State Champ Radio Country
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Tim McGraw, music executive Scooter Braun, Big Machine Label Group and the Make-a-Wish Foundation recently helped make a Kentucky girl’s dream come true. Scooter Braun, artist manager and CEO of HYBE-America, shared on Instagram Monday (April 29) that “this is the feel good story we all need right now” before diving into how he first […]
Step aside, Jelly Roll! Bunnie XO took to TikTok this week to post a hilarious video in which she met Motionless in White’s frontman, Chris Motionless, whom she playfully called her “hall pass.” She captioned the slow motion montage of shaking the rocker’s hand with Celine Dion’s enduring love song, “Power of Love.” “You could […]
Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll and Chris Stapleton are among the first performers announced for the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards, which will be held at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, on May 16.
The show will also feature performances by Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, Cody Johnson, Miranda Lambert and Thomas Rhett, as well as Reba McEntire, who was announced as host last week. McEntire will perform new music. Additional performers will be announced in the coming weeks.
The show will stream live globally on Prime Video at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. The ACM stresses that a Prime membership will not be required to watch live. They note: “Everyone is invited to the Party of the Year.”
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Stapleton and Wilson both received five ACM nominations this year. Jelly Roll is a beat behind with four.
This is McEntire’s 17th time hosting or co-hosting the ACMs. She first co-hosted the show in 1986 with actor/singer John Schneider and the late Mac Davis. McEntire is closing in on the all-time record for most times hosting or co-hosting a major awards show. That record has long been held by Bob Hope, who hosted or co-hosted the Academy Awards 19 times between 1940-78.
The 2023 ACM Awards, hosted by Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks, garnered more than 7.7 million viewers on Prime Video plus additional viewership across Amazon Music, the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, and Amazon Live, making it one of the year’s most-watched awards shows.
This marks the ACM Awards’ third year streaming on Prime Video; its second in a row coming from Ford Center at The Star. The venue opened in 2016 and serves as the practice facility for the Dallas Cowboys, as well as the home for many major sporting events throughout the year. Last year’s ACM Awards were the first awards show to take place there.
The 59th ACM Awards is produced by Dick Clark Productions (DCP). Raj Kapoor is executive producer and showrunner, with Patrick Menton as co-executive producer. Damon Whiteside serves as executive producer for the ACM , and Barry Adelman serves as executive producer for DCP. John Saade serves as consulting producer for Amazon MGM Studios.
Kapoor was one of three executive producers of the Grammy Awards on Feb. 4, along with Ben Winston and Jesse Collins. He also served as executive producer and showrunner of the Oscars on March 10. Menton was a co-executive producer of the Grammys.
A limited number of tickets to the 59th ACM Awards are available for purchase on SeatGeek.
Fans can also tune into the official ACM Red Carpet on Prime Video, the Amazon Music Channel on Twitch, and Amazon Live, starting at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. The full rebroadcast will be available directly following the stream on Prime Video and available the next day for free on Amazon Freevee and the Amazon Music app.
Fans can also stream the Official ACM Awards playlist available now on Amazon Music.
DCP is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a Penske Media Corporation (PMC) subsidiary and joint venture between PMC and Eldridge. PMC is the parent company of Billboard.
When Morgan Wallen headlined the Sunday (April 28) lineup at Indio, Calif., country music festival Stagecoach, he performed many of his signature hits, but the Grammy-nominated singer also had some help surprising the audience during his festival-closing set on the Mane Stage. Wallen brought out Post Malone, who joined Wallen for a new song called […]
In this week’s batch of new country music fare, we have country/Americana maestro Charley Crockett’s sterling new album, as well as new songs from Darius Rucker with Jennifer Nettles, as well as Ole 60, Karley Scott Collins, MacKenzie Porter and Karli June. Additionally, bluegrassers The Del McCoury Band offer up new music as well as a collab from Tony Trischka and Vince Gill.
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Charley Crockett, $10 Cowboy
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Over the course of more than a dozen studio albums, Crockett has painstakingly built his reputation as an electrifying live performer, and a kingpin of crafting traditional country tunes, while adroitly enmeshing layers of various styles into his work, including soul, blues, funk, gospel and more. On his latest, there are moments of converging country and R&B, while his penchant for capturing a live performance feel is apparent on $10 Cowboy, which he recorded live to tape in Austin, Texas, with his steady collaborator Billy Horton. Songs such as the horn-driven “America,” the jangly acoustic country of “Hard Luck and Circumstances,” the blues-rock of “Solitary Road” as well as songs such as the title track and “Midnight Cowboy” all pay homage to his skill with keen observations and to his journey from street busker to his current status as acclaimed headliner.
Darius Rucker and Jennifer Nettles, “Never Been Over”
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Two of country music’s strongest, most identifiable voices collide here, as Rucker welcomes Nettles in a reimagined version of this song, which he first recorded for his Carolyn’s Boy album. Nettles joins on the song’s second verse, adding another rich layer of nuance to the tale of a couple unwinding the ties that have bonded them for years. As the song reaches its apex, Nettles sends up some soaring vocals as Rucker holds down the melody. Rucker has one of music’s most commanding voices, but Nettles matches his steady, slightly raspy vocal wondrously with her charismatic soprano. In recent years, Rucker has shifted a bit from some of the uptempo, radio-ready fare he’s become known for and issues some of his strongest performances of late, such as another stellar collaboration, with Dax on “To Be a Man.”
Karli June, “Still Make Cowgirls”
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She’s not afraid to be a fearless, independent-minded cowgirl in a world of followers and she’s fierce enough to dare a potential suitor to ride along. Canada native June is presently celebrated with four CMA Ontario Awards nominations, and follows them with this song she co-wrote with Deric Ruttan. Her twangy vocal also carries a slight edge as it floats over the Western-tinged yet modern sonics.
The Del McCoury Band, “Just Because”
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Since the 1960s, when Del McCoury performed as part of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, he has been a torchbearer, both aiding in laying down the prototype for the genre–and pushing beyond its traditional boundaries. The two-time Grammy-winning The Del McCoury Band, led by the Bluegrass Music Hall of Famer, has blended its distinctive sound with a range of musical styles over the years, leading to collaborations and/or performances with artists including Dierks Bentley, Steve Earle and Phish. That genre-spanning intention continues on the band’s latest, as they cover the blues-driven “Just Because,” originally recorded by The California Honeydrops on their 2013 album Like You Mean It. Here, The Del McCoury Band transforms it into an expertly rendered, galloping bluegrass tune, with fleet-fingered picking, winding fiddle and McCoury’s commanding tenor.
Ole 60, “Next to You”
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This Kentucky quintet broke through earlier this year with viral hits “A Smoke & a Light” and the bluesy ballad “Brother Joe.” They follow with “Next to You,” a harmonica and banjo-inflected song starts out with an unhurried, moody ethos, before picking up the pace in the last half of the song, ascending into a plucky, bluegrass-tinged jamband vibe. This indie group, which recently signed with The Neal Agency for booking, keeps its engaging music rolling with this one, which embeds stark details revolving around an on-and-off again relationship. “Fools in love ain’t fools at all/ That’s why I pick up ever time that you call,” frontman Jacob Young sings, continuing, “Pack of Marlboro Lights and some Adderall/ I’ll be on my way.”
Tony Trischka and Vince Gill, “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”
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From Trischka’s upcoming project Earl Jam: A Tribute to Earl Scruggs (out June 7), this track features a top-shelf assortment of premier bluegrassers, including Trischka, Vince Gill, Michael Cleveland, Brittany Haas, Dominick Leslie and Mike Bub. Together, they offer an exemplary latticework mandolin, guitar, banjo and fiddle on this classic from the country music canon, popularized by The Carter Family and recorded by the familial group during country music’s “Big Bang,” the Bristol Sessions, in 1927. The fiddle lines from Cleveland and Haas are superb, bolstered by Trischka’s banjo picking and topped off by Gill’s high-caliber vocal.
Karley Scott Collins (feat. Charles Kelley), “How Do You Do That”
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Collins teams with Lady A’s Charles Kelley on this pulsating collaboration, which puts their tight-knit harmonies in focus and delves into the moments of a fissured relationship that leave one questioning everything they knew about an ex-lover. Kelley’s soulful country voice is in top form, while Collins’ rangy, grit-meets-silk vocal offers a remarkable, dynamic foil. Collins wrote this track with Kelley, Jordan Reynolds and Tom Jordan.
MacKenzie Porter, “Foreclosure”
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MacKenzie Porter made her American country radio breakthrough with her Dustin Lynch collaboration, the multi-week No. 1 “Thinkin’ Bout You.” But she’s out to showcase her own singer-songwriter talents and perspective on her newly-issued debut Big Loud album Nobody’s Born With a Broken Heart. Porter’s warm, soft-focus voice is bolstered by a pop-aimed, sleek production on this standout track, which she wrote with Luke Niccoli, Lydia Vaughan, Parker Welling.
“I wasted all my good faith,” Porter sings, the slightly husky tremor in her voice acutely embodying both the hope and heartbreak on a song that chronicles a couple’s journey from buying a home together to later watching the relationship falter — so they put up the foreclosure sign, moving out and moving on.
Following Coachella’s two consecutive weekends, the grounds of the Empire Polo Club naturally looked a bit different for Stagecoach. The annual country music festival (also promoted by Goldenvoice that launched in 2007) took place April 26-28 and hosted headliners Eric Church, Miranda Lambert and Morgan Wallen. Not only had the previously green grass been matted […]
Miranda Lambert‘s new single “Wranglers” is coming, and fans at Stagecoach got to hear it first. Reba McEntire got to hear it, too — because she showed up to Lambert’s stage as a surprise guest Saturday night (April 27).
Reba joined Lambert for a three-song finale of “Mama’s Broken Heart,” her own “Fancy” and “Gunpowder & Lead,” wrapping Lambert’s headlining set that featured the live debut of the unreleased “Wranglers.”
“@Reba at @stagecoach y’all,” Lambert wrote Sunday on X (formerly Twitter), reacting to the fun she had at the Indio, California, festival the night before. “Thank you to my hero and friend for coming out here as my special guest. I’ll never forget it. She brought all the fire.”
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“What a night!!! Thanks @mirandalambert for asking me to be part of @Stagecoach last night. And thanks to all the #Countrymusic fans for sticking with us in that wind! #badasssisters #bas #stagecoach,” Reba posted on her own account.
“Wranglers” — written by Audra Mae, Evan McKeever and Ryan Carpenter, and recorded in Austin with co-producer Jon Randall — is set to be released on May 3. The song can be pre-saved here.
“‘Wranglers’ is a classic tale of a woman taking her power back,” Lambert said in a statement released to press. “I think we can all identify with the character in this song, because we have all had a time in our life where we needed to find our strength, and also get a little revenge on someone who did us wrong or hurt us. This offers such a cool, raging take on how something like this unravels. I think the songwriters nailed it.”
She added, “I am so proud to sing it. It feels like it could have been on the same record as Gunpowder & Lead in a lot of ways. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ is a pretty powerful statement, and the way it’s written, you can tell, we’re not kidding.”
Watch a clip of Lambert’s live “Wranglers” performance below, and see some footage of her Stagecoach duets with Reba.
Eric Church took people to church at Stagecoach‘s Mane stage on the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif., on Friday night (April 26), but not all attendees of his closing set at the festival’s opening night were ready for some religion.
The country superstar curated a one-of-a-kind set that he obviously put a great deal of thought into, from the stained-glass backdrop and 16-person choir to the setlist that included covers of “Hallelujah,” “Take Me to the River,” “Stand By Me,” “I’ll Fly Away,” “When the Saints Go Marching In” and even “Gin and Juice.”
“This was the most difficult set I have ever attempted,” Church said in a press release issued after the show. “I’ve always found that taking it back to where it started, back to chasing who Bob Seger loves, who Springsteen loves, who Willie Nelson loves, you chase it back to the origin. The origin of all that is still the purest form of it. And we don’t do that as much anymore. It felt good at this moment to go back, take a choir and do that.”
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“For me, it’s always been something with records, with performances, I’ve always been the one that’s like, ‘Let’s do something really, really strange and weird and take a chance.’ Sometimes it doesn’t work, but it’s okay if you’re living on that edge, because that edge, that cutting edge, is where all the new guys are going to gravitate to anyway. So if you can always challenge yourself that way, it always cuts sharper than any other edge,” he said.
For much of the set, the only accompaniment was Church on guitar, the choir and his frequent collaborator, Joanna Cotton, but his full band joined at the end for a handful of Church’s tunes, including “Country Music Jesus” and “Springsteen.”
For some fans, the show was a thrilling chance to see a (presumably) once-in-a-lifetime set, while for others, it was too much of a deviation from his regular live show. To be fair, Church has mixed it up on festival gigs before: at the 2019 CMA Fest he did a 17-song acoustic medley, and at last year’s CMA Fest he played a seven-song set that featured some hits with new arrangements and some covers, including Little Feat’s “Sailin’ Shoes,” that left some casual attendees scratching their heads, which surprised Church. “I was shocked because I played the show that I went out there to play,” he told Rolling Stone. “We had a time slot and I went out there to play that slot and try to show a little bit, a peek, as to what I was working on for this tour.”
Some attendees were exhilarated by the one-of-a kind show at Stagecoach:
Others, not so much, with reports on social media of attendees leaving mid-show to to attend Nickelback’s performance at the Palomino stage. Palm Springs Desert Sun reporter Brian Blueskye described the scene as an “unplugged jam session” that “sent festivalgoers for the exit of the Empire Polo Club starting about 15 minutes in, a sight that could be best described as Moses parting the Red Sea” in his review.
Obviously Stagecoach didn’t learn their lesson from having Eric Church headline Friday night in 2016 and being a complete energy suck because he’s doing it again tonight. The stream not showing any crowd shots because they are probably leaving in droves 🤣— Robert Wedge IV (@rtwedge4) April 27, 2024
Eric Church might be the most disappointing festival headliner ive ever seen??? It’s like a gospel set?? I’m so lost.— kb (@KennethBaker97) April 27, 2024
Representatives for Stagecoach did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for Church said he declined to comment beyond Church’s statement.
Following well-received sets Saturday night (April 29) by Post Malone (who was joined by Dwight Yoakam, Sara Evans and Brad Paisley) and Miranda Lambert (who was joined by Reba McEntire), Stagecoach concludes Sunday with a closing set by Morgan Wallen.
California got a little bit more of Lana Del Rey this weekend, with her making an unannounced appearance at Stagecoach following two weekends of headlining Coachella. Paul Cauthen welcomed the Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd songstress to the stage for a stirring rendition of “Unchained Melody” on Friday (April 27). […]
Jelly Roll was full of surprises at Stagecoach 2024.
During his wild evening set on the country music festival‘s opening day Friday (April 26), the “Need a Favor” singer welcomed numerous unexpected guests onto the stage, including T-Pain, Ernest and Maddie & Tae.
Jelly Roll’s performance took place on the T-Mobile Mane Stage at Empire Polo Field in Indio, Calif., shortly before Eric Church’s headlining slot.
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Halfway through his 50-minute set, Jelly Roll was joined by T-Pain for their cover of Toby Keith‘s hit song “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.” The pair dropped a recorded version of the cover for Amazon Music a day earlier. The country star shared his thoughts on the classic track leading up to the music fest.
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“I had been covering ‘Should’ve Been a Cowboy’ for about a year now at most of my shows, just kind of honoring Toby as he was getting sick before he passed away,” Jelly Roll told Variety. “Then I really started chewing on, man, what better place to honor Toby than Stagecoach? Plus, Toby Keith was one of the artists that from afar, even though he would never have known it, encouraged me to do country music.”
Funds raised from the “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” cover will go toward the Toby Keith Foundation, which aids pediatric cancer patients. Keith died earlier this year following a battle with stomach cancer.
Elsewhere during his Stagecoach set, Jelly Roll welcomed collaborator Ernest for a performance of “Son of a Sinner,” which reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart in 2022. Jelly Roll was also joined by Maddie & Tae on what he called a brand new song titled “Liar.” The country duo will perform their own set on Saturday (April 27).
Jelly Roll ended his performance by bringing out his wife, Bunnie XO, and daughter, Bailee Ann, is turning 16 years old. To celebrate her birthday next week, the country star asked the thousands of fans to join him in singing happy birthday.
Earlier in the day, Jelly Roll visited celebrity chef Guy Fieri at the Smokehouse Cooking Demo stage for a cooking lesson.
Stagecoach continues with headlining performances by Miranda Lambert and Morgan Wallen, as well as sets by Elle King, Post Malone, Willie Nelson, Hardy and Bailey Zimmerman, among many others. The festival is streaming live on Prime Video or Amazon Music’s Twitch channel.
Fans have been speculating that Beyoncé could be making a surprise appearance at Stagecoach under the name “DJ Backwoods Barbie,” an unknown performer listed on the roster. Backwoods Barbie happens to be the name of a Dolly Parton album and Bey collaborated with Parton on Cowboy Carter.
