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Sierra Ferrell and Steep Canyon Rangers will spearhead the annual International Bluegrass Music Association’s IBMA Bluegrass Live! festiavl powered by PNC when it returns to downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, on Sept. 27-28.
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Also on the main stage are special guests Chatham County Line, Sierra Hull, Sam Bush, Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, Danny Paisley, Amythyst Kiah and Crying Uncle.
Ferrell just released her new album Trail of Flowers, while Steep Canyon Rangers’ 2023 album Morning Shift is at No. 9 on Billboard‘s Bluegrass Albums chart.
IBMA, teaming with local host PineCone (Piedmont Council of Traditional Music), will return to the Raleigh Convention Center, the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, the Red Hat Amphitheater and other venues. The festival will be held at Red Hat Amphitheater, as well as on six additional stages throughout downtown Raleigh.
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The performance lineup for the two-day festival also highlights the talents of Balsam Range; Barefoot Movement; Broken Compass; Compton & Newberry; Chris Jones & the Night Drivers; Country Current (US Navy Band); Dewey & Leslie Brown; Earl White String Band; Evans, Smith & May, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen; From China to Appalachia (Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer with Chao Tian); Golden Shoals, The Gospel Jubilators; The Gravy Boys; Hank, Pattie & the Current; Henhouse Prowlers; Jacob Jolliff Band; Jake Blount; Jake Leg; Jim Lauderdale; Junior Appalachian Musicians; Kaia Kater; Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands; Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road; New Dangerfield; Nixon; Blevins & Gage; Raised in Raleigh All Star Jam; Sister Sadie; Songs From the Road Band; The Tan & Sober Gentlemen; Tray Wellington Band; Union Grove Old Time Fiddlers’ Convention 100th Anniversary; Unspoken Tradition; The Williamson Brothers; Wyatt Ellis; and more.
“This is our favorite time of year. I just love seeing everyone coming down to Raleigh with guitars and banjos slung over their shoulders,” David Brower, festival producer and executive director of PineCone, said in a statement. “In addition to all the bands playing the big stages, there’s also something special for the everyday pickers. We’re dedicating a stage to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Union Grove Old Time Fiddlers Convention. We’ll have contests for fiddlers, banjo, mandolin and guitar players, plus a great big square dance to cap off the afternoon each day. Lifting up North Carolina’s musical traditions is something we’ve been proud to do with the festival over the last decade.”
IBMA Bluegrass Live! is part of the annual five-day IBMA World of Bluegrass, which also includes the IBMA Business Conference, the IBMA Bluegrass Ramble showcase series and the 35th annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards, with the run of events slated for Sept. 24-28 in Raleigh.
Last year, Billy Strings led the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards winners, picking up the entertainer of the year honor, while Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway won album of the year for Crooked Tree and song of the year for the album’s title track, while Tuttle was named female vocalist of the year.
Tickets and hotel reservations for IBMA’s World of Bluegrass will open to IBMA members starting May 8, and will open to the general public on May 15.
Alone in his house, surrounded by friends.
That’s the contradictory state presented in John Morgan’s first radio single, a collaboration with Jason Aldean titled “Friends Like That.” The two singers are pals at a professional level, for sure, since Morgan wrote three of Aldean’s recent hits and is signed to Aldean’s record label, Night Train, affiliated with BBR Music Group.
But the buddies in “Friends Like That” are a little more figurative: vices and voices telling the protagonist he’s better off alone than to be weighed down by the woman who just walked out on him. Broken hearts aren’t typically pleasurable, although the breezy melody and pulsing guitars on “Friends Like That” make loneliness sound attractive.
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“That was kind of the point,” Morgan says, “to make light of a heavy subject.”
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Mission accomplished — with a little help from some friends.
Morgan wrote “Friends Like That” during September 2020 – the height of the pandemic – at Cornman Music in Nashville, where songwriter Will Bundy (“Half Of Me,” “Brown Eyes Baby”) maintains an office. They were joined by Lydia Vaughan (“If I Didn’t Love You,” “Out Of That Truck”) and Brent Anderson (“Cab In A Solo,” “Lonely Tonight”), ostensibly a group of writers who’ve been interacting with each other in different combinations for several years.
The day started – as it did for so many Americans in that window of time – fairly directionless. No one had any ideas they were passionate about, so they chatted, puttered and brainstormed a bit until something caught their attention. That something was a mysterious-sounding guitar riff that sounded like it was leading somewhere. It was ideal for an intro, and interesting enough that Vaughan insisted they make it part of the melody later in the song. It became the basis for the pre-chorus, setting up the sound of the chorus, which they attacked before they even knew where they were going.
“A lot of times the pre-chorus is just a transitional piece to get from A to B,” Anderson says. “Having, to the best of my knowledge, started this song with that part is probably the reason that it stands out.”
His co-writers are convinced that Anderson spit out the “Friends Like That” title, though none of them know how they got there. It was apparent, however, that they were writing a breakup song, with the singer listening to his friends’ advice about pulling himself together and moving on. The song’s conversations, though, took place in front of a fire at home. The friends were music (Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings) and alcohol (Jack Daniel’s), and staying home with them spoke volumes.
“When something like that happens to you, a lot of people write about the bar,” Morgan says. But having the character stay home “was more real to me, because when I get pissed off, or whenever something happens, I just don’t want to talk to anybody.”
Buoyed by “Willie,” “Jack” and “Waylon,” the singer addresses his ex in absentia with a dismissive payoff at the end of the chorus: “Who needs you when I got friends like that?”
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As self-sufficient as the guy tries to sound at that point, he evinced a brooding outlook when the writers started filling in the blank spaces in the first verse. They established the setting with much of that opening stanza – it’s after sundown, with the ex’s keys on the table. When they reached that transitional pre-chorus, the lyrics refocused on his “friends,” changing the feel from lonely atmosphere to party central.
In verse two, the singer recalled the couple’s better days, reiterated that he no longer needed her, and – when the pre-chorus returned – boasted that he’s “got buds to get me through it.” It may take several listens to realize that while “buds” is short-hand for “buddies,” it might also simply be “buds.”
“It rides a nice line to me where it’s not like completely hidden,” Bundy says of the weed reference. “It’s sort of camouflaged in a cool way.”
The bridge gets ultra-cheery, with a call-and-answer component while the vices actually start talking to the protagonist, “telling me I don’t need you no more.” “It’s a great singalong moment,” Vaughan notes. “I just thought it was really catchy. I don’t know that it necessarily revealed anything new about the story that wasn’t already there, but we all just liked it.”
Aldean and two of his band members, bassist Tully Kennedy and guitarist Kurt Allison, produced “Friends Like That” at Nashville’s Sound Emporium with Kennedy’s adventuresome bass and Mike Johnson’s haunting steel adding some sonic burn to the track. Morgan played the opening riff and the guitar solo, but he was particularly impressed with the crew. He referenced a driving rhythm element on Tom Petty’s “Running Down A Dream” when they got to the bridge, and guitarist Rob McNelly locked onto it right away. “Seeing how pro those guys are is pretty unbelievable,” Morgan says.
Bundy produced Morgan’s final vocal session at Ocean Way. Morgan didn’t need much direction – the song had been written to fit his voice – but he definitely paid attention when Bundy gave him notes. “It’s sort of like getting to drive a Mercedes when you record John’s vocal,” Bundy says. “The great thing about John is we’re also such good buddies that I can criticize him and be tough on him, and he takes that and runs with it. You know he’s going to improve on it.”
Morgan’s solo version of “Friends Like That” became his most played song, racking up 23 million streams on Spotify following its Sept. 30, 2022, release. Aldean thought they should take it to radio. He also suggested that maybe he should add his voice to it, providing a little extra promotional incentive for programmers to add it.
Originally, Aldean wanted to just sing the second verse. Ultimately, Morgan persuaded him to do more – including the call-and-answer part on the bridge and a background vamp in the closing moments. Aldean also makes subtle melodic changes, adding a blue note here or there that creates a little extra grit. “That’s what’s so badass about him,” Anderson says. “He’s done that since the beginning.”
Night Train and Broken Bow released the Morgan/Aldean remix to country radio via PlayMPE on April 8 and set April 22 as its official impact date. “The song itself being called ‘Friends Like That’ — how fun is it now that it’s two friends singing on it together?” Vaughan asks.
In the end, “Friends Like That” will sink or swim on the lead voices, the breezy outlaw references and the self-deception that’s hiding just beneath the surface of the song’s relentless pulse. The freshly rejected guy in the song is a character everybody knows.
“There’s some bitterness in there, but also some sarcasm,” Morgan says. “Also, you know, [he’s] lying through his teeth.”
Editor’s note: The following story includes discussions of suicide.
Jimmie Allen describes loading bullets into his gun in a hotel room as he contemplated suicide in the wake of a May 2023 lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault. If not for a timely text from a friend, the “Down Home” singer told Kathie Lee Gifford in an interview, he might not be here to talk about it.
“I don’t feel that way now, but in that moment, when you feel like you have nothing… In the midst of a society where it’s no longer innocent until proven guilty… She said this so it must be true,” Allen, 38, told the former morning talk show host in the hour-long chat. Allen’s former manager dropped her suit against him last month, but the singer told Gifford that the turmoil that resulted from the initial filing accusing him of rape made him consider suicide at a time when it felt like his “whole world had just collapsed.”
“The first thing my brain goes to is not the career. It’s, how am I going to provide for my kids? I had three [kids] then,” Allen said to Gifford, a longtime friend who has supported him from the earliest days of his career. In the wake of the suit Allen — who denied allegations of wrongdoing with the unnamed woman with whom he admitted to having a sexual relationship — was dropped by his label, BBR Music Group, as well as by his booking agency, management and PR firm and removed from a 2023 CMA Fest performance slot and a commencement keynote speaking engagement at Delaware State University. “I’m thinking to myself, how am I going to provide for my family? And then it hit me. My life insurance covered suicide.”
Last month, the former manager agreed to dismiss her lawsuit, with Allen then agreeing to dismiss his counter-suit accusing the woman of defamation.
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Allen told Gifford he was feeling “pissed off, confused and heartbroken” after the initial filing from the woman he considered a friend, and whom he said became emotionally attached to him during what he described as the year-long affair he considered to be more physical in nature that unfolded as he was preparing to get married. “No matter how I felt about anything I made a commitment to her [estranged wife Alexis Gale],” Allen said. “For the longest time in my head I remember thinking, ‘well, as long as I’m providing for my wife and for my children I have the freedom to do whatever I want,’” said Allen, a father of six. “That’s wrong, I made a commitment and I should have either stuck with it or ended it.”
He also admitted “I knew I was not ready to be a husband” when he got married. “I was at this point in my life where it felt like I should do that,” he added of his marriage to Gale; Allen recently confirmed that he had twins with an unnamed woman in the midst of his divorce from Gale. “I wasn’t in a place for faithfulness either,” he said.
He also described being in that hotel room on May 11 — the day before his planned commencement speech — feeling “the whole world collapsed” and placing the final bullet in his gun when a text from his friend Chuck Adams came through even though he had text alerts turned off. “He said, ‘Ending it isn’t the answer.’ And when I read those words that he texted me, I read them again. I just stopped,” Allen said, sobbing and dabbing at tears with a handkerchief. “I remember I called one of my buddies that lived in lower Delaware. He came up. I gave him my gun. I said, ‘Take it. I don’t need it.’”
“Every single day I remember battling, ‘Do I want to live? Do I not want to live?’ I’m like, ‘Man, my family would have X amount of dollars if I would’ve [taken] care of something,” Allen recalled thinking at the time. “But I realized that’s not the way to do it.”
Then his mother, friends, fellow musicians and A-list, Oscar-winning actors he’d never met reached out — though some “top execs” at his label he thought had love for him never rang — and he was able to get through that difficult time with the help of therapy. He also told Gifford that while on tour with one of his favorite artist, Carrie Underwood, he briefly “turned to drugs” including Percocet, sleeping pills and marijuana, to help him deal with the intense stress of the situation, noting that he is now sober.
“I am healing and growing for me and my children,” he said of son Aadyn, 9 (from a previous relationship), daughters Naomi, 4, Zara, 2 and son Cohen, 6 months, with estranged wife Alexis, and one-year-old twins Amari and Aria 2023 with a friend.
Elsewhere in the chat, Allen described his struggles in the music industry, detailing a time when an unnamed producer of an awards show asked his label to send a picture of what the singer planned to wear on the program because of what he described as his desire to buck the “costume” typically worn by mainstream country singers.
Watch Allen’s interview with Gifford below.
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If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
With her landmark 2018 headlining performance, Beyoncé has already dominated Coachella and effectively reshaped the iconic festival in her image. Could Stagecoach be next? Fans think so!
A sister event to Coachella, this year’s Stagecoach Festival will be held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif., April 26-28, the weekend after Coachella wraps. This year marks the 16th edition of the festival (the COVID-19 pandemic put it on pause in 2020), and headliners include country music superstars Miranda Lambert, Eric Church and Morgan Wallen.
Of course, Queen Bey recently dropped her Billboard 200-topping Cowboy Carter album (March 29), which pulled heavily from country and Americana, propelling it to simultaneous No. 1 debuts on Top Country Albums and Top Americana/Folk Albums. Introduced by the historic Billboard Hot 100-topping “Texas Hold ‘Em,” the album features appearances by myriad country music icons and ascendant stars, several of which are currently scheduled to perform at Stagecoach this weekend.
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A quick browse through the “lineup” tab on the official Stagecoach website reveals forthcoming sets from Cowboy Carter collaborators such as Brittney Spencer, Post Malone (performing a special set of country covers), Tanner Adell, Willie Jones and Willie Nelson. Even Brandi Cyrus, sister of Miley Cyrus, who’s featured of Cowboy Carter’s latest radio single “II Most Wanted,” is slated to hit the stage. But there’s one performer in particular that has piqued fans’ curiosity: Backwoods Barbie.
Every performer listed on the Stagecoach website received a feature that links all of their social media accounts. For Backwoods Barbie, only one Instagram account is linked. On that Instagram account (@djbackwoodsbarbie) currently lies 15 pictures — plenty of which directly reference Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter.
The account’s very first post — a graphic of the Stagecoach lineup captioned “Giddy Up,” a possible reference to “Tyrant” — arrived the same day that Cowboy Carter hit DSPs. Later posts include a major emphasis on the disco balls and sliver sequins (after all, Cowboy Carter and 2022’s Renaissance are connected), images of Beyoncé in her most Western attire, pictures of Dolly Parton and Grace Jones (who were featured on Cowboy Carter and Renaissance, respectively), and one post cheekily captioned “Disco cowgirls report for duty.” The Backwoods Barbie Instagram account also follows just six people: Beyoncé, Parton, Wallen, Diplo, the Stagecoach Festival and, curiously, restauranteur and television personality Guy Fieri.
The Backwoods Barbie moniker is seemingly sourced from the title of Parton’s 42nd solo studio album of the same name, which reached No. 17 on the Billboard 200 back in 2008 and marked both her first release on her own label and her first mainstream country record in a decade. Coincidentally, Beyoncé celebrated her 42nd birthday last fall (Sept. 4) during her record-breaking Renaissance World Tour.
The most recent Backwoods Barbie post features a map of the Stagecoach Festival Grounds with the caption, “Catch me on Saturday night at 7pm out in Diplo’s Honky Tonk!” Should Queen Bey make an appearance at Diplo’s set, it would make sense given that the two Grammy-winning artists have collaborated several times before, including 2012’s “End of Time” and 2016’s “Hold Up” and “All Night.”
With a Cowboy Carter promotional banner flying over the Coachella grounds during Weekend One and a massive promotional hauler on the ground during Weekend Two, the coincidences are certainly starting to pile up.
All of the Beyhive’s questions will be answered on Saturday (April 27), but for now, check out some more reactions to the Backwoods Barbie theory.
Can someone explain to me why I had a dream that Jay Z and I were investigative journalists chasing down random people on the street to ask if they were Backwoods Barbie? I need to stop going down Bey rabbit holes right before falling asleep pic.twitter.com/PCdCK4BUIz— Allie 𐚁 (@Fergyonce) April 24, 2024
who is backwoods barbie???????? bitch if its beyonce imma scream😂😂😂😂— m$ do the da$h👻 (@bossmanrae_) April 24, 2024
Dj Backwoods Barbie on Ig is def giving very much Beyonce lol we see you gworl 😂😂😂— Indica Badu 🔮 (@NostalgicxSouls) April 24, 2024
Now they’re saying Beyoncé is allegedly djing at stagecoach under the name DJ Backwoods Barbie and they found the ig and let’s just say…WE ONTO YOU LADY pic.twitter.com/zT8a1gr7ru— briyoncé🇵🇸 (@babygrlbri) April 24, 2024
If that lady from Houston is Dj Backwoods Barbie I’m going to be gagged— Cowboy Kenya (@Kenyayyy) April 24, 2024
I’m convinced Beyonce is performing at stagecoach under backwoods Barbie— Cowboy X 🤠 (@Xaviii_j) April 24, 2024
For the first time since the death of her husband last year, Kellie Pickler returned to the stage Monday night to perform at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for a tribute concert to Patsy Cline.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was not incredibly nervous right now,” Pickler said when she hit the stage. “It’s the first time I’ve been up on stage in a while.”
Kyle Jacobs, a songwriter/producer and Pickler’s husband of 12 years, died by suicide in February 2023. He was 49 years old.
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On Monday night, according to a TikTok video posted by Music Mayhem magazine, Pickler performed her song “The Woman I Am,” from her 2013 album of the same name, which she co-wrote with Jacobs.
“My husband and I actually wrote this song together, gosh, over a decade ago,” Pickler said onstage. “The last time I was here in the Ryman Auditorium was with him on a date night, and I know he is here with us tonight.”
Watch Pickler’s return to the stage below:
Jacobs’ songwriting credits included Garth Brooks’ Hot Country Songs chart-topper “More Than a Memory,” as well as songs recorded by Trace Adkins, Clay Walker and more. Jacobs also produced several Lee Brice hits, including “I Drive Your Truck,” “Hard to Love,” “Rumor” and “Drinking Class,” and was a producer on Brice’s 2020 album Hey World.
Jacobs and Pickler got married in January 2011 and previously starred together on the reality show I Love Kellie Pickler. Pickler competed on American Idol in 2006 and finished in sixth place, later earning a Country Airplay top 10 hit with “Best Days of Your Life.”
Pickler broke her silence following Jacobs’ death in a statement to People magazine last August, writing: “One of the most beautiful lessons my husband taught me was in a moment of a crisis, if you don’t know what to do, ‘Do nothing, just be still.’ I have chosen to heed his advice.”
If you’re thinking about suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, available 24 hours, at 988.
This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2004 Week continues here as we check in with one of the artists who defined mainstream country music 20 years ago: Gretchen Wilson, whose smash hit “Redneck Woman” and subsequent best-selling Here for the Party album made her the freshest and most exciting new artist in Nashville.
Two decades have elapsed since Gretchen Wilson set fire to country music’s staid mainstream landscape in 2004 with her debut single, “Redneck Woman.”
The song’s lyrics — highlighting women who prefer beer to champagne, and who leave Christmas lights hanging year-round — vividly detailed a lifestyle familiar to millions of female country music fans. It was also a lifestyle that Wilson didn’t see or hear depicted among the female artists on country radio and in music videos in the early ’00s. So, Wilson teamed with Big & Rich singer-songwriter John Rich to craft a song that celebrated anti-“Barbie doll type” women.
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“I remember sitting down and saying, ‘I can’t really relate to what I’m seeing on CMT, GAC, all the popular music video channels, and this is not real life,’” Wilson recalls to Billboard. “That’s kind of the mindset we had that day. It was like, ‘If I’m not that, then what am I?’ And the best thing I could come up with was, ‘I’m just a regular ole redneck woman.’ That’s a really pivotal moment, just writing that song that I knew was uniquely me. But I also knew, from a songwriter’s standpoint, it was about as honest as I could get. I knew at the same time that it was going to speak to so many women that were feeling frustrated just like I was.”
“Redneck Woman” was a true slice-of-life for Wilson, who was born to a teenage mother and grew up in Pocahontas, Illinois, a town with a population of less than 1,000 people. Wilson grew up in trailer parks, and was working in local bars as a cook by age 14. She moved to Nashville in 1996 and spent much of her 20s singing on songwriters’ demos and performing in local bars. By the time she signed with Epic Records in 2003 and earned her breakout hit with “Redneck Woman,” Wilson was in her 30s and raising her own daughter.
Music fans instantly connected with “Redneck Woman,” calling radio stations and demanding that it be played. “Redneck Woman” was released in March 2004; by May, it had reached the penthouse of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart (then-called Hot Country Singles & Tracks) and stayed there for five weeks. It proved a counterpoint to the smash pop crossovers of country artists like Shania Twain and Faith Hill, whose most commercially dominant years were already solidly in the rearview by the time Wilson’s breakthrough came around.
“I felt validated, but mostly with the fans, because radio put up quite a fight,” Wilson says of “Redneck Woman”’s success. “Radio was like, ‘Who is this white trash hillbilly chick coming at us with 13 cuss words in the first song?’ My argument at the time—and I had a valid argument, even though it was 20 years ago, before a lot of feminine movements had happened—my argument was, ‘I’m on the same record label as Montgomery Gentry, who just had a hit with ‘Hell Yeah’ [in 2003]. So, is this just because I’m a female and I can’t say ‘Hell Yeah’ in my song? So that kind of got ‘em, and they shut up real quick about that. But it was really the fans who called their local radio stations. They called and basically said ‘You will play this song or I’ll be switching to the other guy’s station.’”
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Those fans didn’t just call radio stations — they attended Wilson’s concerts in droves, holding up signs of support and telling Wilson how they identified with her no-frills, rough-around-the-edges persona. “A lot of ‘em would bring up Faith Hill rolling around in satin sheets in the [2000] video ‘Breathe,’” Wilson says of the contemporary country image that was prominent at the time, which some fans found difficult to relate to. “It’s a great song, no doubt. They were like, ‘I just don’t think I could stomach any more of that because who wakes up looking like that in the morning?’ People were so enthusiastic [about feeling represented by my music] that they would show up and they would have homemade t-shirts that said, ‘Redneck Girl,’ ‘Redneck Woman’ and ‘Redneck Grandma’ on them — representing three generations, sometimes four. It did feel very validating.”
In 2004, Wilson earned the Country Music Association’s Horizon Award (later renamed new artist of the year), and the following year, female vocalist of the year. “Redneck Woman” won Wilson a Grammy for best female country vocal performance, while Wilson’s debut album Here For the Party bowed at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart and was certified five-times Platinum by the RIAA. Three more singles from the album, “Here For the Party,” “When I Think About Cheatin’,” and “Homewrecker,” reached the top 5 on Hot Country Songs.
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Wilson’s success also helped elevate the MuzikMafia, an eclectic collective of artists (including Wilson) founded in 2001, whichwas known for holding court with free-wheeling, hours-long shows at Nashville’s Pub of Love — all driven by creating an atmosphere of acceptance and support across a spectrum of sounds. Alongside Wilson and Big & Rich’s Rich and William “Big Kenny” Alphin, the group included ‘00s country fixtures like Cowboy Troy, James Otto, Shannon Lawson and Jon Nicholson.
“At the same time that we were being crazy, wild and having a party, the other stipulation was, ‘You got to be good,’” Wilson notes. “One of our mottos was that it doesn’t matter what you play. As long as you can play it well and hold an audience, we’re not going to tell you that you’re not country enough, or not rock n’ roll enough. You just got to be good. That’s why the shows would go on for six or seven hours, just one person after another getting up there, because we were a group of talented friends coming to these parties. When you get 13, 14, 15 artists all wanting to play five or six songs apiece, that’s a long night of music.”
In 2004, as Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” dominated, other MuzikMafia artists also mounted breakthroughs. Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” rose to No. 11 on the Country Airplay chart. Otto released his debut album Days of Our Lives in 2004, while the following year, Cowboy Troy released the single “I Play Chicken with the Train” and his album Loco Motive. Together, the group broke through the polished, often pop-oriented sounds emanating from Nashville’s Music Row.
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After the blazing-hot popularity of Wilson and Big & Rich in 2004, the MuzikMafia’s rising tide slowly began to level out. Big & Rich earned a No. 1 on Hot Country Songs with “Lost in This Moment” in 2007, then went on hiatus as a duo in 2009 and each released solo projects (they reunited in 2011). Wilson’s sophomore album, 2005’s All Jacked Up, didn’t quite reach the same sales heights as her debut album, while the songs found more moderate success on radio (though the album, and 2007’s One of the Boys, both reached the pinnacle of Billboard’s top country albums chart). Meanwhile, a new crop of female artists began making their own country chart strides in the mid-2000s, including Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Kellie Pickler (all of whom offered up polished, sparkly personas and pop-country sounds). Wilson’s own songs also helped pave the way for the independent-minded singer-songwriter Miranda Lambert, who earned her first top 10 hit on Hot Country Songs in 2008.
Scanning today’s country music landscape, however, Wilson doesn’t really see a modern-day parallel to what the MuzikMafia set out to do. “I would say the MuzikMafia was reminiscent of the early Outlaws, in a sense. I don’t think there’s been [anything like it since] — not to say that there won’t be, it could happen again — but it was definitely a movement and each one of us had our own position. I think maybe what made it successful is it didn’t get too big; it always stayed just a handful of us. It was a brotherhood and sisterhood, and we’re all just real close; it’s definitely a family.”
Earlier this year, Wilson teamed with Big & Rich and Cowboy Troy to launch their 20th anniversary celebration tour.
“It’s like walking right back out onto a stage that I never left,” she says of the shows. “Every time I look over at John, he’s grinning from ear to ear. Every time I look at Kenny, he’s being Kenny, which is crazy, throwing his arms up in the air — anytime you look at Kenny, you just got to be ready for anything that might be coming at you. But it’s been a lot of fun.”
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In addition to the current tour, Wilson shares that there is new music on the way: “I’ve got a song that I’m going to try to finish up by the end of this month, and I’m hoping to have it circulating at least by the first couple of weeks in May. I can tell you that it’s kind of like [Wilson’s 2005-released single] ‘Homewrecker’ part two. It’s kind of a follow up on that kind of vibe.”
Wilson says she’s always thoughtful about releasing songs that showcase different facets of her artistry, while maintaining the rowdy songs fans have come to expect.
“There are songs I’ve written that are very personal, more ballady with a softer edge. When people go look me up and find songs from me, they are looking for the hard edge. They’re looking for that girl on a four-wheeler that’s guzzling Jack Daniels barefooted,” she says. “But definitely, there are different shades to my personality and songwriting and it’s pretty complex.”
Still, there’s a reason that Wilson felt “Redneck Woman” was true to who she is. “There’s always going to be that layer of me that is that girl that they expect to see,” she explains. “And I’m barefooted, right now, sitting outside on the back porch watching the train go by in the distance. So, after all these years, I haven’t really changed too much.”
Luke Bryan‘s party came crashing down over the weekend when he fell right on his back during his Vancouver, B.C., concert. But while the country star joked at the time that a fan who’d thrown their cell phone on the stage would be hearing from his attorney, Bryan has since revealed that he thinks the oopsie was caused by an entirely different reason.
“Ironically, last week, I was having back trouble to the point where I had to get a chiropractor to the room,” he began in an interview with Entertainment Tonight on the American Idol red carpet Monday night (April 22). “It’s because I’ve been cycling. When I get to L.A., I love to go cycling around. I love it out here.”
“When I hit the ground, I was like, ‘Oh!’ The first thing [I thought] was, ‘Oh god, all the work I did to get my back feeling better is out!’” he continued, laughing. “Everybody is reporting [about the] cellphone, but I was kind of hamming that up. I don’t think it was a cellphone. I think it was just slick.”
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The country star elaborated on the slickness of the stage to Extra. He shared that when he looked back at footage of the fall, there may have been an additional culprit. “I keep my water bottles down there, and I think a water bottle may have spilled,” he said. “But whatever, it was slicker than a banana peel. Thankfully, it’s a cheap way to get a viral moment going.”
Bryan is currently on his Mind of a Country Boy Tour, which will next make stops in Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Jacksonville, Fla. While performing in Vancouver, he slipped and fell backward in a moment of unplanned slapstick comedy that even Charlie Chaplin would be envious of, after which the “Drunk on You” singer asked the crowd, “Did anybody get that?”
Picking up a cellphone that had made its way onto the part of the stage where he fell, Bryan added, “My lawyer will be calling.”
“I need viral moments, you know? I need viral moments!” he later joked to ET. “My new single is ‘Love You, Miss You, Mean It.’ Now I gotta get the bumper sticker made — ‘I busted my a– and this is my new single.’”
Indeed, “Love You, Miss You, Mean It” arrived April 5, debuting at No. 40 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Bryan is also in the midst of finishing out his latest season on American Idol as a judge alongside Lionel Richie and Katy Perry, with the show premiering its Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits-themed episode Monday.
The Academy of Country Music revealed the winners of the 2024 ACM Radio Awards on Monday (April 22). There are ties in two categories (major market on-air personality of the year and medium market radio station of the year) and multiple first-time honorees.
B-Dub of B-Dub Radio Saturday Night receives his second ACM Award for national weekly on-air personality of the year, while Steve, Ben and Nikki of Steve, Ben and Nikki took home their second award for small market on-air personality of the year.
In the radio station categories, WXTU in Philadelphia took home its second win for major market radio station of the year, and WUBE in Cincinnati, Ohio took home its fourth win for large market radio station of the year.
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The announcement was made with the help of numerous artists, including Danielle Bradbery, BRELAND, Ashley Cooke, Russell Dickerson, Lady A, Ashley McBryde, Parker McCollum, Megan Moroney, Conner Smith, and Tigirlily Gold.
The announcements were made ahead of the 59th ACM Awards, which are set for Thursday, May 16 at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Tex. streaming exclusively on Amazon’s Prime Video.
The show is produced by Dick Clark Productions. 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.
Below is a complete list of the radio award winners for the 59th Academy of Country Music Awards:
On-Air Personality of the Year Winners
National Daily: Katie Neal | Katie & Company
National Weekly: B-Dub | B-Dub Radio Saturday Night
Major Market (Tie): Angie Ward | Angie Ward – WUBL – Atlanta, Ga. and Jason Pullman | The Jason Pullman Show – KPLX – Dallas, Tex.
Large Market: Annie Fox and Cole Dunbar | Annie & Cole – WLHK – Indianapolis, Indiana
Medium Market: Doc Medek and Chewy Medek | The Doc Show – WGGY – Scranton, Pa.
Small Market: Steve, Ben, and Nikki | Steve, Ben and Nikki – WXBQ – Bristol, Va.
Radio Station of the Year Winners
Major Market: WXTU – Philadelphia
Large Market: WUBE – Cincinnati, Ohio
Medium Market (Tie): WBEE – Rochester, New York AND WGGY – Scranton, Pa.
Small Market: WFLS – Fredericksburg, Va.
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Two-time CMA entertainer of the year winner Luke Bryan turned a fall into a viral moment over the weekend when he played a show in Vancouver, Canada.
The incident happened during Bryan’s Mind of a Country Boy Tour, when he slipped and fell onstage, landing on his back, on top of a fan’s cell phone that had been thrown onstage.
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Bryan made a swift recovery, and with his signature quick wit, turned it into a humorous moment, asking the crowd, “Did anybody get that?” before handing the phone back to its owner and joking, “My lawyer will be calling.”
He then gave the crowd an instant replay of the fall by holding a phone from another concert attendee who had recorded video of the fall, and having the concert’s cameraperson zoom in on the video, casting it on the big screens for all to see.
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Bryan also joked to the audience, “Hey, I need some viral. This is viral, all right? This is viral!’ As the video played, he said, “All right, here we go again. There I am, there we go … there it is!”
Bryan appeared unfazed by the brief tumble, and continued on with his headlining set. Additionally, the American Idol judge the singing competition the following evening, offering his rendition of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town.”
Bryan has additional shows in Saskatoon and Winnipeg as part of the Canadian leg of his tour, while the next leg will launch in June in Jacksonville, Fla., at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.
Watch the country star’s onstage tumble and reaction below:
When Annie Ortmeier was appointed co-president at Triple Tigers in September, one of the programs she undertook was retooling Scotty McCreery’s online presence.
One person, rather than an independent firm, was devoted to the singer’s social media, and in the first six months, his email list doubled in size alongside growth in his streaming and his online followers. When McCreery received the trophy for CMT digital-first performance prior to the CMT Music Awards on April 7, it marked his first win at that ceremony in 12 years, and Ortmeier took it as a sign that their revised marketing efforts are working.
“We made voting a part of our social media strategies since the nominations came out,” she says. “I can’t help but think that had a lot to do with him winning that award.”
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Ortmeier and Warner Music Nashville co-president/co-chair Ben Kline are the first two country label heads whose paths to leadership included working full time in digital marketing. Ortmeier’s journey started in 2004 at CMT.com, where she ventured into ecommerce for CMT, VH1, VH1 Classic and Comedy Central. She segued into digital marketing for Universal Music Group Nashville.
Kline started more traditionally in the 1990s with the pop divisions of PolyGram and Island before joining UMGN in 1997, staying in Nashville for a dozen years. By the end of that run, new media had become part of his job title. He left to work for three years at InGrooves, a company focused strictly on distributing and marketing music online. It was a key piece of his development as a 21st-century music executive prior to his 2014 return to Nashville with WMN.
“Every decision we made [at InGrooves] was viewed through the digital lens, and we were raising money and going through a couple rounds of funding, and the conversations all were digital: ‘What’s the future? What’s next? What are the growth patterns?’” he recalls. “It was a digital-driven business, and you had to understand the ins and outs of how to speak to consumers and speak to partners in that space.”
Both Kline and Ortmeier first devoted their efforts to digital music and promotion full time in an era when CDs and airplay were still the primary vehicles for the country genre. Their early commitment to then-new platforms uniquely positioned them to take label reins once the industry’s drivers flipped.
“I was working in streaming when it was 15% of the business,” Ortmeier recalls of her earlier UMGN work. In more recent years, “it was 85% of the business. So it completely inverted.”
Label leadership has changed dramatically in Nashville. In the earliest years of the business, record company heads — including Chet Atkins at RCA, Owen Bradley at Decca and Ken Nelson at Capitol — tended to be producers. It made sense; labels earned their money by selling singles and albums that were exposed through radio, and producers generally had a handle on the sounds that worked on-air. But as the industry increasingly relied on the sales of more expensive albums, record companies more frequently gave the top position to promotion and marketing execs, including Joe Galante at RCA, Bruce Hinton at MCA and Rick Blackburn at CBS.
Now that artists and labels reach listeners through virtual platforms, the industry’s central companies are turning to people who were on the front lines as those new avenues emerged, providing more data than was ever available before. Understanding that information is key to every modern marketing plan. But knowing when to apply humanity to the numbers is just as important.
“Data can make smart people look dumb or make dumb decisions,” Kline reasons. “Analytics and data help inform, but it can’t be how your decisions are all based. Gut and instinct and knowledge and past experience — they all have to play a role.”
One of the key lessons of past experience, however, is that the past may not be much of a predictor for how to reach fans in the future. Taylor Swift famously built some of her earliest fan base on Myspace, which is now a quaint relic with outdated accounts. Luke Combs came to prominence by introducing his music on Vine, which was shut down in 2017.
“Whatever is working today, enjoy it today, because it may not work tomorrow with the digital world,” Kline says.
That same digital environment has radically changed the way that labels and artists find one another. In another era, artists’ consumer marketing started primarily after they signed a recording deal and started releasing music. Now the artist already has a fan base before labels will even consider a signing, and the act is usually savvier about how to interact with that audience. Thus, meetings with an artist in 2024 are different than they would have been in, say, 1994.
“They’re creating fans, they’re talking to them, they’re sharing music, they’re getting their music heard,” says Kline. “Think about the stories that artists bring by the time they go sign deals versus what it was 30 years ago. I mean, it’s unbelievable, so the conversation has to change.”
Similarly, that overall country audience is different. Streaming platforms make more artists and more genres available, so even core country listeners are likely to ingest a wider range of music. Similarly, the genre is accessible to a much larger slice of the population. Thus, the current Beyoncè moment is possible, in part, because of streaming. Cowboy Carter is connecting because she was able to harness her established audience in addition to appealing directly to country fans. Had she attempted to cross over in ’94, her primary options of exposure would have been late-night TV appearances, prominent in-store placement and whatever radio play she could muster. PDs who were protective of country’s identity would have felt reluctant to give a playlist slot to a pop singer who was likely to stick around for only one album.
“It does open up a consumer who never thought they were a country fan, much like Garth Brooks did 30-plus years ago,” Ortmeier suggests.
The shift to digital marketing and distribution in country directly aided the rise of Kline and Ortmeier to label leadership. Streaming is here to stay, so it’s a good bet that these two execs are setting what could be a long-term precedent.
“I do think,” predicts Ortmeier, “that there will be others behind us.”
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