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The highs, lows and secrets within the Judd family will be explored in the upcoming Lifetime four-part documentary series The Judd Family: Truth Be Told, which will air on Mother’s Day weekend, May 10-11, at 8 p.m. ET.
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The documentary delves into the nuanced relationship between The Judds matriarch Naomi Judd and her daughters Ashley and Wynonna. According to an announcement regarding the Alexandra Dean-directed and executive-produced documentary, the series seeks to explore “the complex mother-daughter dynamics and intergenerational trauma as seen through the eyes of the Judd family.”
Naomi and Wynonna Judd formed the successful mother-daughter country music duo The Judds, garnering 14 No. 1s on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart in 1980s. Meanwhile, Ashley Judd went on to become a successful actress, known for roles including Double Jeopardy and Heat.
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The trailer for the documentary shows Naomi and Wynonna together in the early days of The Judds’ career. Naomi smiles at Wynonna and says, “You love me?” as Wynonna nods. “Are you ever going to leave me?” Naomi asks, as Wynonna grins and shakes her head no.
“I was so proud of their success,” Ashley Judd later says in the trailer, which also features comments from The Judds’ fellow country star Reba McEntire. From there, the trailer quickly shifts, alluding to family secrets and struggles, with Ashley saying of Naomi at one point, “She had no idea what I went through as a child.”
Later Wynonna says, “It’s a blessing and a curse to be that close to your mother.”
The Judds led headlining tours and notched hits including “Love Can Build a Bridge” and “Why Not Me.” They won five Grammy Awards and nine CMA Awards during their career, before Naomi’s battle with hepatitis C brought the duo’s career to a halt. Wynonna then forged a successful solo career on the strength of songs including “No One Else on Earth” and “Tell Me Why.”
In April 2022, tragedy struck when Naomi died by suicide at age 76, one day prior to The Judds’ induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. At the time, a statement from Wynonna and Ashley Judd said, “Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”
The documentary series is produced by Propagate Content for Lifetime, with Ben Silverman, Howard T. Owens, Isabel San Vargas and Jonathan Schaerf acting as executive producers. Elaine Frontain Bryant and Brad Abramson are executive producers for Lifetime.
Watch the trailer below:
Shaboozey still hasn’t gotten where he’s going. The “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hitmaker announced an expanded version of his breakthrough album on Friday (April 11), dubbed Where I’ve Been, It’s Where I’m Going: The Complete Edition, which will add six new tracks to the original 12-track LP Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going.
The revamp due out on April 25 via Empire will feature the just-released Myles Smith collaboration “Blink Twice,” as well as “Amen” featuring Jelly Roll, the Sierra Ferrell team-up “Hail Mary” and the fresh tracks “Fire and Gasoline” and “Chrome,” as well as previously released single “Good News.”
Shaboozey’s big year will roll on this weekend when performs on Sunday (April 13) at the Coachella Festival and then returns to Indio, CA on April 26 for night two of this year’s Stagecoach Festival, where he’ll share the stage with Jelly Roll, Sturgill Simpson, Nelly, Ashley McBryde and Koe Wetzel.
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He kicked off the year with “Blink Twice,” following a jam-packed 2024 in which he appeared on Beyoncé‘s three-time Grammy-winning Cowboy Carter LP and also scored the longest-running solo Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single of all time with “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”; the track spent an eye-popping 17 weeks at the top of the tally. Nearly a year into its run, “A Bar Song” continues to tear it up, dropping to No. 4 from No. 3 in the most recent chart frame dated April 12, while “Good News” is hanging out at No. 51 after previously peaking at No. 47.
Check out the full track listing for Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going: Complete Edition below:
1. “Horses & Hellcats”
2. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
3. “Last Of My Kind” (feat. Paul Cauthen)
4. “Anabelle”
5. “East Of The Massanutten”
6. “Highway”
7. “Let It Burn”
8. “My Fault” (feat. Noah Cyrus)
9. “Vegas”
10. “Drink Don’t Need No Mix” (feat. BigXthaPlug)
11. “Steal Her From Me”
12. “Finally Over”
13. “Amen” (feat. Jelly Roll)
14. “Hail Mary” (feat. Sierra Ferrell)
15. “Fire And Gasoline”
16. “Blink Twice” (feat. Myles Smith)
17. “Good News”
18. “Chrome”
Two of the 2024’s biggest breakout stars have lent each other a hand for a new springtime single. Five-time Grammy nominee Shaboozey and Brit Award-winning Myles Smith have joined forces for “Blink Twice,” an infectious, folk-inflected track built on twangy finger-picked guitars, pounding drums and raucous stomps and claps. “Oh me, oh my, would you […]
Austin City Limits is set to cap its 50th-anniversary celebrations with a special episode featuring Garth Brooks.
Austin City Limits Hall of Fame Honors Garth Brooks will have its broadcast premiere on May 3 at 8 p.m. ET. Recorded live at ACL’s studio home ACL Live in Austin, Texas, the hour-long special features Brooks performing many of his hits while sharing the stories behind many of those songs.
Brooks made his ACL series debut in 1990, shortly after the release of his 1989 self-titled debut, which included now-classic country songs such as “The Dance” and “If Tomorrow Never Comes.” A decade later, he returned to ACL to open and close ACL’s milestone season 25 with two hourlong episodes.
The new special will also highlight moments from Brooks’ ACL performances over the years. The special also features Brooks’ wife and fellow country artist Trisha Yearwood, as well as longtime ACL executive producer Terry Lickona, who inducts Brooks into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame. Yearwood previously joined the ACL Hall of Fame in 2023 alongside John Prine.
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“You can bring all the smoke and mirrors you want, and trust me—I’ve used ‘em all,” Brooks said in a statement, “but you come here and it’s the real deal.” He added, “Always try to associate your name with a name greater than your own. Being associated with ACL has been one of the greatest assets of my career. I can’t thank Terry and the gang enough for all the years and all the love.”
“You can’t tell the story of Austin City Limits without Garth Brooks,” Lickona added. “Garth gets it. He gets what makes Austin City Limits special, and why it’s an honor for an artist to step onto that stage and deliver the best performance of their life. And it’s an honor for us to share that stage with artists like Garth, who have so much to offer.”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the revered music institution, which premiered on PBS in 1975. Since 2014, the ACL Hall of Fame has honored artists who have played an essential role in the series’ half-century as a premier supporter of top-shelf music. The inaugural 2014 awards feted Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
In 2021, Brooks appeared on ACL for two non-broadcast events to close out Studio 6A on the University of Texas campus. Brooks’ performances marked the final shows at that historic studio, which served as ACL’s home until 2010, before it moved to downtown Austin.
Over the course of his first three albums, Morgan Wallen has notched Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits and crafted projects with sprawling, 30-song-plus track lists. He’s notched hit collabs with Eric Church (“Man Made a Bar”), Post Malone (“I Had Some Help,” from Post’s F-1 Trillion album) and Ernest (“Cowgirls”). But he has yet to release a collaboration with a female artist.
That seems likely to change on his upcoming album, I’m the Problem, out May 16.
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On X, Wallen responded to a comment from Patrick R Thomes, who wrote, “@MorganWallen, please, please, PLEASE confirm ‘What I Want’ is a duet. You haven’t yet sang with any female artists on any of your first three albums, so PLEASE tell me this is the case.”
Wallen responded simply, “Indeed sir,” seeming to confirm there will be a collaboration with a woman artist on the project, though Wallen offered no other details. Fans swarmed the comments section, speculating on the possibility of a range of artists, including Lainey Wilson, Ella Langley and Megan Moroney. Another name mentioned was Miranda Lambert, with whom Wallen co-wrote the One Thing at a Time standout “Thought You Should Know.” The pair performed the song together as a duet for the first (and so far only) time at Wallen’s Knoxville, Tennessee, concert in September.
During a previous story with Billboard in 2023, Wallen said that though he hadn’t released a coed duet yet, he had made attempts at such a collaboration, saying, “I’ve reached out to a couple of people, and they’ve turned me down. … I just really want certain people, and I haven’t gotten the chance to do it yet. I’m going to keep trying to write songs for it or write with them.”
He also added at the time that he “would love” to write with more women artists and songwriters, but noted that he most often revisited his “little squad” of frequent co-writers “because I’ve just been slammed, and when I’m not on the road, I’m spending time with my son or hunting. I haven’t really wanted to branch out much just because I needed to keep myself sane.”
Indeed, the writers on some of the songs he’s already released from the upcoming album — “Love Somebody” and “Lies Lies Lies” — are many of his longtime collaborators, including HARDY, Hunter Phelps, ERNEST, Ashley Gorley and Ryan Vojtesak.
Four-time ACM Awards nominee and three-time CMA Triple Play winner Ernest has teamed with rap superstar Snoop Dogg for the new song “Gettin’ Gone.”
The song marks the first release from an upcoming project on Ernest’s newly-minted DeVille Records, which he launched in partnership with Big Loud Records. “Gettin’ Gone” was written by Ernest, Snoop Dogg, Ben Hayslip, Rhett Akins and Mark Holman, with production by Jacob Durrett.
The song embodies a hybrid of captivating melodic hooks and a solidly driving, folk-rock honky-tonk sound, creating the preview for what fans can expect from the expansive sounds on Ernest’s upcoming Cadillac Sessions mixtape-style compilation, out May 9. The set will highlight two new original songs and a cover song from DeVille Records artists Chandler Walters, Cody Lohden and Rhys Rutherford.
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Leaning into the song’s good-time vibes, the video for “Gettin’ Gone” highlights the camaraderie between the two creative forces, featuring Snoop Dogg and Ernest driving around Nashville in Ernest’s Cadillac DeVille, as well as footage of the pair outside of Williamson County, Tennessee’s Castle Recording Studios, where “Gettin’ Gone” was produced.
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Over the past few years, Ernest has steadily been forging a reputation as a multi-faceted hitmaker and industry kingpin, notching his own hit songs such as “Flower Shops” and “Cowgirls” (both featuring Morgan Wallen), as well as his work penning hits for artists including Wallen, Post Malone, Kane Brown, Diplo, Chris Lane and Florida Georgia Line. He also launched the music publishing venture ERN’s Cadillac Music in 2023.
This isn’t Snoop’s first time in the country space — the rap legend recently teamed with rapper-turned-country star Jelly Roll for “Last Dance With Mary Jane,” which flips the Tom Petty classic “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” The pair introduced the song last year during Jelly Roll’s headlining show at Bridgestone Arena. Earlier this year, Snoop Dogg made a surprise performance at Nashville venue Losers Bar and Grill, and more recently made his own imprint on downtown Nashville with the the new bar, Still G.I.N. Lounge by Dre and Snoop, on 2nd Avenue in Nashville.
Check out the video for “Gettin’ Gone” below:
East Tennessee native and cultural icon Dolly Parton will soon have her inspirational career spotlighted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Museum, when the Hall launches its new exhibition, Dolly Parton: Journey of a Seeker, on May 20. The exhibit will run until September 2026.
Parton, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, has forged a multifaceted career as a singer, songwriter, actor, author, businesswoman and philanthropist.
“Being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame was one of the greatest moments of my life, and being able to have a personal exhibit for the fans that put me there is a very big deal to me,” Parton said in a statement. “This seeker is very proud and honored, and I hope you enjoy my journey. I will always love you.”
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“After accomplishing enough for three lifetimes, Dolly Parton continues to astound and amaze us with her boundless talent, her vivacious wit and her tremendous generosity,” added Kyle Young, chief executive officer of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. “Like all great artists, Parton has demonstrated consistently that she can transform adversity and setbacks into works of stunning beauty and insight into the human condition.”
The exhibit will feature costumes, awards, instruments, photographs, handwritten lyrics and exclusive interview footage from throughout Parton’s career. In 1978, Parton was named as the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year, and she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999. At 79, her tireless passion for her career is evident, as she continues extending her career’s acclaim with the recent announcements of her upcoming musical and Nashville hotel.
The exhibit will highlight key points in Parton’s career, such as the handwritten lyrics to her No. 1 hit “Jolene,” and the Sony portable cassette tape player recorder she used when she wrote her now-iconic songs including “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene” and the exhibit’s namesake song, “The Seeker.”
Other pieces to be featured include Parton’s Kennedy Center Honors medallion she was presented with in 2006, as well as a cowgirl outfit Parton wore in the 1980 movie 9 to 5. Also on display will be a Lucy Adams-designed dress Parton wore on appearances on The Porter Wagoner Show, as well as the cover of the 1974 album Porter ‘n’ Dolly, which marked the final collaborative project from Parton and Wagoner. Another dress, designed by Steve Summers, features mesh fabric, spikes and breaded fringe, and was worn by Parton in promoting her 2023 album Rockstar.
The exhibit showcases Parton’s generational appeal through her inspirational, rags-to-riches story of growing up in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, in a home with no plumbing or electricity. She inherited from her family both a love of music and an intense work ethic, and by the age of 10, she was performing on radio and television broadcasts in Knoxville, Tenn. She began recording music by the time she was in her teens. She moved to Nashville after finishing high school, and released her debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly, in 1967 on Monument Records.
Crucially, Dolly Parton: Journey of a Seeker will highlight Parton’s determined spirit throughout her career and her unique creative and business vision, such as when, at age 13, she made her Grand Ole Opry debut, though only after she and her uncle Bill Owens persuaded Jimmy C. Newman to give her one of his Opry performance timeslots after an Opry manager refused to give her a performance timeslot due to her young age. In 1974, after a seven-year stint on The Porter Wagoner Show, Parton decided to part ways with Wagoner, with whom she had become one of country music’s most popular duos. That decision sparked the beginning of Parton’s rise as one of country music’s most revered and recognized solo artists.
Later on in her career, she opted to work with Los Angeles pop music producer Gary Klein on her 1977 album Here You Come Again, which brought backlash from some in the Nashville music community, who claimed she was abandoning Nashville in favor of pop music success. The album reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s top country albums chart, and the top 20 on the all-genre Billboard 200, spurred by songs including the title track and “Two Doors Down.” The album was also Parton’s first million-selling album, earned the star her first Grammy award win, and led to her film debut in the movie 9 to 5.
The exhibit also highlights the 10-time Grammy winner’s work as a philanthropist. Among her initiatives, in 1995, she encouraged new generations of children to love reading by founding Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Three years later, she launched the Dollywood Foundation, with the Imagination Library as its flagship program. The program is now active in not only all 50 states, but also in Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Along with the new Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibit, an illustrated and in-depth exhibit book will supplement the information presented in the gallery presentation. The book will highlight Parton’s career triumphs and share stories behind four of her most beloved songs, “9 to 5,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene.” The book will also be sold in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s store starting May 20. An official exhibit playlist will be available on all major streaming platforms beginning on May 20.
FanDuel’s Kentucky Derby Party is returning to Louisville this year with Shaboozey headlining the event, Billboard can exclusively reveal. The exclusive, invite-only event is set to take place May 2 at Paristown Arts and Entertainment District in Louisville, Kentucky. “I’m hyped to be part of the Derby this year,” Shaboozey said in a statement. “It’s […]
A year ago, Dasha seemingly came out of nowhere riding an almost Western melody atop a stomp-clap groove with “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’),” earning a top five country single, platinum certification and several awards nominations as a new artist.
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All great. But what comes next? No one understood that question better than she did.
“My team was kind of breathing down my throat being like, ‘Dash, we need a follow-up. We need a follow-up,’ ” she remembers. “I was stressing out because, holy s–t. How do you follow up your first hit single?”
An artist’s sophomore single has some built-in challenges. In most instances, it needs to have some elements that help the listener connect both songs in their mind, creating a foundational sonic brand. But if it’s too close to the first hit, it makes the act seem a bit limited. Fortunately, the sophomore single’s creative tightrope is not a secret.
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“That’s my main thing in the room with an artist like that,” says songwriter Ashley Gorley (“I Am Not Okay,” “Love Somebody”). “I want to help her get that follow-up hit, show some different colors, but also kind of be a cousin to the song that drew everybody into your music.”
Gorley had that in mind when he met Dasha for the first time on May 8, 2024, as he hosted a writing session that included Ben Johnson (“Truck Bed,” “Liar”) at his Nashville-area home. Dasha was aware of Gorley’s record-setting reputation as a songwriter, but she wasn’t intimidated. Instead, she was intent on impressing him. Respect was OK; deference was not.
“I feel like what makes an artist’s music special is really relying on their taste and what they find appealing about music and words and cadences and melodies,” she says. “I was just like, ‘I’m really going to lean on Ashley Gorley and Ben Johnson. But I’m also going to really pull the artist card because I need this to feel like me or else it’s not going to do well.’”
Early in the process, Dasha handed Gorley her cellphone and told him to pick an idea from her titles list.“I already liked all of them,” she reasons. “Obviously. I wrote them down.”
“Not at This Party” jumped out at him. Gorley was unaware that the phrase was derived from her early experiences as an artist in the national spotlight. Just weeks prior, she had reluctantly gone to a gathering when she wasn’t feeling particularly social. Her budding fame made her interesting to a few people who didn’t read her mood well.
“So many people trying to small-talk me,” she notes. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’m just not at this party. I’m so mentally checked out.’ And then I was like, ‘That is such a cool song idea.’ And so I take my phone out and I write the title down.”
Once Gorley settled on that title, Dasha specifically envisioned a banjo at the center of the track, and Johnson had just what she needed.
“I came up with that banjo riff pretty quickly,” he says. “I definitely was conscious of trying to make something that fit in her world — and obviously, you know, ‘Austin’ was one of the first songs to really do the stomp-clap thing. My background is so much in bluegrass, and bluegrass is all about that choppy kind of backbeat thing with the mandolin. But in this instance, you kind of replace the mandolin with the claps.”
The claps and stomps were authentically Dasha. “I held my iPhone up and had her stomp and clap into my iPhone,” Johnson recalls. “Most of the stomps and claps on the record are all from that day, just her stomping and clapping in the room.”
They fashioned “Party” in chronological order, placing the female protagonist in the bathroom at a club, staring into the mirror and attempting to hype herself into a good time. Dasha led the melodic charge with short phrases that captured the character’s hesitance.
“It seemed like you’re hyperventilating in the bathroom,” she says. “You’re reminding yourself how to small-talk, how to be normal at a party.”
By the chorus, the melody explodes as the character takes over the dancefloor, publicly exuding a good time while she flashes back internally to an intimate moment in a car with a guy who has backed away from her. The chorus used a repetitive melodic phrase for the first three lines before breaking into a couple of longer, anthemic lines, then returning to the primary theme.
In all, they invested about 90 minutes into writing “Not at This Party,” then another 90 minutes into cutting a demo that used the stomp-clap percussive backbone, the banjo, guitar, plus a fiddle part that Johnson’s wife, Lauren Conklin, remotely whipped up. Dasha knocked out her vocal in just two takes with a handheld SM7 mic. That performance became the centerpiece of the final recording.
“If I had time to overthink it, I might have sung it differently and it wouldn’t have hit as hard,” Dasha says. “I’m so grateful that that happened the way it happened.”
Johnson enlisted Johnny Reno to co-produce, with both of them playing additional instruments on top of the existing track. They also brought in drummer Aaron Sterling and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Fung, blending acoustic melodic pieces with disco-like percussion.
“I remember them making little tweaks for months to get this thing just to be perfect,” Gorley says.Johnson and Reno passed the track between them, each working separately, adding and subtracting small pieces. Reno piled more than 40 clap tracks onto the production, though the volume of parts involved isn’t necessarily evident in the final cut.
“That is an interesting thing about production,” Reno says. “If you have something not doing a lot, then you can fit a lot of things that aren’t doing a lot. But if you have one thing that’s doing a lot, it’s kind of hard to fit things around it.”
One unique thing Reno fit into it is a short sound around the 1:35 mark that sounds like a car screeching to a halt. “That’s just a big ‘hey’ sample,” Reno says. “It’s just a bunch of yelling, ‘Hey!’”
When “Not at This Party” became the choice for a single, a line about “s–tty beer” became a problem. Dasha discussed it with syndicated personality B-Dub when she took part in a Feb. 21 panel at Country Radio Seminar. He looked on ChatGPT for a synonym, and the best option was “pity beer.” She sang it into her phone in a closet at the host hotel, then emailed it to Johnson for the radio edit. Warner shipped it to broadcasters via PlayMPE on March 10.
“It’s similar enough to ‘Austin,’ ” she says. “It lives in the same world, but it’s so different. It adds this new sonic flavor to my repertoire, and it just felt like the biggest, and the realest, and the most eye-catching song out of this new album cycle.”
Britton Moore stepped into unfamiliar territory during The Voice Season 27 Knockouts — and came out with a win.
The 21-year-old Texan, known for his pop-leaning vocals, embraced his country roots on Monday’s (April 7) episode with a soaring, heartfelt rendition of Zac Brown Band’s “Free,” drawing major praise from all four coaches.
Moore, who originally turned four chairs in the Blind Auditions with Coldplay’s “Yellow,” delivered a masterclass in control and tone, earning him the Knockout win over teammate Ari Camille.
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“There’s this youthful beauty and this clear gorgeous tone,” said coach Michael Bublé following Moore’s performance. John Legend added, “It was like pitch-perfect, but also you made some really great stylistic choices.”
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Coach Kelsea Ballerini was so impressed with his precision that she joked, “Every note is so crisp and perfect, it’s almost like you’re self-auto-tuned.” Legend jumped in with a laugh, calling Moore “God-o-tuned.”
Coach Adam Levine, who had to make the final call between Moore and Camille, didn’t hold back in his praise. “You just sing the living crap out of everything you sing,” he told Moore, ultimately declaring him the winner of the round.
In a feel-good twist, John Legend used his only steal of the round to keep Camille in the competition, bringing her back to his team for the Playoffs.
Moore’s Knockout performance marked his first time singing country on the show, despite growing up in Texas with a strong appreciation for the genre. His version of “Free,” originally released on The Foundation in 2008 by Zac Brown Band, stayed true to the original’s spirit while infusing his smooth vocals and gentle grit.
The young artist has impressed week after week this season. During the Battles, he delivered a haunting version of Radiohead’s “Creep,” with Bublé exclaiming, “You hit that top note!” and Legend calling his vocal power “stunning.”