMA entertainer of the year and in my opinion, that’s always been about who has sold the most tickets and has been kind of the most impressive thing out there in the touring world,” Bryan says.
Each of the nominees has been selling out headlining shows in venues ranging from amphitheaters and arenas to stadiums: Wallen on his One Night at a Time Tour, Combs on his Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Tour, Stapleton with his All-American Road Show Tour, Jelly Roll with his Beautifully Broken Tour and Wilson with her Country’s Cool Again Tour.
“When I look at what Morgan Wallen’s doing out there, selling out multiple [stadiums], and I know Luke Combs is doing that too, and obviously, they’re just both great entertainers,” Bryan says. “I don’t know who to sit there and put my endorsement on, but I have just been in awe watching Morgan Wallen go from being on some of my stadium tours and hanging on the bus with me, to watching him just really put up Garth Brooks-like stadium shows, has been pretty incredible. So, I think certainly it’d be something really, really great if Morgan might get him one or two, or three or four the next couple of years. But I think they’re all worthy of it. Lainey won last year, and that’ll probably put her in the front-runner spot, too, but it is a hot seat kind of thing. They all got my vote.”
Wallen, who scored his third CMA entertainer of the year nomination this year, leads this year’s overall CMA nominees with seven nods. Meanwhile, Stapleton earned his eighth nomination in the entertainer of the year category (he has yet to win the prize), while Combs earned his fifth nomination in the category (he has previously won twice), Wilson picked up her second EOY nomination (she is the reigning CMA EOY winner) and Jelly Roll nabbed his first nomination in the category this year.
Bryan is gearing up for the release of his new album, Mind of a Country Boy, on Friday (Sept. 27). The 14-song album features his current single, “Love You, Miss You, Mean It,” which currently resides at No. 8 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart.
Bunnie XO continues to be Jelly Roll’s muse! The Dumb Blonde podcast host took to TikTok to share a snippet of one of her husband’s unreleased love songs. “He wrote me a new song,” she captioned the video, which features scenes of the couple having fun and spending time together. “Woman, without you on my lips/ […]
While many people are firmly focused on the tight presidential contest between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, Willie Nelson and Margo Price got together to remind fans that there are other races people should keep their eyes on as well.
Sitting on Nelson’s legendary tour bus, the country singers and Farm Aid board members highlighted a pair of congressional races they said are equally important in an Instagram video. “I know we’re all talking about the presidential race, and that’s important, but Margo and I want to talk about our Texas and Tennessee voters,” said Nelson, 91.
“There are 33 U.S. Senate seats up for grabs this November. We have a chance to vote out Marsha Blackburn,” added Nashville native Price in the short clip she said was filmed during a break from a “very important” game of Nelson’s second-favorite past time: dominoes.
In 2018, Taylor Swift made her first-ever political endorsement when she spoke out against Republican Blackburn, whom the singer described as “Trump in a wig” in her 2020 Miss Americana documentary. Swift’s pick, Democrat Phil Bredesen, ended up losing that 2018 midterm election to Blackburn, whose voting record Swift said at the time “appalls and terrifies me.”
Price told voters that they have an opportunity to vote in “Tennessee Three” member Gloria Johnson, who in 2023 became a hero to Volunteer State Democrats when she and her colleagues reclaimed their legislative seats after being expelled for a gun control protest on the State House floor following a mass shooting at the Covenant school in Nashville that took the lives of three children and three adults.
Texas-native Nelson promoted Colin Allred over Republican Ted Cruz, who has been a junior senator from the Lone Star State since 2013 and who was repeatedly insulted by Trump during his unsuccessful 2016 White House bid. “I know firsthand that Colin will represent all Texans, no matter their race, who they worship or who they love,” said Nelson, reading from a sheet of notes.
“And I know Gloria will do something about the gun problem this country faces,” Price added. “Our children don’t have to live like this.”
Nelson made sure to note that the voter registration deadline for both Texas and Tennessee is Oct. 7, while Price encouraged viewers to vote early to make sure they don’t miss a chance to have their voices heard, pointing out that her home state has the lowest voter turnout in the nation.
“So make a voting plan and bring three friends to the polls and vote for Colin Allred,” Nelson said of the former Tennessee Titans linebacker and House member who is running against climate change denier Cruz, whose platform includes a vow to shut down the IRS and who called the abolition of the abortion protections in Roe v. Wade a “massive victory” for life.
“So what I tell my friends is, ‘Friends don’t sleep with people that don’t vote,’” Price added with a smile. “So we can do better.”
Watch the video below.
When artists perform in a music-centric city such as Nashville, the chances are always high that they will welcome a special guest or two. Machine Gun Kelly did just that, bringing some country-music star power to his acoustic set on Tuesday night (Sept. 24) as part of the 107.5 River on the Rooftop concert series […]
Keith Urban proved he’s a man of many talents on Tuesday night’s (Sept. 24) Tonight Show, when host Jimmy Fallon asked him to do an impromptu cover of any pop song that came to mind. After recalling how he got a ukulele as a kid from his parents before switching to guitar at 6, Urban recounted his youthful talent show adventures — including a very embarrassing picture of one of his award-winning performances — as well as a short teenage stint in the metal band Fractured Mirror. Given his eclectic musical background and his penchant for reimagining chart-topping hits during shows, Fallon questioned how Urban chooses which pop songs to cover during his concerts.
“Just [a] well-written song,” Urban said of how he chose his live takes on songs by Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. “Taylor songs are well-written, the bones are good, they’re well written, so you can do them in any form. You can do any well-written song in almost any style,” he added. When Fallon asked if any song was stuck in Urban’d head that moment, the singer suggested Sabrina Carpenter’s summer smash “Espresso,” but do it on banjo.
Trending on Billboard
So, of course, despite seemingly not having tried that combo before, Fallon surprised Urban by pulling a beautiful six-string banjo out from behind his desk, which Urban proceeded to expertly pick as he sang the song’s indelible chorus while the studio audience clapped along in time.
Urban also had a chuckle with Fallon over a prank they pulled on the singer’s wife, actress Nicole Kidman, at the Met Gala in May.
“I was sitting next to Nic, and she had her hand on mine, and she was talking to somebody,” Urban explained. “And Jimmy came over and talked to me, and I say, ‘Jump in the seat, Jimmy, and just, like, slide your hand in under mine, so she’s holding your hand. She won’t know.’” So Fallon — who will never forget that time Kidman revealed in 2015 that she used to have a crush on him and that he missed his shot at a date with her — slid into Urban’s spot for the switcheroo that totally caught The Perfect Couple star off her game.
“So Jimmy slides in, so Nic’s got his hand like this,” Urban said as the host put his hand over the singer’s hand. “This is Nic and him.” Urban then described walking around to the other side of the table and waving at his surprised wife. “And she was like, ‘What’s going on?!’” Fallon said in his best shocked Kidman voice. “She’s like ‘What?! Jimmy, don’t do that!’”
During the chat, Urban also talked about his new record, High, and said he made a completely different LP called 615 that he had ready to go last year before scrapping it entirely because it didn’t feel quite right before returning later in the show to play the High single “Chuck Taylors.”
Watch Urban on the Tonight Show below.
The Nashville Songwriters Association International celebrated the songwriters in Nashville’s music community at the Nashville Songwriter Awards, held at the Ryman Auditorium, on Tuesday (Sept. 24).
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Ashley Gorley was named songwriter of the year, while Jelly Roll was named songwriter-artist of the year. Meanwhile, the Cody Johnson-recorded “The Painter” — written by Benjy Davis, Kat Higgins and Ryan Larkins — was named song of the year.
The evening also included two special honorees, as Alan Jackson was celebrated with the Kris Kristofferson lifetime achievement award, which recognizes a songwriter whose works have made a significant contribution to the American songbook and who has inspired the careers of others. In addition to contributing writing to the bulk of his 26 No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits, Jackson has also written songs recorded by artists including Randy Travis and Faith Hill.
Trending on Billboard
Meanwhile, songwriter-producer Buddy Cannon was feted with the NSAI president’s keystone award, which acknowledges the significant contributions for the betterment of all songwriters. The recipient is chosen by the current NSAI president. Cannon has produced chart-topping hits for Kenny Chesney and Reba McEntire, and has helmed several albums recorded by Willie Nelson. As a songwriter, Cannon credits include Vern Gosin’s “Set ‘Em Up Joe,” “Dream of Me” and “I’m Still Crazy,” George Strait’s “I’ve Come to Expect It From You” and “Give It Away,” which earned song of the year honors at the 2007 ACM Awards.
The inaugural Legendary Song Award, which is voted on by NSAI’s professional songwriting members, with the eligible criteria being songs from 1967-1983, was awarded to “Always on My Mind,” written by Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher and Mark James and recorded by artists including Brenda Lee, Elvis Presley, Nelson and Pet Shop Boys.
Several songwriters and artist-writers, including Jamey Johnson, Chris Young, Amanda Shires and Nate Smith, were on hand to honor this year’s winners. Josh Turner feted Jackson by lending his commanding rumble of a voice to Jackson’s “Midnight in Montgomery,” which Jackson wrote with Don Sampson. Hailey Whitters performed a sterling version of Jackson’s “Livin’ on Love,” while Lee Ann Womack performed Jackson’s “Here in the Real World.”
Each year, the Nashville Songwriter Awards also present the “10 Songs I Wish I’d Written,” which are voted on by the professional songwriter members of NSAI. The songs eligible for the honor must have at least one Nashville-based writer and have charted in the top 20 of a Billboard Airplay chart in the genres of country, christian, mainstream top 40 and/or rock between May 1, 2023 and April 30, 2024. The highest vote-getter is named NSAI’s song of the year.
Austin Nivarel, Joe Ragosta and Rob Ragosta performed “Need a Favor,” which they co-wrote with Jelly Roll. Ryan Beaver and Jared Keim performed “Pretty Little Poison,” which they wrote with Warren Zeiders. Meanwhile, Jordan Dozzi, Larry Fleet and Brett Tyler performed the Morgan Wallen-Eric Church hit “Man Made a Bar.” Davis, Higgins and Larkins performed their song “The Painter.”
See this year’s “10 Songs I Wish I’d Written” winners below:
“Handle On You”
Written by Monty Criswell, Parker McCollum (recorded by: Parker McCollum)
“I’m Not Pretty”
Written by Mackenzie Carpenter, Micah Carpenter, Megan Moroney, Ben Williams (recorded by: Megan Moroney)
“Last Night”
Written by John Byron, Ashley Gorley, Charlie Handsome, Jacob Kasher Hindlin (recorded by: Morgan Wallen)
“Man Made a Bar”
Written by Rocky Block, Jordan Dozzi, Larry Fleet, Brett Tyler (recorded by: Eric Church and Morgan Wallen)
“Need a Favor”
Written by Jelly Roll, Austin Nivarel, Joe Ragosta, Rob Ragosta (recorded by: Jelly Roll)
“Next Thing You Know”
Written by Jordan Davis, Greylan James, Chase McGill, Josh Osborne (recorded by: Jordan Davis)
“Pretty Little Poison”
Written by Ryan Beaver, Jared Keim, Warren Zeiders (recorded by: Warren Zeiders)
“Standing Room Only”
Written by Tommy Cecil, Patrick Murphy, Craig Wiseman (recorded by: Tim McGraw)
“Try That In a Small Town”
Written by Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy, Kelley Lovelace, Neil Thrasher (recorded by: Jason Aldean)
“Where the Wild Things Are”
Written by Randy Montana, Dave Turnbull (recorded by: Luke Combs)
“White Horse”
Written by Chris Stapleton, Dan Wilson (recorded by: Chris Stapleton)
The video for Machine Gun Kelly and Jelly Roll‘s collaboration, “Lonely Road,” (No. 18, Hot Country Songs) casts MGK as a finance-strapped, blue-collar worker who commits an armed bank robbery, gets run down in a police chase and ends up seeing his newborn daughter for the first time from behind a wall of glass in prison.
The criminal storyline plays out over a melody long associated with a comforting, nostalgic John Denver hit, “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” with which “Lonely Road” is interpolated.
Matching an edgy, violent plot line with the legacy of a goody-two-shoes pop-and-country environmentalist imprints a scruffy wrinkle atop Denver’s safe reputation while bringing some revenue into his estate’s coffers.
Trending on Billboard
“It’s just this way to reinvigorate a song and remind people, ‘Oh, right, I love that song, “Country Roads,”‘ while they’re also having this great time at an MGK show,” 7S Management artist manager Amy Abrams noted on Sept. 18 while moderating the panel “Curating a Legacy — What Young Artists Can Learn From Estate Management” during the Americana Fest in Nashville. The reimagination of “Country Roads” provides Denver’s catalog “a way into a new audience, to associate yourself with another artist that may complement the image or the legacy that you’re working to create.”
Setting up a career for long-term health is, not surprisingly, similar to setting up personal finances for retirement. To do so successfully requires focusing on the future, protecting assets from opportunistic sharks, reflecting personal values in decision-making, saving documents and taking informed risks when it makes sense.
It also helps to develop a sense of self-worth. In personal finance, that means seeing oneself as someone who deserves to have a nest egg. In building a music career, that means self-identifying as a creator whose work has lasting value. That attitude might be difficult to develop during artists’ early years when bank accounts are slim and the desire to advance is powerful.
But Bob Dylan Center director Steve Jenkins noted that Dylan‘s latter-career reputation is, in part, an outgrowth of the importance he assigned to his copyrights and to his brand from his earliest years in the spotlight.
“He avoided some of the potholes that a lot of younger artists find themselves having to get into,” Jenkins said. “I think it’s about valuing your own work — as tempting as it might be, and at times, as necessary as it might be, to just bring some cash in initially — but taking a long view and thinking of yourself as that sort of artist.”
Perhaps most important is to start early, building the legacy consistently from the start rather than scrambling to make up lost ground on the back end. The panel focused on artists, though some of its points can be applied to other careers.
Key advice included:
• Think long term “If you are looking just ahead to tomorrow,” Abrams said, “and you are not looking way, way, way down the line, you are going to miss something.”
• Align with causes that speak to your audience “We often think about being careful to not turn off fans with this work; I think you can also turn on fans,” 7S Management director of philanthropy Kari Nott said. “When you speak up for folks who are screaming for help, who need your microphone to draw attention to the issue that they’re affected by, they’ll remember that for the rest of their lives.”
• Read contracts “You could just sign away your intellectual property for the rest of your life,” Abrams noted. “That’s a repercussion your grandkids are going to be dealing with when it doesn’t revert to your heirs.”
• Be willing to self-promote Abrams also observed, “There’s something to be said for telling everyone that you have a legacy. It’s up to you to communicate this information to the world and to throw your own party.”
• Celebrate important anniversaries The Denver estate is currently observing 50 years since he released the Back Home Again album. But, Jenkins said, be “judicious” in what anniversaries get promoted and make the marketing proportional to the milestone.
• Save memorabilia Dylan’s lyrics, finished or not, can sometimes be used to create merchandise or enhance exhibits. Photos, tour posters, backstage passes, set lists — as those items accumulate, they become a collection that has value in the long run.
• Share the thoughts and circumstances that inform your music “When you’re speaking to your team, the more you’re able to provide the context for your story as it relates to your work — you know, all the surrounding influences and whatnot — that leads to being able to champion you,” Concord vp of sync licensing and clearance Brandon Schott said.
• Identify icons worth emulating “Try and emulate the way that they move through the world,” Nott suggested. “Someone that I’ve always been struck by is Willie Nelson and how he starts every single Farm Aid concert by introducing himself and immediately passing the mic to the farmers.”
• Collaborate with others “I always describe sync as Brian Wilson — it’s taking two completely different instruments, laying them on top of each other, playing [them similarly] and they become a third instrument,” Schott said. “Taking visual artists and record artists, and putting them together can amplify both sides of that collaboration.”
• Look for other methods of exposure Advertising, in particular, can call attention to a copyright, though it can, Jenkins lamented, be “crass.” Ads that feel “more narrative-based,” said Schott, rather than blatant sales pitches, can remind the audience of a song and generate revenue without undermining its reputation.
• Leave a road map for heirs Artists who don’t specify their beneficiaries or leave instructions about how they want their legacy handled risk having their memories polluted or trivialized after they’re gone.
Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every weekend.
Warner Music Australia is boosting its country stocks with the signing of Brad Cox.
Raised in Jindabyne in New South Wales’s Snowy Mountains, Cox, a former Sony Music artist, enjoyed a breakthrough in 2018 with his self-titled debut album, which collected the the singles “Red Light”, “Too Drunk to Drive”, “’Lake House” and “Water On The Ground”.
He went on to snag the Toyota Star Maker competition at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, and landed in the top 20 with his sophomore album, 2020’s My Mind’s Projection, peaking at No. 13 on the ARIA Albums Chart.
The following year, Cox launched the “Happy Hour Down Under” station on Apple Music.
Trending on Billboard
A third album, Acres, dropped last year, and cracked the ARIA Top 10 (with a No. 7 peak).
“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Brad Cox into the Warner Music family and are delighted that Brad has entrusted us with the next chapter of his career,” comments Dan Rosen, president of Warner Music Australasia.
“Brad’s genuine authenticity, admirable work ethic and undeniable talent has already captured the hearts of fans around Australia and we can’t wait to help take his music to more fans at home and around the world.”
To celebrate the new arrangement, Cox drops the new single “Everything I’ve Got.”
He’ll road test the song when he embarks on his biggest tour date, the Everything I Got jaunt, which starts Oct. 17 at University of Canberra, before stopping in at Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, Rockhampton and Brisbane.
“Signing this new record deal with Warner Music feels like home,” he says in a statement. “I feel like things are only getting better and better the more I get to work with this incredible crew. I feel like I’m understood in my vision for this project and supported with means to make the dreams happen. I’m thankful for the belief I’ve been shown and am humbled to have landed here at Warner Music for the next chapter. Feels incredibly right.”
Australia is recognized as the No. 3 market for country music, behind the United States and Canada, respectively. With the likes of Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs dominating Australia’s consumption charts and filling arenas, country music is enjoying a renaissance in these parts.
Aussies streamed 1.1 billion country tunes in the first half of 2023, based on the top 500 songs in the genre. Gen Z is found to have a growing appetite for country.
Cox’s tour opens Oct. 17 at University of Canberra, before heading to Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, Rockhampton and Brisbane.
The trek is presented by Handsome Tours, Lonely Lands Agency Mirror Music Group, Habit Music and transported by Mack & Highway Rentals Australia.
Eric Church recently paid homage to Country Music Hall of Famer Alan Jackson as only “The Chief” can during the 17th annual ACM Honors, which were held in August at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and airs Tuesday (Sept. 24) on Merit Street Media.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
During the event, Jackson — who has earned 26 Billboard Country Airplay No. 1 hits and is a co-writer or sole writer on most of those — was celebrated with the ACM Poet’s Award for his songwriting.
Trending on Billboard
“Alan Jackson is an institution and an American treasure. It’s my honor to be here and play for him,” Church said before he offered a soulful performance of Jackson’s 1990 hit “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow.”
Before launching into the performance, Church also offered up a story from being on the road with another country music luminary.
“I was touring with Hank [Williams] Jr., and every night he would play ‘Family Tradition,’” Church said, recalling that after he tried putting his own spin on the song, “Hank tolerated me for about 30 seconds and he pulled his glasses down and said, ‘Brother, don’t paint on the Mona Lisa.’ So tonight I’m going to try to paint around the Mona Lisa, OK?”
Church’s rugged rendition was passionate, clearly conveying the two artists’ shared experiences chasing their dreams — and weathering rejections — in Music City. Church earned a standing ovation and one of the most fervent applauses from the crowd, along with praise from Jackson himself.
This year, the annual ACM Honors celebrates honorees including Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Lainey Wilson, Chris Stapleton and Luke Bryan, as well as producer/former label head Tony Brown, music executive Shannon Sanders, songwriter Walt Aldridge, various music venues and several top-shelf musicians who play on so many of the country music albums emanating from Nashville.
Other performers and presenters during the evening include ACM Honors co-hosts Carly Pearce and Jordan Davis, as well as Lauren Alaina, Jason Aldean, Jackson Dean, Kameron Marlowe, Lee Ann Womack, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Tyler Hubbard, Jamey Johnson, Ashley McBryde, Terri Clark and Keith Urban.
Watch the sneak peek look at Church’s performance below: