Country
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Yes, Orville Peck‘s masks have been getting smaller and smaller lately. No, that is not an accident.
“For those who are very sleuthy, they’ll notice that I’ve actually been doing that from the beginning,” Peck tells Billboard. “I’ve slowly been changing out my masks and showing more of my face with each album. I think a change is good.”
That spirit helped the country crooner break out of his own box and create Stampede, his genre-spanning duets album featuring a parade of collaborators from across the music industry. The album’s first volume (released May 10 via Columbia Records) featured duets with legends like Willie Nelson and Elton John, as well as younger acts like Noah Cyrus, Allison Russell and Bu Cuaron.
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Each song on Volume 1 aimed to stretch the boundaries of Peck’s sonic universe, bringing new fusions to Peck’s classic country sound, including pop, rock, and in the case of “Miénteme” with Cuaron, Latin. “I never thought I would do a reggaeton track sung entirely in Spanish, but it’s what the song called for,” Peck says.
The goal, he explains, was not to create a curated, musically-cohesive album that would simply become “an Orville Peck album with a bunch of features.” Instead, Peck wanted Stampede to consist entirely of true collaborations: “I wanted every single song to be a 50/50 collaboration between me and whoever the other artist is,” he explains. “People will see this especially with Volume 2 [due out later this year] — every song is entirely its own thing, because I wanted it to be like if me and whoever that other artist is had a musical baby.”
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While Peck has yet to set a release date for the second part of his album, the singer gave his fans a sneak peak of the forthcoming part two when he live debuted “Midnight Ride” at Outloud Fest at WeHo Pride alongside Kylie Minogue and Diplo. The song, which officially arrived on Friday (June 7), fulfills Peck’s promise of musical synthesis as he masterfully blends his swaggering sound with the dance-pop stylings of his collaborators.
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When telling Billboard about his new track, Peck says that the vision was clear from the beginning. “When we wrote ‘Midnight Ride,’ we knew we wanted to make a disco country banger,” he says. “Something that felt wild, free and dangerous“
Stampede has been gestating since Peck put out Show Pony, his glitzy 2020 EP that featured his first major collaboration with country legend Shania Twain on “Legends Never Die.” The now-36-year-old artist knew that an album of A-list duets would be a hit with fans, and an item to check off his bucket list.
“I started to think about what I used to call the ‘Orville and Friends’ project — who would I want to work with?” he wonders. “Honestly, I foresaw it happening much later in my career.”
Then, Willie Nelson called. In 2022, the country legend got in touch with Peck, asking if he would be interested in recording a duet version of “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other,” the 1981 Western waltz about gay cowboys that Nelson covered in 2006.
It helped that Peck was already intimately familiar with the song; for years before Nelson called him, he was already covering it in his live sets. As a fan of hokum songs — an offshoot of country music that incorporates “comedy, stand-up, wordplay and characterization” — Peck always found “Cowboys” to be a particularly fascinating song.
“It uses that humor to talk about something really blatantly, and it kind of does a little one-two on people,” he explains. “For those of us who are in the community, it makes us smile, because we understand it intrinsically. For those that aren’t, it’s almost like an easy, interesting way to maybe understand the concept; how there is still a lot of repression, suppression, oppression, all the -pressions to do with queerness in these more typical country spaces.”
To bring that narrative full circle by performing it alongside the country legend who made it famous, Peck says, stands out as a distinct honor. “As a queer person who grew up loving country, I didn’t see a country artist like myself when I was younger — I still have that yearning within me to find acceptance within country,” he says. “Between Willie and Dolly, there’s only a few true, untouchable country legends left. So to get that personal validation from Willie … it healed a lot of stuff for me.”
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In working with so many new collaborators throughout Stampede, Peck focused on “evolving” his artistry, from the way he performs on his new songs to the way he presents himself to fans. Evolution was always part of his plan, he explains, because some of his favorite artists always managed to push the envelope forward.
“David Bowie is a huge inspiration of mine, because there’s distinct eras of his career,” he says. “Ziggy Stardust, for instance — the persona, the costumes, the allure, the lore of it, it’s such an incredible feat. But I think if he had remained Ziggy Stardust for his whole career, I don’t know if I or anyone else would have loved it as much. You just get to enjoy this thing in this particular moment, before it changes again.”
Naturally, Peck understands why “eras” for pop stars have become increasingly popular over the last few years. “Change is good for artists — to challenge myslef and to be more vulnerable and to put myself out there a little more. But I think it’s also good for fans,” he explains. “I think people really get comfortable in a lot of things that I do. Changing it up and seeing what else they might be into is a good thing. I think we all can embrace change.”
Yet one area where Peck still hasn’t seen quite enough change is in the country music industry. While the genre is currently enjoying new levels of success thanks to dominant runs from artists like Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan and Luke Combs, Peck also recognizes that the genre isn’t currently built to support talent from marginalized groups.
“The fact is that there’s a heavily politicized grip on country music,” he says. “For some people, this is a genre that represents a type of American lifestyle, a type of belief system, of religion. They think that country music is supposed to represent those things for them. They don’t realize that country is the most diverse American genres, because it’s built off of so many different cultures. That should be reflected in the people who make it and enjoy it.”
It certainly doesn’t help, he adds, that country music remains largely insular from the music industry at large. “Country, more so than any other genre, has really been controlled by the machine that is Nashville and country radio. It sort of exists in a vacuum, where even people very high up in the music industry that work in the pop world don’t know how to approach Nashville.”
But Peck remains assured that change is coming — slowly, but surely. As the number of artists speaking out in support of a more inclusive vision of country grows — including Mickey Guyton, TJ Osborne, Allison Russell, Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini and others — the singer says labels will have to start listening soon.
“There’s a few of us that have been trying to chip away at the wall that is Nashville, and I think there’s enough of us now that they can’t really hold the barricades anymore. The floodgates are gonna burst open,” he says. “And that is a great thing.”
The 51st annual CMA Fest launched on Thursday (June 6), with a cavalcade of artists performing on nearly a dozen outdoor and indoor stages in downtown Nashville. As the sun set, a swarm of festivalgoers — many sunburned and already having taken in hours of music that day — descended upon Nashville’s Nissan Stadium to […]
From Motown to mobility, the “Live From Detroit: The Concert at Michigan Central” show Thursday night (June 6) covered many bases of the Motor City’s fabled music heritage — as it re-opened a historic landmark making a comeback from desolation.
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The event brought out the hometown hero likes of Eminem (who co-executive produced the concert with his manager, Paul Rosenberg), and who made the crowd go nuts when he hopped on stage for a surprise four-song mini-set that included the live debut of his new single, “Houdini” and a collaboration with Jelly Roll.
Diana Ross, Jack White, Big Sean, Slum Village and gospel greats the Clark Sisters and Kierra Sheard were also on hand to celebrate the refurbished Michigan Central. The former railroad station in the city’s southwest side had been shuttered since 1988 and became what Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan called “a symbol of our decline” as it fell into disrepair. The Ford Motor Co. purchased the building in 2018, spending a reported $940 million to turn it into a center for advanced technological development in transportation and other fields.
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That meant a lot to White, who grew up in the same neighborhood. Before the show, he told reporters he’d ride his bicycle over to the site during the 80s and watched it deteriorate as he began his music career. “If you’d have asked me then if this place was ever coming back… there’s no way. It’s just too massive a job,” White said, calling the renovation, “just incredible.”
It was also personal for Patti Smith, who attended to accept a special pre-show Michigan Central Honor — along with White, Slum Village and the late J Dilla — for contributions as global ambassadors for Detroit. Smith, who shared her honor with her late husband and MC5 veteran Fred “Sonic” Smith (daughter Jesse Paris accompanied her), told Billboard that, “Fred loved the train station, and he would fantasize about it being restored and opened to the people. He really talked about it quite a bit, so I know that this would have made him very happy. It means something to me that there honoring him, as he should be, and I’m happy to be included with him.”
During the Honors ceremony Smith also represented Eminem by reading a 2009 love letter he wrote to Detroit professing his love for the city.
The show itself — which was streamed on Peacock and will be edited into a one-hour NBC special at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday (June 9) — was a nearly two-hour party celebrating the city and its musical heritage, but with a global perspective. “We’ve been invested in trying to rebrand the image of the city and how people see it for a long time,” Rosenberg, who worked in conjunction with Jesse Collins Entertainment, explained to Billboard prior to the show. “The challenge was, ‘What kind of picture can we paint here that’s going to be interesting not just locally but nationally?’ We wanted to make a compelling program that’s going to interest people across the country, not just people who are familiar with Detroit.
Rosenberg added that he and Eminem used the adage “as goes Detroit, so goes the nation” — from a 1942 Arthur Pond essay in The Atlantic — “as a framework… all these ideas about how the city is viewed not just locally but nationally to help frame the program.”
Starting with a Motown legend didn’t hurt, of course. Ross, clad in a mass of tangerine tulle, began the night with singalong version of her solo hits “I’m Coming Up” and “Upside Down,” plus the title track from her 2021 album Thank You before finishing with a soaring take of the Supremes’ anthem “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” “It’s so good to be home,” Ross said before leaving the stage. “I love you so much.”
Big Sean shared the love as well, saluting Michigan Central as “a diamond that came out of the rough” while delivering a three-song set that included the new “On Up” — a new album is coming this summer, he told the crowd — as well as hits “Blessings” and “Bounce Back,” accompanied by Adam Blackstone & the BBE All Star Band. A Detroit legend who wasn’t there, Bob Seger, was nevertheless saluted by a trio of Melissa Etheridge (“Mainstreet”), Fantasia (“Shakedown”) and Jelly Roll (“Turn the Page,” sporting a Detroit Tigers baseball cap) before the three united to close the tribute with a truncated but exuberant take on “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
“I’ll be Forever Soul, but there’s a little rock in me,” Fantasia told Billboard, invoking the name of her new company. “I wanted that challenge.”
Common was an out-of-towner in the house — though, being from Chicago, he told the Detroit crowd “we’re cousins” — as he recited “Didn’t One Know,” his tone poem about J Dilla. Slum Village also gave props to the late Baatin and Amp Fiddler as the duo performed Fail in Love” and “Get Dis Money,” the latter with Dilla’s younger brother Illa J and both with the Blackstone band. “We’re always gonna represent the legacy,” the group’s T3 said before the concert. Common joined Slum Village to close the segment with a poignant rendition of “The Light.”
The Clark Sisters, in glittery gold dresses and joined by the Greater Emmanuel Choir, then took the estimated 20,000 fans to church with “Livin’” and “Blessed & Highly Favored” before backing Sheard — daughter of Karen Clark-Sheard — on a powerhouse version of her “Miracles.” Sheard stayed on stage for the Clarks’ signature hit “You Brought the Sunshine,” a stunner even if the sky was turning dark.
A pair of DJs, Theo Parrish and Sky Jetta, represented Detroit’s famed techno heritage, while White brought the rock and the White Stripes with “some songs that were written a couple blocks from here” — debuting a new two-keyboard band lineup on “Hotel Yorba” and a “Seven Nation Army” that was literally on fire as (planned) pyrotechnics and flames erupted to accent the anthem.
And while Eminem — who filmed parts of the video for his 2009 single “Beautiful” in the then-abandoned Michigan Central — was not billed as a performer when the show was announced, it surprised few that he closed the evening. Joined by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra the hoodied rapper presented the live debut of “Houdini,” the just-released first single from his upcoming The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) album (July 5), then “Sing For the Moment” with Jelly Roll, “Welcome 2 Detroit” with Trick Trick and a bombastic “Not Afraid,” which was followed by a short show-ending fireworks display.
“Timing worked out for us fortunately great because we just dropped a single — that wasn’t always the case when we agreed to jump on board,” Rosenberg noted. “We weren’t sure we were going to have new music out. It happened to work out great, and it became an opportunity to perform a new song.”
Dionne Harmon, president of Jesse Collins Entertainment — which also produces Super Bowl halftime shows and a variety of awards shows, among other events — told Billboard that the universal appeal of the artists ultimately opened the door for “Live From Detroit” to be a streaming and network special. “Everybody knew this wasn’t just a Detroit story or an American story, but a global story,” she said. “So we started looking for a partner who could help us tell this story. We’ve done a lot of work with NBC in the past; when we took this to them they fell in love with the story and the city, the same way we did.”
The performers, meanwhile, bought into the idea of telling that story together. “These things, you never know how they’re gonna turn out, who’s gonna show up and who’s gonna be invited,” said White, who attended the same high school as Ross and Big Sean. “When they were first talking about Eminem and Dian Ross and Slum Village I thought, ‘Wow, if that really happens..’”
“It’s one of the biggest events Detroit’s ever seen,” Slum Village’s T3 gushed. “Even the other artists I just met today, like Jelly Roll, which was super cool… We’re having a good time out here, and it’s just a beautiful event.”
Just in time for Father’s Day, Luke Combs will release the new album Fathers & Sons on Friday, June 14.
On Instagram, Combs shared news of the album along with cover art for the project and the track list. He captioned the photo: “I can’t wait for y’all to hear the full album next week and hope y’all love this project as much as I do.”
The album is led by Combs’ new song “The Man He Sees in Me,” which he previously teased on social media.
Combs himself is a father to two sons. He and wife Nicole welcomed their oldest son, Tex Lawrence Combs, on Father’s Day in June 2022. Last year, their second son, Beau Lee Combs, was born in August. In revealing the release of “The Man He Sees in Me,” Combs shared a carousel of photos on Instagram, giving fans a glimpse into his role as a dad, while Nicole commented on the photos, “Our living room looks like a daycare & I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Judging by the titles of some of the songs on the project, including “Ride Around Heaven,” “Front Door Famous,” “Remember Him That Way” and “All I Ever Do Is Leave,” it seems as though some are sure to be tear-jerkers.
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Combs also previewed the familiarly titled “Take Me Out the Ballgame” in April, playing the song during his two-concert stint at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The project follows Combs’ 2023 album Gettin’ Old, which was nominated for album of the year at the CMA Awards, and his 2022 project Growin’ Up, which earned a Grammy nomination for best country album.
See the full track list for Combs’ Fathers & Sons below:
Front Door FamousIn Case I Ain’t AroundHuntin’ By YourselfLittle Country BoysWhoever You Turn Out to BeRemember Him That WayThe Man He Sees In MeAll I Ever Do Is LeavePlant a SeedRide Around HeavenMy Old Man Was RightTake Me Out to the Ballgame
Country music trio Lady A member Dave Haywood and music executive Kelli Cashiola Haywood are expecting their third child, a boy, in July.
Dave revealed his wife’s pregnancy by posting on Instagram, sharing a black and white photo of the couple and their two older children, son Cash Van (9) and daughter Lillie Renee (6).
“I’ve always been a big fan of trios,” he wrote, adding, “Baby Boy Haywood coming in July.”
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Haywood and Cashiola were married in 2012. Haywood’s Lady A bandmate Charles Kelley commented on Haywood’s post, writing, “Hard secret to keep. Now I can shout it out!”
Kelli, a Nashville music industry executive and entrepreneur, recently teamed up with fellow music executive Leigh Holt to launch HSquared Management, with their first signee being Capitol Christian Music Group artist Riley Clemmons. The company also merged the artist rosters of the two executives’ companies, Holt’s maddjet and Haywood’s KCH Entertainment.
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Lady A’s latest single, “Love You Back,” is currently charting at No. 52 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. The trio previously told Audacy’s Katie & Company that they are working on a new album, with Kelley stating, “We’re definitely going in a nostalgic direction, I think we tend to do that a lot… It’s just a really warm record, so far, we’ve cut half of it, and we’ll just continue to over the early [part] of this year and keep trying to chase what we feel [are] the best songs and are able to live with it…”
During their career, Lady A has earned two top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits, including 2010’s “Need You Now” and 2011’s “Just a Kiss.” They’ve also notched 11 No. 1 Country Airplay hits, including “Champagne Night” and “What If I Never Get Over You.”
See Dave Haywood’s Instagram post below:
Music can serve as the perfect soundtrack to any number of milestone moments, from weddings and proposals to out-of-school summer freedom. But music’s heartening force also goes deeper. A South Carolina teenager who had been ejected from his vehicle during a serious car accident was revived after hearing a Zach Bryan song, according to a […]
This year’s CMA Fest in Nashville launched with music icon Dolly Parton spilling the details on several projects she has in the works — namely, a Broadway musical as well as a hotel.
“It’s true, I’m going to have a hotel right here in Nashville, and a museum too,” Parton told the crowd.
The country icon officially revealed her upcoming Songteller Hotel in Nashville, which will be located on 3rd and Commerce in downtown Nashville. The hotel will also include a Dolly Parton museum that will feature memorabilia from her career and many of her fashionable outfits, including a replica of Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors,” which inspired her signature song of the same name.
The name of the hotel takes its name from Parton’s 2020 book Songteller: My Life in Song, written with author-journalist Robert K. Oermann.
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“When we were looking at the property, you know how sometimes you feel you get a little divine sign,” Parton said during the event, which was hosted by Entertainment Tonight‘s Rachel Smith. “We were walking through and it was an empty room. There was a table and of all things, there was the book Songteller and we thought that must be a sign and we thought that would be a good name.”
Parton, of course, is no stranger to launching hotels — the singer, songwriter and business mogul’s Dollywood theme park includes the Dreammore Resort, which opened in 2015, and the Heartsong Lodge and Resort, which opened in 2023.
Parton also announced her upcoming Broadway musical, Hello, I’m Dolly: An Original Musical, set to open in 2026. Parton says she affectionately calls it “a Grand Ole Opera.”
“I tried for years, how to do my life story and make it make sense. I needed to write some original music. I’m hoping you’re gonna laugh and cry,” Parton said.
The musical will trace Parton’s life story from growing up in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee before making her way to Nashville to pursue music. The musical will chronicle her early solo hits, her work with Porter Wagoner and her rise as to becoming an internationally, Country Music Hall of Famer, with 25 No. 1 Billboard Hot Country Songs hits. as well as a multi-faceted artist through her work in movies and television.
The musical will be produced by Parton, Adam Speers (ATG Productions) and Danny Nozell (CTK Enterprises), and takes its name from Parton’s first studio album, which released in 1967. Hello, I’m Dolly will feature a score by Parton that will include some of her biggest hits as well as new songs she has written especially for the musical, and a book by Parton and Maria S. Schlatter.
In addition, Parton revealed the launch of Dolly Wines (which starts with a Dolly 2023 California chardonnay) and the cookbook Good Lookin’ Cookin’, which she created with her sister Rachel. Good Lookin’ Cookin’ releases Sept. 17.
These business ventures expand on Parton’s recent teaming with Duncan Hines to launch a line of cake and muffin mixes, as well as Parton’s recent partnership with Krispy Kreme for the limited-time Dolly Parton Southern Sweets Doughnut Collection.
Parton also recently revealed her upcoming family-oriented album Smoky Mountain DNA–Family, Faith and Fables, out in November.
In the meantime, Parton told Smith that she has no plans to slow down anytime soon.
“Not today,” Parton quipped. “Maybe someday I may have to. I’ve always said if my husband was in ill health and needed me, I would pull back — and the same with my own health. But I kind of dreamed myself into a corner and I need to be responsible for that. I may pull back a little now and then, but not today.”
Zach Bryan’s “Pink Skies” debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs charts dated June 8, becoming his third leader on each list. The harmonica-infused single bows with 31.6 million official streams, 166,000 radio airplay audience impressions and 10,000 downloads sold in the United States from its May […]
Jelly Roll is celebrating National Donut Day by revealing where he got his sweet stage name. In a new PSA for Dunkin’ timed with Friday’s (June 7) holiday, the country star born Jason Bradley DeFord answers the question that “everybody always asks me”: How did he get the name Jelly Roll? “Believe it or not, […]
Jelly Roll is hoping to bring his high-energy stage presence overseas, but he’s overcoming some “legal puzzles” first. The “Need a Favor” superstar sat down with Jon Bon Jovi for a wide ranging Interview Magazine discussion, where he shared that he’s hoping to tour internationally. “It’s funny, America has finally agreed to let me leave […]