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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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Nearly two weeks after he was arrested for allegedly throwing a chair off the roof of a Nashville bar, country superstar Morgan Wallen has posted a statement on his X account addressing the incident. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In a two-part response, the country superstar tweeted, […]
In early April, country star Maren Morris released her children’s book Addie Ant Goes on an Adventure, in collaboration with former schoolteacher Karina Argow. According to the interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show, they have known each other for about 11 years. This long-lasting friendship evolved into a collaborative partnership. Explore Explore See latest videos, […]
In addition to earning his own top 20 Billboard Hot Country Songs hit “Flower Shops” in 2022, Big Loud Records singer-songwriter Ernest’s songwriting acumen has become a not-so-secret hitmaking weapon in Nashville’s songwriting circles, stealthily helping to fashion the sound of modern-day country music. He’s a writer on seven No. 1 Country Airplay hits, including Morgan Wallen’s 10-week No. 1 “You Proof” and three-week No. 1 “Wasted on You,” as well as chart-toppers by Kane Brown (“One Mississippi”) and Jelly Roll (“Son of a Sinner”).
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With that in mind, the industry has recognized his ability to spin words and melody into chart hits, lauding him with a nomination as artist-songwriter of the year at the upcoming Academy of Country Music Awards in May.
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On Ernest’s new album, Nashville, Tennessee, which released April 12, this rapper-turned-modern country traditionalist declares his intentions right from the start in not only honoring his hometown of Nashville, but the creative spirit and community that has long made Nashville “Music City.”
“It listens more like a playlist than a true album,” Ernest tells Billboard. “The true denominator is country music and all the influences I’ve taken, definitely going back to the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, all the way to present-day. It has a little bit of all of it.”
Nashville, Tennessee features collaborations Ernest’s with fellow Nashville native and country hitmaker Jelly Roll, as well as Lainey Wilson, Lukas Nelson, as well as the other members of his Big Loud Records labelmate singer-songwriter trifecta, Morgan Wallen and HARDY.
The sprawling, 26-song album’s essence is highlighting the artistry of country music’s top songwriters, including Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famers, alongside newcomer hit writers. Two sets of Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame country writers and their next-gen country songcrafters are present on the album: Dean Dillon (known for numerous hit songs including “Tennessee Whiskey,” Keith Whitley’s “Miami, My Amy,” Kenny Chesney’s “A Lot of Things Different” and George Strait’s (“The Chair”)) and his daughter, the Grammy songwriter of the year-nominated Jessie Jo Dillon, as well as Rivers Rutherford (the Dolly Parton/Brad Paisley collab “When I Get Where I’m Going”) and his son Rhys Rutherford (Bailey Zimmerman’s “Is This Really Over?). ACM and CMA song of the year winner Nicolle Galyon, Ryan Vojtesak and Grady Block are featured, in addition to writers signed to Ernest’s own Cadillac Music publishing company: Chandler Walters, Cody Lohden and Rafe Tenpenny.
Along the way, he nods to a plethora of country music’s towering figures, including Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, George Jones and Lefty Frizzell—while also signaling his expanse of influences outside the genre in covers of songs from John Mayer and even Radiohead. In simultaneously mining country music’s history, yet eschewing any borders, he sets forth a music-first mantra. Within Nashville and beyond, fans responded immediately, with 6,000 people showing up at Ernest’s pop-up show in Nashville on the album’s release day.
Ernest spoke with Billboard about some key tracks from the new album:
“Would If I Could” with Lainey Wilson was written three decades ago by Dean Dillon and Skip Ewing. How did you come across this song?
Ernest: Jessie Jo Dillon sent me that song and said, ‘This is the only song my dad and Skip ever wrote. I think you would like it.’ I did fall in love with it. I listened to it probably a thousand times, and within a week I recorded my own voice note of it on my phone, and I sent it to Dean just out of the blue. I don’t know that he even knew that I had the song, and I sent it to him and said, I’m going to cut this song. And he was like, well, damn son, if you’re writing him like this, what do you need me for? And then I was like, you wrote this. And it all came back to him.
How did Lainey come to be on the track?
Ironically, I guess within the same few days, Lainey put that song on hold. She found it in the Sony catalog, and cut it for an Apple Music session. I texted Lainey and said I planned on cutting the song. She called me and was like, ‘I’ll just sing on your record. I’ll do that song with you.’ So it worked out so naturally and beautifully, and it wasn’t written as a duet, but it turns out it’s a great duet.
You co-wrote “I Went to College/ I Went to Jail” with Luke Bryan, Chandler Walters and Rivers Rutherford. But it sounds perfectly written for you and Jelly Roll. How did it come about?
That song really is the perfect song for Jelly. We both grew up in Nashville. I’d known him for a while, and that’s what me and Luke Bryan were talking about. We’re playing golf. He was like, ‘You go back a while with Roll, don’t you? I said yes, and started singing, “I went to college and he went to jail,” and said, ‘We have to write that right now.’ We started writing it in the golf cart. The heavens dropped that song in our little golf cat that day. We FaceTimed Jelly Roll and he loved it was like, “Let’s go, baby!” Classic Jelly Roll.
It was a great song to start the album off with, with [both of us] being from Nashville and just kind of setting the tone for the record, that it’s a good time and it’s real storytelling and all that. It’s not too serious.
“Hangin’ On,” featuring Morgan Wallen, sounds a little more modern country than some of the other tracks on here. How do you decide which songs to keep and which to give away?
It was fun getting to be a bit selfish on this album. Usually, I’m just going in and writing a song that I’d like to sing. Then there are special days were Morgan will come in and we’re writing Morgan songs. I knew that I would typically have given that song to Morgan. So instead I just asked if he wanted to feature instead of just straight-up giving it away. [The 2024 Morgan Wallen collab] “Cowgirls” was kind of the same way. When I first did it, I didn’t show it to Morgan immediately, and when I finally did, it was always a no-brainer — it was going to be a Morgan song and he asked me to feature on it with him.
The midway point of the album is a family moment you share with your son Ryman Saint, singing “Twinkle Twinkle.” It’s from your concert at Boston’s Fenway Park. Why did you want to include that?
It’s a little palate cleanser, where you get into the “Life Goes On” segment of the record. But me and Ryman sing that song every night before he goes to bed and fall asleep singing it. And so when we were on our way to Fenway, I asked if you wanted to sing with Daddy, and he wanted to sing that song. So he did his first time ever. It was a proud parent moment.
You also include John Mayer’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” and a bluegrass spin on Radiohead’s “Creep.” Why was it important to include those on an album like this?
“Slow Dancing” has been one of my favorite songs for forever. I think that’s true for most people. It’s one of the best John Mayer songs, and it’s fun to play it with the steel guitar in it. And then as for “Creep,” that just was a fun little accident of me picking up a banjo and realizing it was the “Creep” chords. We were like, “If Old Crow Medicine Show did Radiohead, what would that be like?” Then it sat around for a year and I was like, “This would be the perfect song to get Hardy on for the record.” It was kind of the perfect way for me and Hardy to coexist on that album.
Sam Hunt banks his 10th No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “Outskirts” rises to the top of the tally dated April 27. The song increased by 15% to 33.2 million impressions in the April 12-18 tracking week, according to Luminate. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news […]
CCM singer Mandisa, known for her 2013 hit “Overcomer,” has died at age 47. The Grammy winner died on Thursday, April 18, at her home.
“We can confirm that yesterday Mandisa was found in her home deceased,” a representative for the singer said in a statement to Billboard. “At this time, we do not know the cause of death or any further details. We ask for your prayers for her family and close-knit circle of friends during this incredibly difficult time.”
California native Mandisa launched her career as a contestant on American Idol‘s fifth season, and later collaborated with TobyMac and Kirk Franklin on TobyMac’s album Portable Sounds. She released her first album, True Beauty, in 2007. The album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Christian Albums chart.
In 2011, Mandisa earned her first No. 1 on Billboard‘s Christian Airplay chart with “Stronger,” and earned a top 20 hit on the chart with “Good Morning” featuring TobyMac.
In 2013, Mandisa’s song “Overcomer” spent 10 weeks atop Billboard‘s Hot Christian Songs chart and became a signature hit for the singer. Her Overcomer album also earned a Grammy for best contemporary Christian music album. She also earned six GMA Dove Awards nominations during her career.
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Mandisa also featured on songs including TobyMac’s “Lose My Soul,” Crowder’s “Let It Rain (Is There Anybody)” and Jordan Feliz’s “Jesus Is Coming Back.”
Several CCM and gospel artists honored the late singer via posts on social media, including Brandon Heath, who wrote, “Love you, Disa. You were a force of love and encouragement in a difficult world. You were a sister and friend and I’ll miss you.”
Natalie Grant wrote on Instagram, “Your smile and infectious spirit lit up every room. You were a true champion of others. I was the benefactor of your encouragement more times than I can count.Thankful for your music, your honesty and testimony that helped thousands upon thousands of people find the hope of Jesus. I loved sitting by you at awards shows so we could geek out at every performance. We were both true Christian music fans, and unashamed of it.”
Mandisa was also an author, writing the book Out of the Dark: My Journey Through the Shadows to Find God’s Joy.
In October 2021, Elvie Shane earned his first Billboard No. 1 Country Airplay hit with the tender ode “My Boy,” inspired by his role as a stepfather. The song was certified platinum by the RIAA, and he followed it with his debut album Backslider, further ushering Shane into the circle as one of country music’s most-buzzed about new talents.
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But while “My Boy” and its successor “County Roads” were relatively tame odes to family and life lessons learned during moonlit nights on backroads, his new album, Damascus, out April 19 on Broken Bow/Wheelhouse Records, offers a fuller picture into Shane’s struggles and perspectives. Melding elements of country, rock and hip-hop, Damascus follows an arc of emotions, guiding listeners through heavier themes of addiction (“Pill”), prison (“215634”), championing blue-collar workers (“Forgotten Man”), redemption and peace (“Does Heaven Have a Creek”)
“I had songs like ‘Forgotten Man,’ ‘Baptized’ and ‘Jonesin’,’ but it seemed like there was a stark contrast in these songs, sonically and lyrically. I wanted to do something with all of them,” Shane tells Billboard. “I wasn’t focused on trying to write something for a specific genre.”
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Kentucky native Shane took inspiration for the album and the album title from a Biblical story, but also from Damascus steel, which is made from forging together different types of steel, making it stronger in the process.
“I approached this album as if I was making a Damascus knife, working with different types of steel—of sounds, and genres that have inspired me. I put them all together and created this album, and the concept frees me up. I wanted a narrative on the album, and I didn’t really have that with Backslider. I had a collection of the best songs I’d written along the way, and I found some kind of concept by the songs that I picked for Backslider, but it wasn’t as purpose-driven as this one.”
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For Damascus, which he started working on in 2022, Shane and producer Oscar Charles teamed up to record in a rented home in Alabama, writing and recording with creatives including Ryan Tyndall, Dan Couch and Luke Preston.
Shane is unflinching in probing difficult themes on his new album. Songs including “Pill,” “Jonesin’” and “Appalachian Alchemy” address opioid addiction, giving voice to people who are struggling and seeking solace. The music video for “Pill” addresses opioid addiction, while the song was written essentially as an apology letter to his brother for the years that Shane faced his own hard struggles.
“Jonesin’” was written as Shane, following the success of “My Boy,” slipped back into some of the self-destructive habits that he had previously fought to leave behind.
“All the pressure of continuing to perform was piling up and taking care of my family and everything,” he says. ‘And regrettably, I just wasn’t as strong as I should have been. I allowed things back into my life that I had sworn off years ago. I wasn’t going as far into that as I had in my early twenties,” he says.
However, he describes the night he wrote “Jonesin’” in detail, saying, “I had probably had six different substances in my body throughout that day, and we wrote that song. That night, I was lying awake, and I think I had a resting heart rate of 180 for 20 minutes. I was having a bad time by myself there in the living room. But the next morning I got up and sang that vocal in ‘Jonesin’” and I feel like that is the most of me I’ve ever put into a vocal. It was real and in the moment.”
The defiant album opener “Outside Dog” was borne out of frustration with feedback he received when presenting his new batch of songs to members of his team.
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“They were hesitant, like, ‘I don’t know if we need to put this stuff out here or if we should be looking for some other songs.’ And that really didn’t sit well with me,” Shane says.
Shane had moved with his family to his wife Mandi’s hometown in Kentucky during the making of the album. According to Shane, the back-and-forth with his team over the album’s content continued, until he reached a breaking point.
“It got to a point where I had to make a call and said, ‘I’m just going to stay in Kentucky.’ I was struggling with the industry and I thought, ‘I’m going to go back to cutting trees for my father-in-law or go drive a truck with my brother and dad.’ I could play some bar gigs from time to time to still have music in my life, but I was just done with this idea of having to write about very generic or a small set of topics that were able to be covered, to be able to be successful. Everyone on the team wants the same thing. They want to see success — people listening, buying tickets, consuming the music. But I wanted to include topics that I feel get glazed over from time to time. I want to go in and use the right verbiage and tell the stories the way they are.”
The turning point came with the Robert Deaton-produced Stoned Cold Country, a Rolling Stones tribute project, which featured several country artists performing classic Stones songs, including Shane’s rendition of “Sympathy for the Devil.”
“They did a documentary and played it for the record label and the team here,” Shane says. “The story I’ve heard from members of the team is when they saw that video, they got more of an inside glimpse into who I am and what I’m about, and they wanted to go down this road — so thank god for Robert Deaton letting me be part of that project because it led to a boost in believing in this project.”
Elsewhere on the album, the more light-hearted “First Place” welcomes Little Big Town — though Shane says it took a little liquid courage to get them to join the song.
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“After I wrote it, a friend videoed me and the writers jamming to it. I got just drunk enough to send it to [Little Big Town member] Karen Fairchild on Instagram,” he recalls. “I was like ‘Hey, I listened to “Boondocks” today. Thanks for the inspiration.’ But that was a serious cop out, because what I really wanted to do was ask them to be on the song. So about 20 minutes later — a little more liquid courage later — I asked them about singing on it. I woke up the next day and had a message from Karen saying they would sing on it. They were so great in the studio, worked so hard and sounded incredible.”
The album closes with “Does Heaven Have a Creek?,” which he wrote after thinking about his late grandmother.
“I was sitting outside of my camper in Kentucky at the lake we were living on. I was listening to Tyler Childers’ Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? and Brent Cobb’s And Now, Let’s Turn the Page, so I was immersed in kind of gospel and hymns,” he recalls. “I thought of my grandmother who’s been gone 20-plus years now. I looked up at the sky and was like, ‘Granny, does heaven have a creek where I can swim in my old blue jeans?” And I got my guitar and played that.”
The WME-signed Shane previewed the album on his Acoustic Stories Tour earlier this year. The album’s harder rock moments would seem to be a fit beyond solely country radio, something Shane is also keen on.
“It’s on my bucket list to have a rock single. That would be amazing,” he says.
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