genre country
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It was the quick exit heard ’round the world. Back on March 29 when he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, Morgan Wallen famously beat what some saw as a hasty retreat from the stage during the traditional end-of-show credit segment where the week’s guest and the cast hang out trading hugs and goodbyes.
After performing two songs on the Mikey Madison-hosted episode, Wallen briefly joined the cast on stage at the end of the episode, then abruptly walked off, sharing a photo on his Instagram Stories a short time later from his private plane with the caption, “Get me to God’s country” over the image of a runway; he later capitalized on the controversy by selling “Get Me to God’s Country” merch.
A week later, the show had some fun with the incident in a cold-open bit in which James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump took a shot at Wallen while discussing the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. “I even put tariffs on an island uninhabited by humans. It’s called Heard and McDonald Island,” Johnson’s Trump said, holding a poster featuring a hula skirt-wearing hamburger. “I would love to visit there. Can you imagine that? Big Mac and a hula skirt. Get me to God’s country, right? Remember that?”
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On Sunday (May 11), Wallen appeared on comedian Caleb Pressley’s podcast and the host, in a bid to show how normal the country star is noted that Wallen still cuts his own grass and takes out his trash. “Not true,” Wallen smiled. Teasing out the joke, Pressley asked if former landscaper Wallen is good around the house fixing stuff.
“Could you fix a TV, if it was on SNL?,” Pressley asked. Wallen laughed and said, “I could change it for sure.”
“Seriously, SNL, did they make you mad?” Pressley pressed, as the camera zoomed in faux dramatically. “No, no, I was just ready to go home. I been there all week.”
While Wallen seems to have had his fill, SNL wasn’t done with the jokes. During that same April 5 episode, Weekend Update’s Colin Jost poked fun at the singer in a bit about the economy. “This was the worst week for the stock market since the summer of 2020. But you have to remember — back then, the president was also Trump,” Jost said. “Just in the past two days, investors have lost over $6 trillion. Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at goodnights.”
Long-time cast member Kenan Thompson also had thoughts about it, saying the Wallen quickstep was unusual at best. “We’re so used to everybody just turning around and high-fiving us, everybody’s saying, ‘Good job, good job, good job.’ So when there’s a departure from that, it’s like, hmm, I wonder what that’s about?” Thompson said, noting that Prince had pulled a similar move during his appearance on the show years ago.
“I’m not saying Morgan Wallen is Prince, but we weren’t surprised because Prince was notoriously kind of standoffish,” Thompson said. “It’s just how he was. So we just thought like, ‘Okay, now he’s gone back into fantasyland.”
Wallen’s upcoming 37-track album, I’m the Problem, is due out on Friday (May 16).
Watch Wallen on Sundae Conversation with Caleb Pressley below.
Johnny Rodriguez, a trailblazing Hispanic figure in country music, has died at the age of 73.
His daughter, Aubry Rodriguez, confirmed her father’s passing in a heartfelt social media post on Friday (May 9). The late Mexican-American singer had entered hospice care earlier in the week, according to Saving Country Music.
“It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that we announce the passing of our beloved Johnny Rodriguez, who left us peacefully on May 9th, surrounded by family,” Aubry wrote on Instagram. “Dad was not only a legendary musician whose artistry touched millions around the world, but also a deeply loved husband, father, uncle, and brother whose warmth, humor, and compassion shaped the lives of all who knew him.”
She continued, “We are immensely grateful for the outpouring of love and support from fans, colleagues, and friends during this time of grief.”e
Aubry concluded her tribute by calling her father an “irreplaceable” and an “extraordinary talent,” and requested privacy for the family as they “navigate this painful moment together.”
Born Juan Rodriguez in Sabinal, Texas, in 1951, Rodriguez was discovered at 18 by music promoter Happy Shahan after he was heard singing in a jail cell, where he was briefly held for a minor offense, according to a Ken Burns biography on PBS.org.
Rodriguez’s musical influences ranged from mariachi to honky-tonk, shaped by his South Texas upbringing. “I was drawn to country music because I could relate more to what they were singing about,” he told Burns. “And also it was just like the music of our people. In Mexican music, you have stories. Mexican music and country music said almost the same thing, just in different languages,” he said.
Initially performing under the name Johnny Rogers, Rodriguez played at Alamo Village and soon caught the attention of country stars Bobby Bare and Tom T. Hall. At 21, he moved to Nashville, changed his last name back to Rodriguez, joined Hall’s band as a guitarist, and later signed with Mercury Records.
In the 1970s, Rodriguez achieved scored several No. 1 hits on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart, including “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico” and “You Always Come Back (to Hurting Me).” He was nominated for the Academy of Country Music’s entertainer of the year in 1974 and was featured in the Country Radio Seminar’s New Faces of Country Music show in 1973. In 2007, he was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame.
Rodriguez is survived by his daughter, Aubry, whom he shared with his second wife, Debbie McNeely.
Read Aubry’s touching tribute to her father on Instagram here.
Jelly Roll gave fans a heartfelt update on his efforts to have a baby with wife Bunnie Xo through IVF on Thursday night (May 8). “We’re right in the middle of the journey,” the country star told Access Hollywood on the red carpet for the 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards. “For all of our […]
Riley Green’s “Worst Way” becomes one of three new top 10s on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, dated May 17.
The track hops from No. 11 to No. 8 on the survey, up 10% to 16.6 million audience impressions May 2-8, according to Luminate.
With the song — from Green’s LP Don’t Mind If I Do, which entered Top Country Albums at its No. 8 best last November — he banks his sixth Country Airplay top 10. It follows his duet with Ella Langley, “You Look Like You Love Me,” which led for a week in December, becoming his second chart-topper. He first led as featured on Thomas Rhett’s “Half of Me” for a week in November 2022. “There Was This Girl” became his first top 10 (No. 3, 2019).
Notably, Green wrote “Worst Way” solo. It’s the first Country Airplay top 10 by one author since Cody Johnson’s “Dirt Cheap,” penned by Josh Phillips (No. 5 peak in August 2024). “Worst Way” is the first top 10 solo-penned by the artist who recorded it since Chayce Beckham’s “23,” which led for a week in April 2024.
Big ‘Heart’
Corey Kent lands his second Country Airplay top 10 as “This Heart” rises 12-9 (16.4 million, up 12%). The song, from the Bixby, Okla., native’s album Black Bandana, released last fall, follows “Wild as Her,” which hit No. 3 in May 2023.
‘Wind’ Blows In
Ella Langley achieves her second Country Airplay top 10 as “Weren’t for the Wind” gusts 13-10 (15.5 million, up 12%). The single, from her 2024 LP Hungover, follows her chart-topping Riley Green team-up “You Look Like You Love Me” (see above).
Ongoing ‘Problem’
Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” dominates Country Airplay for a fourth total and consecutive week (30.7 million, up 1%). The song marks the fifth of his 17 No. 1s to rule for four or more frames. His longest-leading hit, “You Proof,” reigned for 10 weeks beginning in October 2022. It’s tied for the longest command in the chart’s 35-year history with Nate Smith’s “World on Fire” (2023-24).
‘The Giver’ Debuts
Chappell Roan makes her Country Airplay debut as “The Giver” enters at the chart’s No. 60 anchor spot (512,000 in audience, up 1%). The pop star’s country turn launched at its No. 5 best on the Billboard Hot 100 in March and reached Nos. 32 and 37 on Adult Pop Airplay and Pop Airplay, respectively, in April.
All charts dated May 17 will update on Billboard.com on May 13 (Tuesday).
She’s got a bit of a potty mouth, so when Ashley Cooke released a track titled “the f word,” her friends weren’t particularly surprised.
“I have the mouth of a sailor,” she says, “so [that title] didn’t really bother me, because it was just so brilliant. And I love that it was something that caught your attention off the bat. In today’s world with music, I feel like you kind of have to push the boundaries a little bit and do something that maybe shocks people and makes people curious.”
The phrase “the f word” is designed to hide a term that makes some folks uncomfortable. Oddly enough, “the f word” didn’t follow its inspiration to the letter, because “f” wasn’t the initial plan.
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“I had written ‘The B Word’ down on my phone,” songwriter Emily Weisband (“If I Die Before You,” “Looking For You”) remembers. “I was talking to my friend one day, and she was like, ‘Could you see him being my boyfriend?’ I was like, ‘Ooh, you said the B word, dirty mouth.’ I just made a joke about it, so I wrote ‘The B Word’ down in my phone. And then as I thought about the idea more, I said, ‘You know, ‘the f word’ might be a little cooler, a little more potent.’”
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Weisband had a Zoom writing appointment on Oct. 30, 2021, with Lori McKenna (“Humble and Kind,” “Girl Crush”) and Gordie Sampson (“Jesus, Take The Wheel,” “God, Your Mama, And Me”), and she suggested writing “the f word.”
Zoom presents some co-writing challenges, so under the circumstances, some F bombs were definitely dropped. “I’m gonna say just a couple – maybe 55, 60,” Sampson jokes.
The title looks like a novelty, so an uptempo song seems obvious. They took an unexpected turn, and wrote “the f word” as a ballad. “I love the juxtaposition sometimes when it’s a sad song that is upbeat, or a happy song that’s slow,” Weisband says. “I think that can be a really beautiful ‘art’ thing sometimes, so I kind of felt, because the title was a little gimmicky, [we should] balance that out.”
The thing was, the payoff line for “the f word” would be a surprise. Listeners would certainly expect the song to use a swear word, based on the title. But the writers had a different F word in mind. The goal was to tease the listener a bit, hinting at the implied four-letter term while introducing clues to the song’s actual F expression.
“I try not to swear” became the opening line, and they kept that first verse short, using just six lines until they got to the end of the pre-chorus: “I should wash my mouth out with soap.”
“If you, the listener, have granted us that you’re going to click on this, we owe it to you to keep you there and get to the point right off the top, instead of dilly-dallying and making them wait,” Sampson says.
“I said the F word in front of your mama” – the opening of the chorus – was dramatic enough, and they unwittingly dropped in a “what the hell” in the third line, before they finally got to the F word: “I’d probably spend forever with you.”
“Forever” may work in fairytales, but it often scares men away. And the singer in “the f word” keeps using it – she says it “in front of your sister” in the second chorus, and at “4 in the morning” in the third. Since the guy is still there, the risky “forever” word paid off.
Matching the surprise lyric, they stocked “the f word” with a couple of surprise chords at key moments. Sampson created a demo after everyone left Zoom, and a few weeks later, Weisband applied an almost-dreamy lead vocal. “We used a very mellow, reverbed-out, clean guitar in the background to stay out of the way of the lyric,” Sampson says. “We had to make a lot of space in the track for the lyrics, so that it would be out front and very present, so you could hopefully get reeled into it.”
A number of artists liked it, but “the f word” hung around unrecorded until Weisband emailed it among several songs to Cooke on Aug. 28, 2024. The title intrigued Cooke, and the “forever in front of your mama” line nailed it; Cooke had once made the mistake of telling her boyfriend’s mother over sushi that he had changed his mind and was ready to get married – before he was ready for his mom to know.
“He looked at me like I was a psycho person,” Cooke recalls. “I heard the song, and it took me immediately back to my sushi restaurant.”
Cooke performed it live for the first time during a Feb. 19 date at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, with Weisband singing harmony, and she cut it with producer Dann Huff (Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts) before heading to Australia in March. Huff kept the spirit of the demo, though he turned the guitar background into a subtly morphing sound, the tones shifting indiscernibly from Derek Wells’ atmospheric guitar into Alex Wright’s glassy keyboards into Justin Schipper’s tangy steel. Jerry Roe snuck into the arrangement gradually, and Jenee Fleenor applied shimmering fiddle to a couple of spots, emulating a string quartet in the second verse.
“To me, there’s a dance to this song,” Huff says. “Jenee studied classical music when she was young, so she has the repertoire… She can be as bluegrass as she can be classical. That’s kind of where we went with this thing.”
Huff felt the track needed a fourth chorus, allowing them to repeat “I said the F word in front of your mama.” Cooke had her doubts, but they cut both options, and once she saw live audiences attempting to repeat the “mama” line when they sang along, she agreed with Huff. “We let it sit and marinate, and came back to it, and she chose that [extra chorus],” Huff says. “I’m glad she did, because I think it’s the right way to do it.”
Will Weatherly produced her lead vocal, and the final product turns a title that initially looks edgy into a sweet moment that feels, as Cooke says, “like ‘90s rom-coms.”
Big Loud released “the f word” to digital service providers on April 18, but there’s a chance it could go to radio. Programmers have responded well, recognizing that it lets adults in on the joke while keeping it clean for kids.
“It seems controversial, but it’s not,” Cooke says. “I’ve heard from a lot of program directors [who say] when the title comes across their dashboard, [fans] are curious, and so it makes them want to turn it up and listen to what’s happening. And when they hear it, there’s no profanity or negativity in the song. So it’s actually the best thing for them, because it catches attention without having to worry about the viewership and the age groups. It’s a really cool thing. We’ll see what happens.”
If it feels like it’s been a minute since you heard from Gretchen Wilson you’re not wrong. The Grammy-winning “Redneck” woman country star known for her independent streak hasn’t released an album of all-new material since 2017’s Ready to Get Rowdy or a single since 2024’s scorching “Little Miss Runner Up,” a one-off sequel to 2005’s “Homewrecker.”
But after winning season 13 of The Masked Singer this week, Wilson tells Billboard she’s ready to crank things up again after a long time out of the spotlight due to a run of serious health issues with an all-star Taylor Swift-style reboot.
“I had some post-COVID health stuff, I’m a long-hauler. I’ve got medications I’ll have to take for the rest of my life — high blood pressure, asthma — these are all things I didn’t have right before COVID,” Wilson told Billboard in her Masked Singer exit interview about why she’s been off the radar a lot over the past few years. “I also was dancing with a 6-year-old boy at a wedding, spinning, spinning, spinning, then I lost myself and I shattered my ankle and my leg, so I spent eight months in a wheelchair in a cast.”
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Wilson says the cascade of health issues got her wondering if she might still have the stamina to “do a 75-minute show in Yuma, AZ” outdoors in August. But, after the reality singing show came knocking and she had a season-long run nailing rock, pop, R&B and Latin dance pop she realized she was ready to return to the spotlight.
Saying she has “lots of irons in the fire” at the moment, Wilson, 51, reveals the most exciting thing on tap this year is a “re-creation” of her breakthrough 2004 album, Here For the Party. “I am gonna do my version, sort of the way Taylor did, but on my label [Redneck Records],” she says. “But instead of just recreating it the same way, I am going to have a guest vocalist on each song. I’ve got a few absolute yes’s so far, but I was waiting for this [post-Masked Singer] moment so that when I make the rest of the calls they are quicker yes’s.”
While it’s still a work in progress, so far Wilson is proud to tease a duet with Travis Tritt on an unnamed song, something she’s been wanting to do her whole career. “I can’t think of another voice that would pair up with me perfectly,” she says. In addition, she’s re-worked her song “Chariot” with country trio Chapel Hart and has a number of feelers out to some “huge names” that she’s not able to talk about yet.
“I want to make sure [they know] I’m not trying to reinvent myself with the album, I’ve got other things going on and this will be good for them,” she said of the message to the A-list collaborators she’s shooting for.
One of those other irons is a role as “tour manager” or, as she dubbed it “tour momager” on the upcoming music competition series The Road. The show executive produced by Taylor Sheridan (Landman, Mayor of Kingstown), Blake Shelton, David Glasser, Lee Metzger and Keith Urban is slated to premiere in the fall on CBS and stream on Paramount+.
“Tour manager is the hardest job because it all comes down to you,” Wilson laughs. “Obviously on this production I didn’t have to do all the jobs a tour manager does — I wasn’t wrangling the buses or hotel rooms — but in the venue I was doing all the other parts a tour manager does: getting them on and off the stage, making sure they’re taking care of themselves, discussing songs changes, keys, modulations with the band on their behalf… just being the last face they see before they go on and the first face they see when they get off. It’s more like a tour momager role.”
She says none of the contestants on the show are “super young,” but most are younger than her and she calls them “kids” because, let’s be honest, they don’t have nearly the experience she’s had on the road. From playing in three or four bars bands at the same time at 16, to touring the world, Wilson says her road dog experience is worth its weight in gold as she helps the contestants make their way across the country. “What my role was to bring them my experience, any knowhow I’ve gained over the years, any tricks or secrets I know,” she says. “It’s not hard: go to be early, shut up, don’t talk too much, save it for the show. Just somebody to bounce ideas off of, to yell at.”
In the meantime, Wilson has a summer full of shows on her calendar, including slots at the Natchitoches Jazz and R&B Festival in Natchitoches, LA this weekend, as well as a spot at the Hoofbeat Country Fest in Cadott, WI the weekend of June 26-28 and a Grand Ole Opry House show on July 8 in Nashville.
The Academy of Country Music Awards celebrated a major milestone with this year’s ceremony, commemorating 60 years of feting many of the top performers and artists in country music. Held Thursday night (May 8) and livestreamed on Amazon Prime Video, the ACM Awards featured performances that highlighted six decades of enduring hits, as well as […]
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Even before the ACM Awards got underway Thursday (May 8), winners had been announced in six categories. And in one of those categories, the voters delivered a big surprise. Country traditionalist Zach Top took the award for new male artist of the year, beating Shaboozey, whose “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” had spent 19 weeks at […]