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Country Music Hall of Fame duo Brooks & Dunn has rescheduled its concert that had been slated for Thursday night (March 13) at United Supermarkets Arena on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, after an explosion in a tunnel apparently sparked fires around the campus on Wednesday evening, leading to power outages […]
On his new album, Lonesome Drifter, out Friday (March 14), Charley Crockett traverses new career territory while simultaneously nodding to his roots.
In the past near-decade, the prolific Crockett has released 13 albums, each on his independent label Son of Davy and nine of them in conjunction with Thirty Tigers. For Lonesome Drifter, which he recorded over a 10-day span at Los Angeles’ Sunset Sounds Studio, the fiercely independent-minded Crockett made a major career shift, signing with UMG’s Island Records.
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“The last few years, all the majors started calling,” he tells Billboard, noting that he nearly signed with Columbia Records at one point, given that it had been at points the home of two of his musical icons, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.
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But he says Island Records understood what he was seeking in a label partner. “It’s been a process in the past few years of seeing labels realize that if you don’t do a licensing deal with my company, or my friends’ companies, we’re just not going to do [the deal],” Crockett says. “Island agreed to all the things I was looking for, which was I wanted to maintain ownership and have creative control.”
Crockett has spent years building his reputation as a musician’s musician, an artist fueled by creativity and fashioning songs that mirror the lives and stories he sees around him, while also nodding to a deep understanding of the ties and history connecting country, folk, blues and more. In making the choice to sign with Island, he also wanted to make sure he wasn’t erecting creative boundaries in his career.
“Island wasn’t like, ‘Hey let’s take this thing to Nashville and focus on Nashville radio,’” he says. “I didn’t want to be stuck in that because I’ve always felt the thing in Nashville was ‘He’s too country,’ or ‘He’s not country enough.’ No matter who I was dealing with in Nashville, that was always the viewpoint. Not to be controversial here, but I’ve been around a long time and seen a lot of back rooms in Nashville and the money’s still coming from New York — just like Willie [Nelson] and Waylon [Jennings] figured out.
“[Island Records co-chairman/co-CEO] Justin Eshak, he did the whole deal, got all the paperwork, we signed the deal and everything, and they had never heard the [Lonesome Drifter] record,” Crockett continues. “It was like, ‘Look at these records we put out before it. If you like those records, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.’”
To commemorate the release of the new album, and the new label deal, Crockett has been giving away 100,000 copies of a four-song CD sampler at locations around the United States, including at 200 record stores across the country, at SXSW and the Houston and Austin Rodeos, and at Luck Reunion and the Luck Record Club. The choice brings him full circle — as a decade ago, he handed out 5,000 free copies of his self-released 2015 A Stolen Jewel.
“It was my wife’s idea. She’s a lot smarter than I am,” Crockett says, his grin audible as he gives credit for the Lonesome Drifter giveaway to his wife Taylor. “She mentioned it had been 10 years, and was like, ‘Let’s remind them how you did it. Let’s do 100,000 instead of 5,000.’ We went to the Universal building and Taylor threw that idea out in front of Island and they said, ‘It sounds like a hip-hop model,’ and when I say hip-hop, I mean DIY. And they weren’t scared of it.”
Crockett co-produced Lonesome Drifter with singer-songwriter-producer Shooter Jennings, son of Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. One of the songs released from the album, “Game I Can’t Win,” inspired by the work of Woody Guthrie, looks at greed from an underdog’s perspective. He takes a shot at Music City on the line, “Them boys in Nashville, they don’t mess around/ Better watch ’em when your deal goes down.”
“The phrase ‘I always love a game I can’t win’ came into my head, because it’s true,” he says. “The thing about America is: No matter what background people are coming from, people feel that it is rigged, that the cards are marked in advance. I think people feel that. When I think about parlor games, think about casinos — we know when we walk into a casino that the game is set up for the house to win, but even with all the odds stacked against you in America, you can win as hard as it is, as rigged as it is, as much favor for a favor [that] there is. For me personally, being from South Texas, I feel that you can win, and I think that’s at the heart of all Americans, that’s kind who we are.
“’I Can’t Win,’ a lot of it is two songs jammed together,” he continues. “When I put them in front of Shooter, he made me see how Willie and Waylon and them were doing. Willie was really good at taking what looked like two totally different sketches and making them one. Shooter helped give some context to that for me to finish some songs.”
“Easy Money” was inspired in part by the 1969 movie Midnight Cowboy, taking in the story arc of a Texan who seeks his fortunes in New York. Crockett began writing a freehand poem as he watched the movie. “I also remembered this person, a friend’s sister, who started dancing at a gentlemen’s club, Silver City in West Dallas. It all hit me, this idea of ‘easy money,’ but if you’re poor, there’s no such thing as easy money.”
The album closes with a cover of George Strait’s 1982 hit “Amarillo By Morning,” written by Terry Stafford and Paul Fraser in 1973. Before Strait’s version became prominent, Stafford released a version of the song in 1973, while Chris LeDoux recorded it as part of his 1975 album Life as a Rodeo Man.
“I’m a huge Terry Stafford fan,” Crockett says. “I knew all of George Strait’s songs when I was a kid, and ‘Amarillo by Morning’ was always a favorite. I thought, ‘I’m going to recut this. It’s 40 years old.’ But when I told Shooter about it in, I second-guessed myself and was like, ‘Never mind. They are going to judge the s–t out of me. George Strait owns that song.’ But Shooter’s heart was set on it and we did cut it. When I sing [songs like his own] ‘$10 Cowboy,’ it’s like, ‘I’m not George Strait. I’m not a rodeo guy.’ [But the “Amarillo by Morning” lyric] ‘I’m not rich, but Lord, I’m free,’ that’s how I live my life. I wake up every morning and I’ve got more responsibility than I ever did, but I know I still have that freedom of choice.”
Crockett was born in San Benito, close to the Texas-Mexico border, before his family moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area (he also spent summers with family in New Orleans). He grew up soaking in an array of music, including Jennings, Nelson, Curtis Mayfield and ZZ Top, in addition to folk-troubadours like Dylan and Guthrie.
“I went to New York City because of this idolizing of what I heard or read about that scene in NYC that Bob took that folky thing in the village and took it to the world,” Crockett says. “Looking back now, there was a lot of darkness with that, and I couldn’t live there. I did learn that New York is the empire, the heart of the empire and if you try to get on top of the empire and stay on top, it can destroy you. That concrete jungle is so big. We got offered so many record deals, management deals, all that kind of s–t on those subway cars…one positive thing that’s changed about the business [is] there’s a lot of artists out there and they’re just amplifying what they are doing when they discover ‘em.”
He continued busking his way across the country, playing on the streets of California, Colorado and Paris, France, before making his way back to Texas. Along the way, he offered listeners CDs out of his guitar case, on the advice of other, more seasoned transient performers.
“If I was staying with someone, I would record the songs that I knew real quick with the built-in microphone on their laptop and then burn those onto CDs,” he says. “I’d wrap those up in colorful ads and magazines and sell them for $5,” he says, recalling that “the amount of money people threw in my case increased overnight — I realized I looked more legitimate.”
He had handed one of those CDs to Turnpike Troubadours lead singer Evan Felker outside of Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas. The CD made its way into the hands of Turnpike’s booking agent Red 11 Music, Jon Folk (Red 11 Music was acquired by WME in 2023. Crockett is represented worldwide for booking by CAA). The Folk connection led to Crockett previously aligning with Thirty Tigers.
“The good thing about the way I did it, is I made a lot of records really cheaply with [Thirty Tigers’ co-founder/president David] Macias over the course of those seven, eight years, that allowed me to develop my sound,” Crockett says.
As his sound solidified, his prominence has grown. Crockett has continued putting in the time in both the studio and the road, playing over 100 shows over the past year. He’s been nominated for numerous Americana Honors & Awards and was named emerging artist of the year in 2021. Last year, he earned his first Grammy nomination, as his 2024 $10 Cowboy release was nominated for best Americana album.
His Island Records debut Lonesome Drifter comes not quite eight months after $10 Cowboy Chapter II: Visions of Dallas. The frequent releases Crockett has become known for serve as needed deadlines to help drive the singer-songwriter’s creativity.
“One of the reasons I record so often is because I’m really good at starting songs, but I’m not always great at finishing them, if I don’t have pressure,” Crockett says. “I need a bunch of pressure and not a lot of time, so booking studio sessions is how I finish songs.”
And there are more on the way — Crockett says Lonesome Drifter is the first in a trilogy of projects, noting, “I just got the second one done, and I’ve got the theme and sketch of the third one done.”
Throughout his career, 91-year-old music icon Willie Nelson has been known to highlight the music catalogs of other artists and songwriters, including Frank Sinatra, Cindy Walker, Kris Kristofferson and Ray Price.
Nelson’s upcoming Legacy Recordings album Oh What a Beautiful World, out April 25, will highlight the songwriting compositions of another lauded singer/songwriter and fellow Texan: Rodney Crowell.
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The dozen-song album, Nelson’s 77th solo studio project, finds the prolific artist offering fresh interpretations of songs written or co-written by Crowell, and reunites Nelson with longtime producer Buddy Cannon.
Crowell himself trades vocals with Nelson on the album’s first release and title track to the project. “Oh What a Beautiful World” appeared as the closing song on Crowell’s 2014 album Tarpaper Sky. Nelson first recorded one of Crowell’s compositions in 1983, and most recently recorded Crowell’s songs for his 2024 album The Border, including the album’s title track (written by Crowell and Allen Shamblin) and “Many a Long and Lonesome Highway,” written by Crowell and Will Jennings.
The album also features instrumentation from Bobby Terry (acoustic guitar, steel guitar, electric guitar), James Mitchell (electric guitar), Jim “Moose” Brown (B-3 organ, piano, Wurlitzer), Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Fred Eltringham (drums, percussion) and Glenn Worf (bass, upright bass), alongside background vocals by Wyatt Beard, Buddy Cannon and Melonie Cannon.
Crowell formed the band The Cherry Bombs in the 1970s, then went on to gain acclaim as an artist and songwriter, releasing his 1978 debut album Ain’t Living Long Like This, while also writing or co-writing songs that became hits for artists including Highway 101 (“Somewhere Tonight”), Gary Stewart, Emmylou Harris, Jerry Jeff Walker and Waylon Jennings (who each recorded versions of Crowell’s “Ain’t Living Long Like This”), and Emmylou Harris and the Oak Ridge Boys (who both recorded “Leaving Louisiana in Broad Daylight”). Crowell’s “Song For the Life” has been recorded by John Denver, Jennings and Alan Jackson, while Keith Urban recorded Crowell’s “Making Memories of Us,” while Tim McGraw covered Crowell’s “Please Remember Me.” “Shame on the Moon” became a hit for Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band.
In 1988, Crowell’s album Diamonds & Dirt notched five consecutive Hot Country Songs chart No. 1 singles, including “It’s Such a Small World” (with Rosanne Cash), “I Couldn’t Leave You If I Tried,” “She’s Crazy For Leavin’,” the Grammy-winning “After All This Time” and “Above and Beyond.” The album was also nominated for album at the year at the CMA Awards. Crowell earned another Grammy for best Americana album in 2013 for his album Old Yellow Moon. In 2006, he also earned a lifetime achievement award in songwriting from the Americana Music Association.
Thomas Rhett’s new single makes only a passing reference to a truck, but it’s loaded with pickups.
The foundational electric guitar played by songwriter John Byron (“Last Night,” “Pour Me a Drink”) required a pickup to produce a sound. The protagonist in the plot, singing to a woman around closing time at a club, is trying to make a pickup. And the phrases in the singalong chorus generally start on the second beat of a measure, leading to the downbeat of the next bar; thus, they’re built from musical pickups.
As a result, “After All the Bars Are Closed” uses pickups in hopes of yielding a pickup.
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“I would have never thought about that in my whole existence,” Thomas Rhett says.
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To be fair, the singer-songwriter doesn’t actually think of it as a song about a barroom pickup. Instead, he relates it to the early days of his relationship with now-wife Lauren, when he was playing music and attending David Lipscomb University in Nashville while she studied nursing at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. There were so many other obligations in their lives that they often had only a two-hour window after midnight for themselves.
“Anytime I write a song, whether it’s [about] heartbreak, love — whatever — I’m either looking at my present day with my wife, or I’m kind of looking back into when we first started dating,” he says.
Lauren wasn’t the original muse, though, for “After All the Bars Are Closed.” Byron was working with pop songwriters Jacob “JKash” Kasher (“Love Somebody,” “Sugar”) and Jaxson Free on March 10, 2023, in Miami, and he landed on a finger-picking guitar pattern that ends with a twisty riff. They began sifting through potential titles, and when they came upon “After All the Bars Are Closed,” it had a classic ring to it.
“It’s like [Semisonic’s] ‘Closing Time,’ but kind of a country way to say that,” Byron notes.
Instead of the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus format, they used the title as the opening line, getting to the hook immediately. That tactic was used frequently in some previous eras — Willie Nelson started with the hook on two of his most valuable copyrights, “Crazy” and “On the Road Again.” Larry Gatlin employed that approach in most of The Gatlin Brothers’ hits in the ’70s and ’80s.
“What’s funny about Larry is, his wife was one of my second-grade teachers,” Byron recalls. “I definitely listened to a lot of Gatlin Brothers.”
Opening with the title has an obvious advantage in an era marked by short attention spans.
“If you can get to the hookiest part of the song first, it can really draw people in,” Byron says. “If you think of ‘Cruise’ by Florida Georgia Line, if that song had started with the verse, I don’t think it would have been nearly as big. [They sang] the most iconic part of the song right off the top.”
While the melody of the “Bars” chorus started on the second beat of a measure and ended on the downbeat of the next bar, the verses had their own unique structure. The bulk of the phrases in those stanzas start after the second beat and end before the next measure — they’re compact and tucked completely between the song’s defining beats.
As Byron, JKash and Free developed those musical parts, they saw the characters as romantically unconnected.
“Whenever me and Kash are together, we always want to make sure it’s as swaggy as possible, so most of the time, in our heads, it’s two people who aren’t together,” Byron says. “I actually think it’s cool that TR did it, because him and Lauren are together. And so I think it’s a cool, fresh way for TR to pick up his wife.”
Thomas Rhett and songwriter-producer Julian Bunetta (Kelsea Ballerini, Sabrina Carpenter) had meanwhile been listening to some ’50s and ’60s recordings, many of which started with the hook and got to the chorus three times in just two minutes. The hook-first nature of “After All the Bars Are Closed” intrigued them during a writing retreat at Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tenn., when Byron introduced a rough version of the song.
“It’s like a ballad dressed up as a midtempo bop,” Bunetta says. “But actually, when you break it down and just sing it on guitar, it’s a really tender, sweet love song. I love when things aren’t always what they seem on the surface.”
Thomas Rhett and Bunetta tweaked a few melodic passages and changed some lyrics, in particular adding new words on the final chorus, where the post-midnight theme inspired a “dark side of the moon” line. It may lead listeners with a classic-rock background to think of Pink Floyd. “When I heard that line, my brain went to Pink Floyd,” the singer-songwriter agrees.
Bunetta and Dann Huff (Kane Brown, Keith Urban) co-produced a tracking session for “Bars” at Backstage in Nashville, testing its flexibility by trying a range of styles. Bunetta rejiggered the chord progression for one take, they tried playing it without the original guitar riff on another, and they even did a version with a Hall & Oates vibe.
In the production’s early going, they settled on a rendition that was “extremely Western, like if me and Midland sort of had a baby,” Thomas Rhett says. “Me and Julian both lived with it for a couple of weeks, but it just didn’t give us the same emotion that the original did.”
They mixed and matched parts from those various takes for the album, though Bunetta eventually adopted a less-is-more attitude about the arrangement, built primarily around Byron’s guitar work on the demo.
“The more I tried to add, the less I liked the song, the more the emotion got buried, and the more his voice got buried,” Bunetta says. “It just wasn’t as effective, so I tried to keep it sparse and keep it all about his voice, [with] a couple of those little colorful, electric bits on the left and the right side.”
The album version had a pop edge to it, with Byron’s harmony parts from the demo providing loose background vocals. Bunetta “could turn a fart into a BGV,” Byron says with admiration.
As the track began to emerge as one of the most popular in streaming from the About a Woman album, Rhett’s team determined a different mix — “The Last Call Version” — was in order for a radio release. Drummer Jerry Roe was brought in to give the percussion a stronger human presence, and some of steel guitarist Paul Franklin’s part from the original session — including a waterfall intro — were unmuted.Valory released “Bars” to country radio via PlayMPE on Feb. 6. It’s at No. 39 on the Country Airplay chart dated March 15 in its third week on the list as programmers pick up on it.
“It’s sneaky because the music is very ‘now’-sounding, but there’s something about the way that that song sort of teleports you, and it makes you feel nostalgic,” Thomas Rhett says. “It makes you feel kind of like you want to dance, but also just kind of like you want to be with the person that you love. It doesn’t happen very often where a song checks all those boxes.”
Two-time CMA entertainer of the year winner Luke Bryan has notched 26 No. 1 chart-toppers since his debut in 2007 with “All My Friends Say,” so it’s safe to say he’s knows a thing or two about choosing a hit song.
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But every artist has songs they’ve passed on and later regretted not recording. For Bryan, one of those songs is a certain Morgan Wallen hit that reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in 2022.
During an appearance on radio/media personality Bobby Bones’ BobbyCast, Bryan discussed passing on the song. “There was a point in my career where I had sang about trucks enough to where I…I passed, stupidly, on the Morgan [Wallen song] ‘Sand in My Boots,’ because it had Chevrolet in it,” Bryan said, referring to a line in the song’s chorus that goes, “But now I’m dodging potholes in my sunburnt Silverado.”
Asked by Bones if the song had too much truck imagery in it for Bryan at the time, Bryan said, “I just went through two years of my life where I was like, ‘I sing about trucks a lot, I sing about tailgates.’ I think I got in my head a little bit because I think I had a lot of negativity, socially, on socials, that I was getting pegged as maybe a one trick pony in that lane.”
“You’re also a victim of your own success,” Bones noted, to which Bryan responded, “Which happens…I’ll take that any d— day of the week.”
In the interview, Bryan would go on to note the pros and cons of building a hit career that features so many light-hearted hit songs such as “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” and “That’s My Kind of Night,” combined with his outgoing personality–though Bryan has also released more somber songs including “Do I,” “Drink a Beer,” and the fan-favorite “We Rode in Trucks.”
“I think no matter how people wanna categorize me, I think generally think my personality is ‘Let’s have some fun,’” Bryan said, saying he felt that though his hit songs and megawatt personality have drawn in legions of fans, those same attributes caused him to be overlooked at times when it comes to certain awards categories.
“If I don’t get male vocalist of the year, and Grammys or whatever because I may be known as the guy that has had fun through throughout his career and put out a lot of fun songs, I’m cool with that,” Bryan said. “I think, vocally, I may have been overlooked for that party-ness. I think there’s stuff out there that I’ve done vocally, that certainly it’s not Chris Stapleton vocals and Ronnie Dunn vocals and the guys who are really, really known as vocalists, but I think I might have gotten overlooked in that a little bit, which is fine.”
Still, knowing the grind it takes for any rising artist to truly see their career take off, he feels his personality has been a key factor in his rise to hitmaker and headliner. “Every artist that makes the leap from throwing out some radio hits, they’ve gotta have something that takes them to that…I didn’t ever know I’d be like what’s termed a ‘superstar’…Every time somebody introduces me as ‘Country Music superstar, Luke Bryan,’ it still freaks me out. I’m still like, ‘How in the hell did I pull that title off?’ So when you look at somebody that goes from climbing, digging, digging…one hit, two hit, three, four, then next thing you know they blow up to be a superstar, there’s something about ’em that made that happen. And with me, I think it was my personality and willingness onstage to just go for whatever, to dance and cut up. I think that was different enough to set me apart.”
See Bryan’s full appearance on the BobbyCast below:
Next Century Spirits (NCS) has acquired country superstar Kenny Chesney‘s signature Blue Chair Bay Rum, expanding the liquor company’s presence into the premium rum category.
Blue Chair Bay Rum, created and built by Chesney, has sold more than 1 million cases since its 2013 inception, according to a press release. As part of the deal, Chesney will remain “one of NCS’s largest percentage owners” in the brand and continue to play an integral role. A purchase price was not disclosed.
“Blue Chair Bay Rum was created to capture my life, as a spirit to share with friends,” Chesney said in the statement. “This rum is the result of a lot of fun, passion, sunshine, good people and No Shoes Nation energy. Next Century Spirits embraces those same qualities. They have a passion for innovation and going to new places. This is going to be cool.”
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Chesney launched Blue Chair Bay Rum 12 years ago, serving as the sole owner and chief creative officer, according to the brand’s website. The brand’s name was inspired by Chesney’s 2004 song “Old Blue Chair,” which centers on Chesney’s affinity for island life.
Over the years, the rum has expanded into numerous flavors, including coconut, banana, vanilla, key lime rum cream, banana rum cream and coconut spiced rum cream.
North Carolina-headquartered Next Century Spirits’ portfolio also includes Nue Vodka, Numbskull (a cool mint and chocolate-flavored whiskey), Bear Fight Whiskey, Creek Water American Whiskey, Caddy Clubhouse Cocktails, Calamity Gin and Henderson Whiskey. The company was named North Carolina distillery of the year by the New York International Spirits Competition in 2023.
“Blue Chair Bay Rum has endless potential, and we’re excited to bring it into the NCS family,” said Anthony Moniello, co-CEO of Next Century Spirits, in a statement. “Kenny created something special – a great tasting rum with a rich story. At NCS, we’re building a team of fast-moving entrepreneurs and a portfolio of bold, unique brands for the next generation of spirits drinkers. Adding Kenny and Blue Chair Bay to our vision is another incredible step forward.” “Blue Chair Bay Rum strengthens our vision and marks another step in accelerating our growth as we work to shape the spirits of tomorrow,” added Rob Mason, co-CEO of Next Century Spirits.
The acquisition news comes as Chesney prepares to become the first country artist with a Las Vegas residency at Sphere, where he begins a 15-show run on May 22.
Whatta man Jelly Roll is! The country superstar appears in a hilarious new commercial for Zevia, a zero-sugar, zero-calorie natural alternative to soda.
In the clip, shared on Monday (March 10), the “Need a Favor” singer pulls up to an 1950s-looking gas station in his red pick-up truck. Two young boys in the field nearby watch in awe as Jelly Roll emerges from the car in slow motion, running his hands through his mullet as he portrays a classic country man in a cut-off flannel, jean shorts, cowboy boots and black sunglasses. Salt-N-Pepa’s 1993 hit, “Whatta Man,” plays in the background, adding to the drama of the moment.
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“Jelly Roll? In a Zevia commercial? This is huge,” one of the boys says as the star opens a nearby refrigerator and pulls out a Creamy Root Beer flavored beverage. “By choosing him as the spokesperson for their zero-sugar soda with zero artificial ingredients, Zevia is dismantling the notion that quote-on-quote ‘real men’ can’t be conscious of what goes into their body.”
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“Mr. Roll is now, quite literally, the poster child for sweet authenticity,” the boy gushes — much to the confusion of his friend — as Jelly Roll takes a sip of his drink, burps and smiles into the camera.
For Jelly Roll, the partnership was a no-brainer, as he’s been focusing on his health in recent months, revealing at the end of 2024 that he lost more than 100 pounds over the course of the year. “Making small, intentional choices daily is a real thing that I have honed in on and that has been so impactful during this process,” he tells Billboard of his health and wellness journey. “I think it’s changed my ability to keep up with my progress, since it has been an honest conversation of ‘in that moment’ which one is the better option to stay on track?”
He also just loved filming the advertisement. “What I loved about this is it felt like we got to really play into the skit and have some fun with it,” he recalls. “When I got to do the season premiere of SNL this year, I got to also be a part of a skit, and this was another version of being able to really lean into having fun with a character. And everyone else on set was so game too which made it such a great experience.”
As for that “sweet poster child of authenticity” comment, he agrees. “One thing you can say about me is that I am me — even when I get chances to play up a character — and I hope that comes through in this spot. What you see is what you get,” he says.
Watch Jelly Roll keep it real in the new Zevia commercial below.
Luke Combs has revealed the intense nature of his struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), describing the condition as “particularly wicked” during a candid conversation on 60 Minutes Australia.
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The country star shared that unlike common perceptions of OCD—such as compulsive behaviors like flicking light switches—his form, purely obsessional OCD, manifests internally with relentless anxiety and intrusive thoughts rather than outward rituals.
“Probably the worst flare-up of it I’ve had in, I would say three or four years, started about two days before this trip,” Combs told the program prior to his show at Sydney’s Accor Stadium last month.
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“It’s something that in some way I at least think about every day. There’s some tinge of it to some extent every day … The craziness of the particular disorder that I have, it’s the way to get out of it,” Combs told interviewer Adam Hegarty.
“There’s no outward manifestation of it, right? Like you’re talking about the flicking of a light switch, but for me, it’s all going on in here,” Combs explained, adding. “When someone else flicks a light switch, you can see it happening. But for someone like myself, you wouldn’t even know what’s going on—it could be happening right now and you wouldn’t even realise it.”
“It’s thoughts, essentially, that you don’t want to have… and then they cause you stress, and then you’re stressed out, and then the stress causes you to have more of the thoughts, and then you don’t understand why you’re having them, and you’re trying to get rid of them, but trying to get rid of them makes you have more of them.”
He continued, “I’m lucky to be an expert in how to get out of it now… I’m probably 90 per cent out of my flare-up now … and in the midst of doing a world tour, right?”
Combs, known for hits like “Forever After All,” described recent anxiety flare-ups as among the most severe he’s experienced in years, noting periods where obsessive thoughts consumed him for “45 seconds of every minute for weeks.” The intrusive thoughts ranged from unsettling violent images to existential concerns about his identity.
The country star admitted that his OCD significantly impacted his life, explaining, “It held me back so many times in my life where you’re trying to accomplish something, you’re doing really great, and then you have a flare-up, and it just like ruins your whole life for six months.”
Yet, Combs has gradually learned to manage the disorder more effectively by acknowledging these intrusive thoughts without fear.
“When it happens now, I’m not afraid of it because I’m not like, ‘What if I’m like this forever?’ I know I’m not going to be like this forever now.”
Previously, Combs had opened up about first experiencing OCD-related anxiety in middle school during a 2021 interview on AXS TV’s The Big Interview, likening his obsessive thoughts to “fixing the blinds or straightening the carpet,” but occurring entirely in his mind.
Luke Combs has landed four No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart: This One’s For You (2017), What You See Is What You Get (2019), Growin’ Up (2022), and The Prequel (EP) (2019). His albums Gettin’ Old (2023) and Fathers & Sons (2024) both peaked at No. 2.
Dolly Parton leads this week’s crop of new music, with her tender tribute to her late husband, Carl Dean, after his passing at the age of 82 on March 3. Kelsea Ballerini continues unpacking emotions the deluxe version of her album Patterns, while Brad Paisley teams with Dawes for a new track that takes a unflinching look at mental health.
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the top new country, bluegrass and Americana songs of the week below.
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Dolly Parton, “If You Hadn’t Been There”
Country Music Hall of Famer Dolly Parton pays elegant homage to her late husband Carl Dean on this tender song. With a classic country feel, underpinned by piano and fiddle, finds Parton chronicling the ways he served as her constant source of support. “I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been there/ Pushing me on when I was scared,” she sings, and her expressive soprano builds from whisper-soft, sounding slightly ragged around the edges with grief, to ringing powerfully with love.
Kelsea Ballerini, “Hindsight Is Happiness”
Last year, Ballerini issued her biggest-selling album to date with Patterns, and returns with five new songs on the deluxe version of the project. One of the standouts in this new handful of tracks is “Hindsight is Happiness,” a peaceful ballad looking back on the wreckage of a decimated relationship and realizing both parties have matured and moved on. “I never should’ve tethered in my 20s, my bad,” the now-31-year-old Ballerini sings, before wishing happiness and love for her ex-flame on the road ahead.
Brad Paisley and Dawes, “Raining Inside”
Brad Paisley and Dawes recently performed together at the Grammys earlier this year. Now, the two pair their boundary-less creative freedom and turn it toward providing a mirror to modern-day afflictions, on this brooding look at mental health and depression. “No one’s sick and no one died, no one’s left and no one’s leaving/ But it’s raining inside,” they sing, highlighting the prevalence mental health struggles regardless of the presence or absence of situational hardships. The song’s pop-rock oriented stylings, highlighted by grizzled guitar work, elevates the song’s poignant message.
Tim McGraw feat. Parker McCollum, “Paper Umbrellas”
McGraw refreshes a fan favorite from his 2023 project Standing Room Only by welcoming McCollum. Together, they blend neo-traditional country sounds with a slight islands vibe to create a song that feels tailor-made to become a summer anthem. The intergenerational pairing of 57-year-old country standard-bearer McGraw with surging 32-year-old McCollum also evinces the enduring power of a song that melds a timeless, relatable story arc of post-breakup solace with breezy instrumentation and a melody that highlights the warm, laid-back charisma these two vocalists share.
Caroline Owens, “You’ve Still Got It”
Caroline Owens, a three-time IBMA Awards nominee who has performed with bluegrass luminaries including Alison Krauss, Ricky Skaggs and Rhonda Vincent, offers up softly beguiling vocals on her debut single for Billy Blue Records. Her soft-focus voice floats over trilling mandolin picking and reserved fiddle. Written by Jerry Salley and John Pennell, “You’ve Still Got It” centers on a sturdy love. Her full album, with production from Salley and Darin Aldridge, is set for later this year.
Rob Williford, “Johnny”
“How far can a man bend before he breaks?” It’s a haunting question at the center of the latest song from Williford, known for his work as a songwriter crafting hits for Luke Combs (“Beautiful Crazy” and “Forever After All” and Tim McGraw (“Fool Me Again”) and as a longtime bandmember for Combs. Williford previously released the solo project Wildcard in 2023, but fully steps into his own on his latest song. “Johnny” is a tale of addiction to moonshine and pills that leads to betrayal and murder, depicting how addiction and a string of poor choices can decimate a family generation after generation. His growling vocal lays out this destructive storyline over driving, rustic acoustics, evoking a unfiltered, country-rock vibe.
Ringo Starr has long loved country music as evidenced on his most recent album, Look Up, released in January.
The Beatles drummer brought that love to life with two concerts taped at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium Jan. 14-15 that CBS and Paramount+ will air tonight (March 10) as Ringo & Friends at the Ryman.
In this exclusive clip, Starr, with a little help from friends like Jack White, performs the Carl Perkins rockabilly classic “Matchbox,” which the Beatles covered on their 1964 EP, “Long Tall Sally.”
Other “friends” in the special include Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, Mickey Guyton, Jamey Johnson, Rodney Crowell, the War and Treaty, and Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, both of whom appear on the album with Starr. The artists join the drummer for selections from the new album, Starr’s solo hits and Beatles classics.
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“I did love country music before I was in [the Beatles],” Starr told Billboard earlier this year. “We got plenty of it in Liverpool, because the lads who were in the merchant navy would bring not only rock and roll over, but country — and when country bands went on tour in England, they always played Liverpool.”
In addition to the performances, luminaries including Dolly Parton and fellow Beatle Paul McCartney share stories on Starr’s impact on their music.
Gunpowder & Sky’s Van Toffler produced the special with Starr and T Bone Burnett, who also produced Look Up.
“Producing Ringo & Friends at the Ryman with T Bone has been another wild ride — some of music’s finest playing the hell out of Ringo’s songs, including a few Beatles classics,” Toffler tells Billboard. “We handpicked a lineup of artists who not only have deep respect for Ringo’s legacy but could also bring their own unique spin to these songs, highlighting the great stories and messages behind them. Watching them reinterpret his music — whether through full-throttle rock energy or a stripped-down, soulful take — was a testament to just how timeless his songs are. And having Dolly, Lainey Wilson, and his fellow Beatle, Paul, talk about his love of country artists brought it all full circle, making the night even more meaningful.”
Working with Burnett enhanced the production, Toffler says. “T Bone is one of the greats: His encyclopedic knowledge of music and deep roots in so many legendary projects helped shape this into something truly special.”
Other Gunpower & Sky productions include its documentary on Crow, Sheryl (Showtime); the history of soft rock Sometimes When We Touch (Paramount+) and Lil Peep: Everybody’s Everything. Its Words + Music audio series features Beck, Eddie Vedder, Smokey Robinson and others, while new audio series Lighters in the Sky highlights the stories behind the greatest live performances from artists including Amy Winehouse, Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin.