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Singer-songwriter Chappell Roan splashes into the country genre as “The Giver” bounds in at No. 1 on Billboard’s streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Country Songs chart dated March 29.
Released March 13, the single totaled 22.3 million official U.S. streams, 2.2 million all-genre audience impressions and 6,000 sold March 14-20, according to Luminate.
The song by the Willard, Mo., native also opens atop Country Streaming Songs and Country Digital Song Sales, likewise in her first visit to each chart.
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Concurrently, “The Giver” roars onto the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 at No. 5. It’s Chappell Roan’s third top 10, following “Good Luck, Babe!,” which hit No. 4 last September, and “Pink Pony Club,” which reached No. 7 a week ago; it ranks at No. 9 on the latest list. “The Giver” marks her first top 10 (or even top 40) debut on the Hot 100.
“The Giver” was shipped to country radio by Universal Group Nashville’s MCA Records. Of the song’s airplay in the tracking week, 20% was from reporters to Billboard’s Country Airplay chart; it debuts at No. 33 on the Adult Pop Airplay tally and is bubbling under Pop Airplay and Country Airplay.
The Country Airplay panelists that played “The Giver” the most during the tracking week: KFDI Wichita, Kan. (45 times); KTTS Springfield, Mo. (44); WZZK Birmingham, Ala. (39); KBAY San Francisco (12); and KYGO Denver (11).
Meanwhile, Chappell Roan is just the third woman to debut a first Hot Country Songs entry at No. 1, after two that also initially established themselves with pop hits: Beyoncé, with “Texas Hold ‘Em” (2024), and Bebe Rexha, with “Meant To Be,” with Florida Georgia Line (2017). (The latter song went on to reign for a record 50 weeks.)
“I have such a special place in my heart for country music,” the Missouri native shared on Instagram March 4. “I grew up listening to it every morning and afternoon on my school bus and had it swirling around me at bonfires, grocery stores and karaoke bars … I am just here to twirl and do a little gay yodel for yall.”
Playboi Carti, Chappell Roan and Doechii have entered the top 10, but will any of them claim the No. 1 spot? Tetris Kelly: With new top 10s from Chappell Roan, Doechii and Playboi Carti, this is the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 for the week dated March 29th. Making her top 10 debut is our […]
This week’s collection of new music features a somber new track from Eric Church, who has set his upcoming album, Evangeline Vs. The Machine, for May. Jeannie Seely welcomes Hannah Dasher and Tiera Kennedy for a new collaboration, while Lukas Nelson, Valerie June and Riley Roth offer new music.
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the best country, Americana and bluegrass songs of the week below.
Eric Church, “Hands of Time”
Horns, guitars, passionate choral voices and Eric Church’s signature swaggering voice swirl together on this new release written by Church and Scooter Carusoe. The song builds into a punchy, rock-fueled anthem as Church sings of turning to simple pleasures — particularly music — to fend off the impact of the passing decades. “We ain’t as young as we used to be, but young at heart is so easy/ When you let some loud guitars and words and rhymes handle the hands of time,” he sings, giving praise to artists including Kris Kristofferson, Tom Petty and Bob Seger; suitably, the sound of a ticking clock winds down the song. “Hands of Time” is from Church’s upcoming new album, Evangeline Vs. The Machine, out May 2.
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Lukas Nelson, “Ain’t Done”
After parting ways with his longtime band Promise of the Real in 2024, Lukas Nelson transitions into his first solo outing with “Ain’t Done,” from his upcoming debut solo album American Romance, out June 20 on Sony Music Nashville. Written by Nelson and Aaron Raitiere, “Ain’t Done” pulls back on the hard-charging, full-band sound, opting for a more bare-bones sound bolstered by slabs of fiddle. He looks at life’s various shifts with an even-keeled perspective, in a song that seems in some ways to mirror his own current season of musical transition. “There’s a guarantee with every evening sun/ Nothing lasts and God ain’t done,” he sings. Though in a newly solo venture, Nelson’s new music still brims with the insightful songwriting and grizzled voice he’s known for.
Valerie June, “Sweet Things Just For You”
Valerie June previews her upcoming album Owls, Omens and Oracles (out April 11 on Concord Records) with this musical collaboration with Norah Jones (on backing vocals) and producer M. Ward. Breezy and straightforward, this romantic track finds June singing about absorbing the light and positivity from a significant other, and desiring to mirror that love and affection back toward them. Plucked guitar bolsters this sweetly sung piece of sincere affection, which offers a charming glimpse into June’s upcoming project.
Jeannie Seely, Hannah Dasher and Tiera Kennedy, “Who Needs You”
“Miss Country Soul” Jeannie Seely, who has performed more than 5,400 times on the Grand Ole Opry during her 58-year career, teams with a new generation of country artists — Tiera Kennedy and Hannah Dasher — on this twangy post-breakup anthem that feels perfectly suited for a girls’ night out. Written by Seely, “Who Needs You” features the three entertainers musing that 100-proof whiskey, a new romance and some moments of recreational smoking are all preferred alternatives to returning to an ex-lover. Seely’s voice brings in a slice of gritty wisdom, Dasher’s vocal purrs with sweetness, while Dasher offers up both humor and wit. “Who Needs You” is one of a slate of collaborations Seely is releasing, including work with Mae Estes (“Let’s Get Together”) and Madeline Edwards (“Anyone Who Knows What Love is (Will Understand)”).
Riley Roth, “Right Where We Left Off”
After releasing the 2024 TikTok wedding anthem “Give Me Away,” Riley Roth returns with a sentimental new song centered on paying homage to unbreakable friendship. Time and distance can’t chip away at the rock-solid bond these friends have forged over years of supporting each other through heartbreak, life pivots and a host of trials and triumphs. This sweetly sentimental track and churning, bubbly instrumentation fits her soft, conversational voice well. “Right Where We Left Off” was written by Roth with Lauren McLamb and Kyle Schlienger.
Showtime has won a ruling dismissing a lawsuit that claimed George & Tammy – a television series about country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette – unfairly turned her late husband into “the villain.”
The case, filed last year, alleged that Showtime’s series conveyed a “negative and disparaging portrayal” of the late George Richey, a songwriter and producer to whom Wynette was married for decades after her split from Jones.
But in a decision Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Richey’s widow (Sheila Slaughter Richey) lacked the grounds to file the case. The show might have been “unflattering” to him, the judge said, but it did not meet the legal requirements for her to sue Showtime for “unjust enrichment.”
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“Normally, a plaintiff who cries unjust enrichment must have actually enriched somebody,” Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote.
In his ruling, the judge said Sheila’s dispute was really with Wynette’s daughter, Georgette Jones, who had licensed her memoir to Showtime as the basis for the series. But he suggested she had instead sued the network because of the potential for a larger judgment.
“Sheila could have sued Georgette for breaking their agreement,” Bibas wrote. “But George & Tammy had been a hit, and Showtime had presumably profited handsomely from Georgette’s breach. So instead of going after Georgette for whatever damages her breach caused, Sheila set out for bigger game.”
Released in December 2022, George & Tammy was well-received by critics — particularly Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain’s respective portrayals of Jones and Wynette. Both were later nominated for Emmy Awards for their performances.
Sheila filed her case in January 2024, claiming the show had depicted Richey as a “devious husband” who engaged in physical abuse, facilitated Wynette’s drug addiction, and committed “financial and managerial manipulation” of the late country icon.
Accusations about a harmful depiction of a real-world person would typically be filed as a defamation lawsuit, but Sheila didn’t sue Showtime for defamation. And that’s likely because she couldn’t: Under U.S. law, defamation cases can only be filed by living people, not on behalf of the deceased.
Instead, Sheila claimed the show indirectly violated a 2019 legal settlement in which Georgette promised to not make disparaging statements about Richey. Since George & Tammy was based on Georgette’s 2011 memoir about her parents, the lawsuit alleged that Showtime had been unjustly enriched by Georgette’s decision to violate her agreement with Sheila.
In Tuesday’s decision, Judge Bibas rejected that legal workaround. He ruled that Sheila had simply not met the strict requirements to sue the networek for unjust enrichment — saying that Showtime might have profited from the show, but not at Sheila’s expense.
“The crux of Sheila’s claim is that Georgette wronged her by breaching the non-disparagement agreement and Showtime profited from that wrong,” the judge wrote. “But that is not enough for unjust enrichment. Instead, a plaintiff must usually allege that she is the one who enriched the defendant.”
Sheila didn’t hand over any money to the network, Bibas said, or perform any uncompensated services. And he stressed that Showtime had also not violated any of her intellectual property rights, since she did not “own the story that Showtime used.”
“The network’s right to turn George and Tammy’s story into a TV show came from the First Amendment and from buying the rights to dramatize Georgette’s book,” the judge wrote. “So Showtime did not exploit Sheila’s property rights by making the series.”
Though he rejected the current lawsuit, the judge gave Sheila a chance to refile an updated version next month, suggesting that additional evidence might help show that the network facilitated Georgette’s decision to breach her agreement. He gave her until April 18 to file the new complaint against Showtime.
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday.
Blake Shelton, Eric Church and Lainey Wilson are the first performers to be named for the 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards. Hosted by Reba McEntire, the 60th ACM Awards will stream live exclusively on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch on Thursday, May 8 at 8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT / 5 p.m. PT from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas.
Shelton, a five-time ACM Awards co-host, will perform his current hit, the highly apropos “Texas.” The song is currently in the top 20 on both Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay. Shelton is set to release his 13th studio album, For Recreational Use Only, on May 9, the day after the ACM Awards. This will mark Shelton’s first album for BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville, following a long and successful run on Warner Music Nashville. Shelton co-hosted the ACM Awards in 2011-12 with McEntire and from 2013-15 with Luke Bryan.
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Church will perform on the heels of the release of his eighth studio album Evangeline Vs. The Machine, which is due May 2, six days before the show date.
Wilson will perform one year after winning the ACM’s top honor, Entertainer of the Year. Her fifth studio album, Whirlwind, was released in August. It reached No. 3 on Top Country Albums and No. 8 on the Billboard 200, both career highs for the artist.
Nominations for the 60th ACM Awards will be announced on Thursday (March 27). Additional performers, presenters and ACM Awards week will be announced in the coming weeks.
Established in 1966, the ACM Awards is the longest-running country music awards show. The Country Music Association Awards launched the following year. In 2022, the ACM Awards became the first major awards ceremony to exclusively livestream, in collaboration with Prime Video.
The 60th Academy of Country Music Awards is produced by Dick Clark Productions (DCP). Raj Kapoor is executive producer and showrunner, with Patrick Menton as co-executive producer. Damon Whiteside serves as executive producer for the Academy of Country Music, and Jay Penske and Barry Adelman serve as executive producers for DCP. John Saade will also continue to serve as consulting producer for Amazon MGM Studios.
This year’s ACM Awards will celebrate six decades of country music. A limited number of tickets to the show are available for purchase on SeatGeek.
DCP is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a Penske Media Corporation (PMC) subsidiary and joint venture between PMC and Eldridge. PMC is the parent company of Billboard.
Fans at Rolling Loud react and share their thoughts on our honoree line up for 2025 Billboard’s Women in Music.
Tetris Kelly
Hanging out at Rolling Loud, talking about some of our favorite women in music. How do you feel about our girl, Tyla? Oh, I love Tyla. I mean, come on, what song gets you going?
Fans
Of course, she goes in on “Water,” but we have the same birthday.
Tetris Kelly
What?
Fans
Aquarius Queen her and I are locked in. We go way back, to be honest The baddest b*tch alive right there. Tyla, I love you like I’m Indian so like half Indian represent.
Tetris Kelly
Why do we think like her glow up happens so big?
Fans
I think the dancing probably like the “Water,” the “Water” dance with like the…
Tetris Kelly
How do you feel about Jennie? Because everybody trying to be like Jennie.
Fans
She’s cutie patootie Jennie, I was just spinning Jennie over here at the bunny’s beauty bar. I love Jennie. I love BlackPink. I’m a Blink for life.
Tetris Kelly
And what do you think is so great about Jennie?
Fans
She’s just so, like, sweet every time I watch her. I mean, she’s just a great performer and person. And it’s just, I feel like I’m very much of an energy person. And I just feel that great energy off of Jennie. Everybody’s trying to be “Like Jennie.”
Tetris Kelly
We’re, celebrating our women in music event this month, and Gracie Abrams is being honored. Do you guys know her?
Fans
I love Gracie. I think she’s upcoming, she’s very independent. She did her sh*t this to herself. She never needed to feature anything. It’s just her herself. She’s raw. I love that. I think everyone loves her because she’s so emotional, for sure.
Watch the full video above!
Billboard’s Rookie of the Month John Morgan exclusively performs first his Country Airplay top 10-charting song “Friends Like That,” his brand-new single “Kid Myself” and more! John Morgan’s ‘Carolina Blue’ drops on April 25th. What do you think of the rising country star? Let us know in the chat! John Morgan: [Sings “Friends Like That”] […]
North Carolina native John Morgan currently has a Billboard Country Airplay top 10 hit with his Jason Aldean collaboration “Friends Like That,” and is gearing up for his debut album, Carolina Blue, out April 25.
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But in a true “only in Nashville” kind of moment, both of those milestones came courtesy of not only innate talent and ambition — but also one propitious Uber ride, when a conversation about songwriting led to Morgan sharing his contact information with the driver. At first, nothing came of the incident, but months later, the two had another chance meeting in Music City. The driver passed Morgan’s music onto his buddies, who happened to be longtime Jason Aldean collaborators/bandmates Tully Kennedy and Kurt Allison. Morgan began co-writing with them, and soon got a call from Aldean himself.
“He was just like, ‘I really dig what you’re writing. I like your style,’” Morgan recalls of the conversation. “It was the fact that he saw me not only as a writer, or just a track guy, but he saw me as an artist. He’d never seen my show or anything, just heard the demos and the songs.”
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Carolina Blue will release on Aldean’s Night Train Records, his imprint with BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville, while Aldean also signed Morgan to a publishing deal with Triple Play Music, the publishing company Aldean launched with Allison and Kennedy.
Beyond “Friends Like That,” other highlights on the album include the ode to his Carolina roots in the title track, as well as a mix vulnerable songs and up-tempo grooves including the rural anthem “Long Ride Home,” “One More Sunset,” and the breezy, romantic “I Know Better,” and the introspective “Kid Myself.” Strains of his myriad influences, from bluegrass to John Mayer’s guitar work, can be heard throughout.
Morgan’s musical roots began to take shape when he started taking piano lessons alongside his uncle and two cousins. “Two of us hated piano, so I switched to guitar and my cousin switched to banjo, and we just started jamming together,” Morgan recalls. Those jam sessions evolved — and by 10 years old, he was steadily playing local gigs and bluegrass festivals as part of the family bluegrass band.
“I did that circuit for about 10 years. It was a big part of my life and childhood, middle school through high school,” Morgan says. “It’s funny, I met [fellow country artist] Zach Top through that, at the Darrington Bluegrass Festival]. He was playing mandolin in his own family band.”
That time in the bluegrass music scene served as a catalyst for Morgan to craft his own songs.
“Having been doing traditional bluegrass for so long, you’re playing the same song as everybody else is playing, every version. I was like, ‘I got something to say. I want to write my own stuff.’ And that’s when I really chased that, for sure,” he says.
For a time, he gave up his musical ambitions and planned to work at his father’s property management business in North Carolina. He purchased property and was fixing up an old house on the land when a moment of realization shifted his perspective: “It just hit me out of nowhere, like, ‘Man, I’m not happy. I got everything going [on] outside and it looks great, but I knew music was missing in my life, so I moved to Nashville.”
He calls his Nashville arrival in 2020 “a daunting thing,” adding, “I lived in an apartment with one of my best friends and the rent was like almost two grand a month. Obviously, living in a city was a big change but it was just making friends, networking and figuring out how to get my foot in the door.”
He quickly became a versatile creator and asset in the writing rooms, learning how to track and mix songs, and fashion demos. “YouTube was my best friend, and I had a few guys that let me shadow them and watch their process,” he says. “I credit that a lot for two things: getting me into better writing rooms, and also finding my voice. If I was writing with two or three writers, they’d want me to sing the demo. With bluegrass, nobody cared how you sang — they cared how you play. I knew I could sing, but I didn’t know what my voice was, so doing those demos helped me figure out what felt good for me.”
Five years later, Morgan has forged a career as both an artist in his own right, as well as an in-demand songcrafter. He wrote on eight songs for Aldean’s Macon, Georgia double project, including the chart-topper “Trouble With a Heartbreak,” and the Aldean/Carrie Underwood 2022 ACM Award-winning single of the year, “If I Didn’t Love You.” Morgan has also written songs recorded by Jon Pardi (“Hung the Moon”) and Thomas Rhett (“Country For California”).
Carolina Blue follows Morgan’s 2023 EP Remember Us?, which featured a solo version of “Friends Like That.” Co-writing each of the dozen songs on Carolina Blue, Morgan has filled the project with songs he’s stacked up over the past few years, working with co-writers including Allison, Will Bundy, Ben Hayslip, Kennedy, Randy Montana, Jordan Schmidt and Lydia Vaughan.
Managed by Rich MGMT and booked by Wasserman, Morgan says his new album aims to connect listeners with his own story, while giving them universal songs to find their own point of relation. “I tried to capture that effect on this project of giving people different tastes of what I love and what I grew up listening to, but also keeping that identity as an artist,” Morgan says.
Below, Morgan — Billboard’s Country Rookie of the Month for March — opens up about his journey, his influences, working with Aldean and more.
Jason Aldean joins you on a new version of “Friends Like That.” How did that collab end up on the record?
I think we pitched it to [Jason] initially and it didn’t fit his record at the time. I released that song I guess two years ago and put it on the streaming world and shortly after that he reached out and said, “I’d love to look at doing a collab with you.” We got in the room and wrote some stuff together and got some cool stuff, but were never sold on it together. This song was doing its thing in the streaming world, so I said, “What if we reworked it? It fits both of our lanes. Sonically, it has that driving guitar and it’s a subject matter we can both sing about.” We went in and revamped it to make it its own thing.
Who else would you love to collaborate with?
I really love Cody Johnson. He’s just one of those guys that can absolutely rip. And he’s also just a great guy, has great messages in the song.
What is one album you never get tired of listening to?
Eric Church’s [2009 album] Carolina. I’ve been a fan of his and what he’s done over the past several years, just doing what he feels like is him in the moment. But that album specifically was inspiring to me. Casey Beathard is one of my favorite writers. It’s unbelievable what he can do with a hook. And truthfully, the [2009] Wide Open record from Aldean was a big influence, too.
You’ve written hits for other artists. When you moved to Nashville, did you at any point ever aim to be solely a songwriter?
It crossed my mind a lot, because I’ve got two kids now. The biggest thing you have to let go of [to be an artist] is your time. It crossed my mind, but I try to stay focused on the bigger picture. [Being an artist], it’s not only an outlet to provide for my family but also an outlet for people who have been in my corner from the beginning to take care of their families.
“Kid Myself” feels like a maturing, yet apologetic look at some past decisions. What inspired it?
That kind of pulls the curtain back a little bit on my personal life, a sense of a relationship that I was in back home in that whole time period where I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do and taking my dad’s business over and all that. I was dating a girl and it was getting to a serious point where it was like, we either do this or don’t. I feel like “Kid Myself” is in a way, an apology and a sense of, “I’m sorry that it was such bad timing. I’m sorry that I was just a kid myself, too.”
What are your must-haves on the road?
It’s changed a bit, but I love a good, bottled whiskey. Woodford [Reserve]’s always been my go-to, and there’s Buffalo Trace. I’m not too particular. The funny thing is we always had on our rider a veggie tray, a fruit tray and a bottle of whiskey to balance it out.
What is the best career advice Jason has given you?
He’s very unique, in the sense that he’s got a 20-year career as an artist himself, and now as a publishing head and a record label head. The biggest piece of advice he gave me was when we were putting the album together and he’s like, “Don’t cut album fillers. You don’t need fillers; you need hits.” That changed my perspective on what this album was going to be. I feel like some of ‘em aren’t teed up to be radio hits, but I just made sure every song we cut had a great hook, great melody and had the potential to be a single.
Would you ever want to put out a bluegrass album in the future?
That’s one of my bucket list things. I know the last time saw Zach [Top], I said, “Dude, whenever things get rolling for us, let’s get together and make a bluegrass album.” That would be awesome.
When newcomer Hudson Westbrook breaks into the chorus of “House Again,” his first single promoted to country radio, he draws the word “now-ow-ow-ow” across four greasy syllables.
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“It is not,” he allows, “the most normal way to do it.”
In fact, the line wasn’t written that way originally, but stretching the word creates an extra melodic effect and makes it linger, like the woman that the singer can’t get out of his mind. It fits the song’s images nicely, the word hanging around — just like her memory — haunting the hallways where every moment of lonely he “now” experiences seems to last forever.
That “now-ow-ow-ow” twist may be a defining moment in Westbrook’s growth. Just 20 years old, the former Texas Tech student has only been playing guitar for four years and writing songs for two, so he’s still figuring out who he wants to be as an artist and musician. But retooling that one key word in the chorus shows his ability to personalize a piece of music and bring out its central meaning.
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“Hudson likes to sit with songs,” says “House Again” co-writer Neil Medley (“Made for You,” “Hung Up On You”), who has penned about a dozen songs with Westbrook. “What I get back from him that we’ve written is always a little different, but it always falls right into what Hudson does best. I think if he were a video game, he unlocked a skill that day of knowing how to [tap into] his artistry. That was his voice that did that, and he made it so hooky.”
Neither Medley nor co-writer Dan Alley (“Country Song Came On”) knew Westbrook when they wrote with him for the first time on June 4, 2024, at the River House office in Nashville, where all three were signed.
“To be honest,” Alley says, “I had never heard of Hudson.”
Uncertain what to expect, Alley and Medley went through possible topics in a phone call the night before, though it turned out they didn’t need them.
“Hudson came in hot with probably five or six just really solid ideas right off the bat and blew me away,” Alley recalls. “One of them was basically the concept of a girl turning a house into a home. [We were] building a story around that, whether it was going to be positive, whether it was going to be negative.”Medley and Alley had both written songs before using a house-and-home foundation, so they dug in, looking for a different angle they could explore.
“I said, ‘Well, I want to write a song about a home that turned into a house again,’ ” Westbrook says. “They were like, ‘Well, that’s the hook.’ Honestly, I didn’t even know if the idea was writable.”
As Westbrook does routinely, they wrote it in chronological order from the first line.
“You got to set the scene before you sing about the scene,” he reasons.
They started with an image, “This kitchen used to be a dancehall,” that introduced the household theme while incorporating his Lone Star roots. Westbrook leaned emotionally on his parents’ divorce, inserting himself into a situation he had witnessed at age 7. Similarly to George Jones’ “The Grand Tour,” the song proceeded through the house, with nods to the bedroom, the window and the front door, each of them triggering some thought of the woman who no longer resided there. Medley concocted a video in his mind that helped capture the mood.
“I’m walking through these rooms in my head, and I can see what’s missing, what she left behind that used to mean something,” Medley recalls. “Everything we were trying — maybe not ‘Doorbell don’t ring,’ but the porch swing, the kitchen where they’re dancing together — we wanted to, for the most part, try to connect it with them as a couple.”
The lyrics played out primarily as a narration until the end of the second verse, when the singer finally lets loose with “What the hell did you do?” almost like a primal scream.
“It’s the primal ‘I’m screwed,’ ” Westbrook notes. “It’s the first time in the song that you really hear a point of anger.”
The whole process took place with strummed acoustic guitars ringing underneath.
“We kind of let Hudson run with whatever melody was in his head and didn’t try to really get in the way of that,” Alley says. “He’s just a very organic artist, and he loves to sing. He was singing a lot in the room, and everything was just kind of sticking.”
They recorded a very basic work tape; neither Alley nor Medley had a clue that day if Westbrook actually liked “House Again.” Westbrook didn’t know either, though he played with it periodically in the weeks afterward. He slowed it down about 10 beats per minute, and in the new tempo, that “now” lyric at the start of the chorus practically begged to get stretched out.
In September, he cut “House Again” at The Amber Sound, a homey studio in Nashville’s Hermitage neighborhood co-owned by producer Ryan Youmans (Muscadine Bloodline, Luke Grimes). They cast it sonically like Keith Urban’s “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” using bluesy triplets in tandem with a Hammond B-3 and a gritty electric guitar. Youmans revised a major chord near the end of the chorus as a minor one, heightening the self-pity in the text.
A day later, Westbrook returned to River House to do the final vocal with co-producer Lukas Scott (Austin Snell, David J). Scott used the room’s ambient side lighting to give the place a darker atmosphere, and Westbrook sang it like he meant it. The performance had some small quirks — he sings “pillow,” for example, as “pellow” — but those enhanced his authenticity.
“He does have unique little inflections and ways that he sings things, and sometimes, if he tries to change it, I tell him, ‘Don’t,’ ” Scott says. “His voice has so much character in the way that he sings those words.”
They got Kaylin Roberson to sing harmonies, allowing the song to subliminally hint at the woman who’s still inhabiting the singer’s mind, even if she’s no longer in his house.
“When you hear the female vocal and his vocal,” Scott says, “it can almost feel like there’s potentially a girl singing, and thinking the same thing.”
Westbrook thought initially that the song was too personal to appeal to anyone else, but River House vp/GM Zebb Luster suggested he might be overthinking it. The label released “House Again” to digital streaming partners on Oct. 18. It has rolled up more than 45 million streams since on Spotify alone, leading to a deal with Warner Music Nashville, which released it with River House to country radio via PlayMPE on Feb. 24. It debuted at No. 57 on the Country Airplay chart dated March 22. It’s at No. 31 on the multimetric Hot Country Songs list in its 19th charted week, creating a welcome dichotomy in his concerts.
“It did help get some stuff off my chest, and I do enjoy singing it with a fistful of anger every single night,” Westbrook says. “But how do you sing with a fistful of anger if you got 3,000 people singing along? You just can’t help but smile, so it’s been really cool.”
Morgan Wallen rolls up his 19th top 10 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “I’m the Problem” rises two spots to No. 9 on the tally dated March 29. It gained by 7% to 19 million audience impressions March 14-20, according to Luminate. The song follows “Love Somebody,” which became Wallen’s 16th Country Airplay No. […]