Music

26 Apr 2023

Billie Eilish Loves Playing Festivals, And Loves Donald Glover Even More

When Billie Eilish first stopped by The Late Late Show, she was an ascending alt-pop kid wonder. Things have moved on. The California native has conjured No. 1 singles and albums, set records, cut a James Bond theme, filled arenas and stadiums around the globe, and her name flapped from a Hollywood broadcast tower earlier in the day, courtesy of an oddball.

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Eilish is back from a spell on the sidelines, contributing vocals to Labrinth’s “Never Felt So Alone” and performing with the British artist at Coachella. A headline slot at 2023 Lollapalooza awaits. James Corden, however, is on the way out. The Brit is counting the hours until he completes his eight-year stint as host of the late-night show, this Thursday.

On Wednesday night (April 25), the “Bad Guy” singer joined Natalie Portman on the couch for a chat, and a stroll down memory lane. As he’s done with his guests all week, Corden pulled up the archives, a snap of a young Eilish about to hit the stage for her debut TV performance of “Ocean Eyes.”

“I remember that I was very nervous, and I was very sick. I was sick for like many years,” she recounts. “Everything I did I was sick.”

When Corden came to visit her backstage, he was the “first celebrity I’d ever been up close to.” Now they all want to meet her. True story.

In those half-dozen years, she’s also tried her hand at acting, including a stint in Donald Glover’s Swarm series. What would a dream role look like? “When Swarm was brought up to me, I was like, this is the thing. Donald Glover is my all-time hero. My lifelong hero.”

The 21-year-old digs a festival. Nothing unusual there. Only, when she attends one, she’s enjoying it from the stage, performing to enormous crowds. Expect more of that she headlines Lollapalooza this August. “I love playing festivals. It’s one of my favorite types of shows to do.”

Standing on stage before a ridiculous volume of people, as she did at the South American leg of Lollapalooza, “it’s just a sea… endless people. It’s like a feeling I don’t get in any other aspect of my life. It’s really incredible. It’s hard to be present sometimes, but I would say festivals…it might not be all your fans or your crowd and so I feel like I have to prove something.”

Watch the interview below.

26 Apr 2023

Inside the Jonas Brothers’ Intimate ‘One Night Only’ Los Angeles Show

Just a few weeks ago, the Jonas Brothers announced an upcoming performance at a very special venue: Yankee Stadium. Dubbed “One Night Only,” the demand soon forced a second show, both scheduled for August.

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But tonight, the band is keeping its promise: one and only one incredible night in Los Angeles. At least, for now. Nick teased at the end of the show the band would return in September, which was met with sky-high shrieks.

For the trio’s second show on this unofficial trek, which started in London earlier this month, the brothers came out swinging — perhaps practice for playing at a baseball stadium soon, with hits old and new receiving home-fun worthy roars.

After opening with current The Album single “Waffle House,” Joe addressed the crowd through deafening screams. “We’ve only done this one other time,” he cautioned before teasing, “We’re playing a good amount of songs from the new album.” Another promise kept. 

The band performed several unreleased songs off its forthcoming 12-track project, including “Summer Baby,” “Montana Sky,” “Sail Away,” “Vacation Eyes,” “Celebrate” “Little Bird” and “Walls” (the lattermost earned a live debut during the band’s recent gig on Saturday Night Live.) And while that material made up the entire first act, following a brief intermission the Jonas Brothers returned for a hits-filled second set, treating the intimate 1,600-capacity room just the same as it would – and will – a 46,000-plus person stadium. 

Check out the seven best moments from the show below.

Nick’s Early (and Epic) Tease

“It’s so good to be back,” Nick told the crowd while taking in the space. “We’re playing tonight at a venue we’ve never played in. This whole mini tour is just trying to check off bucket list items.”

“It brings me back to how this whole journey for this album started about a year-and-a-half ago,” he continued. “We were home, at our respective homes [in L.A.], and Jon Bellion walked us through a few songs,” all of which, he says, centered on what matters most to the brothers right now: family, fatherhood and love.

And finally, he delivered one final message before diving into the music. “We have a very special audience here tonight,” Nick said before delivering the best tease of the night. “We’re going to play some more songs from the album and then we’re going to step offstage and let you guys have a few drinks – looks like some of you already have – then we’re going to come back and play all the f—ing hits.”

The Brothers’ “Real Sexy” Moment

“This next song is a very special one to me,” said Kevin, introducing the sultry “Vacation Eyes.” “I know what it feels like to be in love, and it feels like you’re on vacation every single day – so this one is all about that.”

“It’s about to get real sexy in here, c’mon now,” added Nick before opening the track in his forceful falsetto over a groovy bass guitar lick. And later, fans are treated to a guttural growl from Joe, making the song even more unforgettable – and securing its status as a potential fan favorite off The Album.

Addressing Uncharted Territory

Three stools are placed on stage as Nick and Kevin took their seats on either end of Joe with their guitars in tow. “Now this is the moment in the show where we talk about something we’ve never talked about in our music before,” started Nick, which was met with whispered gasps. “Fatherhood.” He then dedicated “Little Bird,” the second-to-last song on The Album to “every parent in the room… and every child in the room.”

The Mind-Blowing Harmonies

It’s no secret Kevin, Nick and Joe can sing – and sound their best when harmonizing with one another. There was no stronger proof of this than on the set’s first-half closer, “Walls.” After live-debuting the song on SNL, it sounded even stronger now. Backed by a six-person chorus, the song’s powerful ending seemed to electrify the room, feeling much like a long-loved classic – thus serving as a perfect connector between the new album and the upcoming second hits-filled half. 

The Seamless Transitions

The show’s second half, of course, operated like a well-oiled machine as the brothers churned out hit after hit, oftentimes without the music ever really ending or the stage lights fully dimming. Yet one of the best transitions occurred between the band’s 2020 single “What a Man Gotta Do” and its 2007-released “That’s Just the Way We Roll.” A pivot so seamless it managed to jump entire decades.

Nick and Joe’s Sing-Off

Much to the surprise of many, Nick suddenly appeared alone on stage. He then took it by storm to deliver his stirring solo single “Close,” making a strong claim for it to be a set closer. But not if Joe has anything to say about it.

As Nick took a seat to the side of the stage, Joe came out to perform the DNCE hit “Toothbrush” (backed by DNCE bandmates and Jonas Brothers touring musicians Jack Lawless on drums and JinJoo Lee on guitar). All the while, Nick howls along to the “awhooo” filled chorus as Lee later shreds during a solo of her own.

But wait – there’s more. Nick then stands to perform “Jealous” as Joe took a seat and Kevin returned to play and sing harmonies alongside Nick. Soon enough, Joe was back on his feet so the three can close out the song together before ending the sing-off with DNCE’s defining song, “Cake By the Ocean.”

The Time-Traveling Ending

“We’re gonna take it back a few years for ya,” Joe told the crowd before the brothers dig into “Lovebug” off its 2008 album A Little Bit Longer. With a quick head nod from Joe, they then go right into “Year 3000” (from the year 2006) and “Burnin’ Up” before closing the night with “Sucker” off Happiness Begins, the band’s last studio album that marked the end of an unofficial 10-years-long hiatus. 

Thankfully, with The Album around the corner, fans went home certain of more on the way – and soon.

26 Apr 2023

Men at Work’s Colin Hay Talks Enduring Success of ‘Down Under,’ Remembers Barry Humphries

Colin Hay has touched the impossible. For a time in the early 1980s, Hay’s band Men at Work was owning sales charts, setting records, and making music that has stood the test of time.

Ask any Australian to sing the national anthem, you’ll receive the official version, “Advance Australia Fair,” followed by the unofficial cut — Men at Work’s “Down Under.”

With “Down Under” and its parent, Business as Usual, Hay and Co. simultaneously topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, at the time a feat as rare as rocking horse poop. The group went on to win the Grammy Award for best new artist.

It’s ubiquitous, a song with more than one billion streams and played everywhere Australians gather and celebrate. Where folks are having fun. When this reporter interviewed Shaquille O’Neal, the retired NBA great spotted the Australian accent and sang back the chorus of “Down Under.”

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Since its release in 1981, “Down Under” has forged a life of its own — from the struggle of a bruising copyright lawsuit over the catchy number’s flute refrain, to a drum ‘n’ bass cover by Luude which cracked the U.K. top 5 in 2022, and a fresh interpretation by Yolŋu surf rock band King Stingray.

“No, it doesn’t really happen, to hardly anybody,” he says of the breakout success of Men at Work. “It was massive. Having said that, we were always very ambitious. We always felt that we could do well. But we didn’t really know how well, but we got hints at it. We seemed to bypass a lot of the typical things that Australian bands did to achieve even national success. We just immediately tried to find an audience. That was our thing. We found that audience pretty quickly, albeit a quite small, very very passionate one, and quite engaged. We always knew we had a strong live following.”

On Thursday night (April 27), Hay will take a bow at the 2023 APRA Music Awards at ICC Sydney, where he’ll receive the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music, one of the highest honors in this market’s music community.

Hay will be honored for an outstanding career, that included so much more than a single hit. “Who Can It Be Now” logged a single week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. “Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake” both hit the top 10 on the Hot 100, “Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive” cracked the top 40 (at No. 28).

Speaking to Billboard from Sacramento, CA, Hay admits “blunders” made, which included an “absolutely horrendous deal” done at the start with CBS Records (“It was a really horrible, horrible record deal,” he insists), and a followup album that didn’t meet expectations, with the band at least.

“We made some pretty, pretty sizable mistakes, really, early on in our career. Being five musicians, having had that success, we didn’t really know what we were doing, you know. We thought we did, but we didn’t, really.”

“Down Under” introduced the rest of the world to the Australian vernacular, and specifically the word “chunder,” a variation on “puke”. For that we can thank the late comedian Barry Humphries, and his character Sir Les Patterson.

Late Men at Work bandmate Greg Ham and Hay “were hugely inspired by Humphries and Peter Cook. We were massive fans of Humphries. A lot of that video was inspired by him and certainly the use of the word the word ‘chunder,’ because that he had a great fascination it.” Humphries died last Saturday (April 22) aged 89.

The U.S. was late to the party with Business as Usual, though the rest of the world arrived on time (Business as Usual was released in November 1981,and wouldn’t hit the summit of the Billboard 200 chart until November 1982).

With followup Cargo, reps from the band’s label said to hold off on its release. “Wait for six months, a year, before you release the second album, which made perfect sense,” was the advice, he recounts. “It makes perfect sense now, but at the time, we didn’t listen to him.”

Cargo peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. “It still was a successful record. We still sold millions of records, but it wasn’t like the first one,” says Hay. “With the benefit of hindsight, of course, we should have waited. That was a classic blunder as they say.”

The band went their separate ways in 1985, but the music still moves. Career record sales top 30 million, according to PRO APRA AMCOS.

Hay was born in Scotland, before settling in the land Down Under. And like many of his Australian rock ‘n’ roll peers, including Angus Young and Jimmy Barnes, his still carries the accent.

Regrets, he has a few. Highlights, many more. Among the highpoints, Hay recounts a performance in Brazil, “playing in this jungle for 25,000 people” with indigenous dancers alongside him on stage. “They were just incredible. They gave me this kind of energy and I was kind of like floating singing the third verse. I thought to myself and the court case, they can’t touch it. This is just incredible. People in courtrooms will never ever understand that.”

Hay isn’t slowing down. His music was introduced to new generations through Scrubs and Garden State, and he continues to tour, both as a solo artist and as a guitarist in Ringo Starr’s All-Star Band. The full-length solo album Now and the Evermore dropped in 2022, just a year after I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself.

“I’m going to be spending the second half of this year probably messing around with a few ideas,” he admits.

But first, APRA will salute Hay and the late concerts giant Colleen Ironside at the 2023 APRA Music Awards — “two uniquely Australian music industry figures,” comments Dean Ormston, CEO, APRA AMCOS. “Colleen championed Australian songwriters and artists and created live music pathways into Asia with a business acumen that was years ahead of her peers. Colin is a songwriter of the highest level and with the biggest heart, whose songs continue to connect and hit No. 1 on the charts.”

Hay will be in the room as the man of honor. “It gives me a great excuse to come down (to Australia),” he says. “Not that I really need an excuse.”

25 Apr 2023

‘Free Billie Eilish’: Attention-Seeker Flies Sign on Hollywood Tower

Billie Eilish sure isn’t a bad guy, but the jury is out on a man who climbed the KTLA tower in Los Angeles, with an attention-seeking sign.

The as-yet unnamed man managed to reach the roof and climb the TV station tower in Hollywood, where he waved a flag reading “’Free Billie Eilish.” The other side appears to read “MK ultra sex slaves donald marshall clones.”

Footage captured from the scene late Tuesday (April 25), at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Bronson Avenue near Van Ness Avenue, shows the man dangling the cloth sign, with an electric guitar slung over his chest.

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According to ABC, authorities surrounded the 160-foot tower, attempting to convince the man to come back down. Sunset Boulevard was reportedly shut down in the meantime.

It’s unclear what the message refers to, though that hasn’t stopped it from trending on Twitter.

Eilish isn’t locked away. Indeed, she made a coming out of sorts earlier this month by lending hervocals to Labrinth’s “Never Felt So Alone,” which she followed up by performing with the British artist at the Mojave Tent for Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

The “Bad Guy” singer has two full length albums to her name, 2019’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, and 2021’s Happier Than Ever, both of which reigned over albums charts everywhere. Along the way, she became just the second artist in Grammy Awards history to win all four of the Big Four categories, and became the youngest artist to write and perform a James Bond theme, “No Time to Die,” aged just 18. She has yet to comment on the strange situation.

See images and clips of the Hollywood tower climber.

25 Apr 2023

Metallica, Waterparks, Yung Bleu & Prof Bow in Top 10 on Album Sales Chart

Metallica’s 72 Seasons opens at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated April 29) with the largest sales week in over three-and-a-half years for any rock or hard rock album. The set bows with 134,000 copies sold in the United States in the week ending April 20, according to Luminate. It’s the eighth No. 1 on Top Album Sales for the band.

72 Seasons marks the group’s first original album in nearly seven years, since 2016’s chart-topping Hardwired… To Self-Destruct.

Also on Top Album Sales, Waterparks notches its highest charting set and best sales week ever – as Intellectual Property bows at No. 2. Plus, Yung Bleu and Prof both log their first top 10s with the arrivals of Love Scars II and Horse, respectively.

Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

72 Seasons bows with the biggest sales week for any rock or hard rock album since Fear Inoculum’s debut with 248,000 sold (No. 1, chart dated Sept. 14, 2019).

Of 72 Seasons’ 134,000 sold, physical sales comprise 106,500 (59,000 on CD, 42,500 on vinyl and 5,000 on cassette) and digital download sales comprise nearly 27,500. The vinyl sales sum marks Metallica’s largest sales week for an album on the format since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991.

Waterparks collects its highest-charting set and best sales week yet as Intellectual Property debuts at No. 2 with 16,000 copies sold. It’s the third top 10 for the rock act. Melanie Martinez’s former No. 1 Portals falls 2-3 with 13,000 sold (down 33%), Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Midnights climbs 5-4 with nearly 13,000 (down 6%) and Morgan Wallen’s former leader One Thing at a Time vaults 15-5 with 12,000 (up 102%) after a new vinyl edition of the album was released.

Yung Bleu bows at No. 6 with Love Scars II, scoring his first top 10 and best sales week yet, as the album starts with 10,000 sold. Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. falls 4-7 with 9,000 sold (down 35%). Rapper Prof achieves his first top 10 and best sales week with the No. 8 start of Horse (9,000 sold). TWICE’s former No. 1 Ready to Be dips 8-9 with nearly 9,000 (down 18%) and TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s chart-topping The Name Chapter: Temptation slips 9-10 with nearly 8,000 (down 14%).

In the week ending April 20, there were 2.023 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 0.4% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.675 million (up 0.4%) and digital albums comprised 348,000 (up 0.4%).

There were 693,000 CD albums sold in the week ending April 20 (up 0.3% week-over-week) and 965,000 vinyl albums sold (up 0.4%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 10.464 million (up 3.8% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 14.487 million (up 27.7%).

Overall year-to-date album sales total 30.786 million (up 9.7% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 25.116 million (up 16.4%) and digital album sales total 5.670 million (down 12.6%).

25 Apr 2023

Swizz Beatz Reveals How Son Egypt Ended Up Producing a Kendrick Lamar Song at 5 Years Old

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! Swizz Beatz joined The Jennifer Hudson Show on Tuesday (April 25), where he gushed over his 12-year-old son Egypt, whom he shares with wife Alicia Keys.

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At one point in the conversation, Jennifer Hudson mentioned that thanks to his musical talents, Egypt ended up producing a Kendrick Lamar song when he was just five years old. “I’m jealous as hell of that one,” Swizz, a Grammy-winning producer himself, joked. “I thought me and Kendrick was cool.”

The star went on to explain that Egypt and Lamar’s bond began at a past Super Bowl game. “He and Kendrick were talking for, like, 40 minutes,” Swizz recalled. “I went over and said to Kendrick, ‘Is he bothering you? Should I move him? Are you enjoying yourself?’ He said, ‘No, Swizz, I had writer’s block and what Egypt is telling me is helping me deal with something. I was like, ‘Man, he’s five years old.’ To this day, I still don’t know what he was helping him deal with. I let it happen.”

As a result, Egypt ended up getting a producer credit on “untitled 07,” off Lamar’s 2016 Untitled Unmastered project.

However, don’t expect Egypt to follow in his famous parents’ footsteps. The pre-teen joined his father later on in the interview, noting that he has other plans in mind for his future. “I love music but I don’t really want to be a musician. I want to be a basketball player,” he told Hudson.

Watch the full interview below.

25 Apr 2023

Jelly Roll’s Wife Bunnie XO Defends Morgan Wallen Amid Canceled Concert Backlash

In light of the fallout from fans following Morgan Wallen‘s last-minute cancellation of his headlining show in Oxford, Mississippi over the weekend, the wife of another country music hitmaker is chiming in.

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Bunnie XO, the wife of “Son of a Sinner” hitmaker Jelly Roll, recently took to social media to discuss what goes on behind the scenes and how hard artists work to get onstage.

“I wanted to chime in on this Morgan Wallen situation that’s going on,” Bunnie XO said via Instagram Stories on Monday (April 24). “I’ve been watching it unfold all day long. I just feel like I need to say something because as a wife of an artist, I have seen what goes on behind the scenes and it’s not easy. Those decisions are never easy.”

She shed light on the effort that artists (including her husband Jelly Roll) put in to get onstage and perform for fans, saying, “I have seen my husband getting literally, like, two or three breathing treatments because he has bronchitis so bad, and an IV, getting a shot of Toradol, taking steroids like the steroid pack that the doctor gives you, I mean, like doing all of that just so he makes it onstage, because he knows that if he doesn’t make it onstage because, one, the backlash he’ll get, and two, he never wants to upset the fans.”

She added, “When an artist has to make a decision to cancel a show, especially when you get to arenas like that, it’s one of the hardest decisions they have ever made. It’s not them sitting in the back and saying, like, ‘Oh, you know, I don’t want to show up to work today.’ There are so many factors that go into that. Not only that, but they lose out on money. They have to pay the venues back. I understand, people have to travel thousands of miles to see their favorite artist. I understand that parents have had to get babysitters and time off work and this is their one night out that they are really looking forward to, but you also have to understand that health is the most important thing. If somebody’s sick, they cannot go out there and give their all. If he really lost his voice and he went out there onstage and he was singing, [and giving] the worst version of himself that he could, not only would you guys be mad at him still — you all would be making videos about that, like, ‘Look at Morgan Wallen’s worst performance ever’ — and trying to get views from it. An artist is damned if they do, damned if they don’t.”

She ended with a bit of advice for fans and those ready criticize artists who cancel shows. “But I guess my whole point is I’m coming on here to say, that maybe, have a little grace. It’s like, be nice. Be kind. It costs nothing to be nice and to just kind of put yourself in that other person’s shoes.”

Following the concert cancellation, Wallen has postponed additional shows that had been slated for this week and told fans he is on vocal rest.

25 Apr 2023

Meghan Trainor & Daryl Sabara Reveal Sex of Baby No. 2

Meghan Trainor is gearing up to be the ultimate boy mom!

The “Made You Look” singer and her husband, actor Daryl Sabara, stopped by The Kelly Clarkson Show on Tuesday (April 25), where Clarkson reminded the couple that they revealed the sex of their first-born son Riley on her show more than two years ago.

“Let’s do it again with Kelly Clarkson!” Trainor shouted, before the lights dimmed and a spotlight appeared on the couple. “God’s” voice then is heard over the speakers, and he requests that the sex reveal be done by none other than Riley himself. The adorable two-year-old then appears on the screen behind the couple, shouting, “It’s a boy!”

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Trainor revealed that she’s pregnant back in January. “BABY #2 COMING THIS SUMMER,” the singer captioned a snap of herself on Instagram holding up a series of sonogram images.

“I’m also trying to get pregnant,” the singer told Billboard last year, foreshadowing her upcoming bundle of joy. “I’m trying to have four kids and get them out. I don’t know if we’ll tour next year, because touring is so exhausting and brutal still.”

She continued, “I don’t know if I’m as cool as Cardi B. The icon that’s like, ‘Sure I can tour and perform and do SNL pregnant.’ I don’t know if I’m as strong as her. I remember being pregnant and being like, ‘I really should lay down.’ I was pooped, so I don’t know if I want to sign up for a tour and then get pregnant while doing that. It’s a big debate, but if something happens and I can open for someone or do a short run, I would love to do something like that.”

25 Apr 2023

Halsey Splits With Alev Aydin, Father of Her Son, After More Than 3 Years Together

After more than three years of dating, Halsey and Alev Aydin are parting ways, Billboard can confirm.

The couple’s decision to break up was “amicable,” according to sources and they are committed to healthily co-parenting their one-year-old son Ender.

In documents obtained by Billboard, the 28-year-old “Without Me” singer filed a petition earlier this month to request primary physical custody of the couple’s child. In the documents, Halsey is asking to have joint legal custody of the child with Aydin, and the writer/producer to be granted visitation rights. Sources explained that the filing was simply a “formality” to allow Halsey to freely travel with their son as a touring artist.

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Halsey surprised fans in early 2021 when they revealed that she was pregnant, tagging Aydin in the post, also confirming their romance. “Alev and I have been really good friends for four years. And when the stars aligned, our relationship became romantic and it was pretty evident that he and I were both like, ‘Oh, my gosh! You’re the person I’m supposed to start a family with,’” the singer previously told Allure. “Nobody knew I was dating someone. As if people were entitled to an update, like, ‘I’ve met someone, we’re going on dates, it’s getting serious, they’ve moved in, we’re planning a child, we are having a baby, we had a baby, this is the gender….’”

Aydin was also tapped to write the movie about Halsey’s life that was announced in 2018, and Halsey revealed that the biopic was postponed on Twitter, writing, “Bc alev was supposed to be writing it the past 3 years and we slowly fell in love instead. you know the rest!”

25 Apr 2023

Keith Gattis’ Biggest Country Airplay Hits

Songwriter, producer, artist and musician Keith Gattis, who died Sunday at age 52, left behind a legacy of musical contributions to projects for artists including Kenny Chesney, George Strait, Randy Houser, Charlie Robison, George Jones, Sara Evans and Waylon Payne.

Gattis was born May 26, 1971, in Georgetown, Texas, and began performing in the Austin area as a teenager, before relocating to Nashville.

In 1996, Gattis released his self-titled album for RCA Nashville, which included the singles “Real Deal” and “Little Drops of My Heart.” In 2002, Gattis became a guitar player for Dwight Yoakam and contributed to Yoakam’s albums, including 2005’s Blame the Vain and 2004’s Dwight’s Used Records. In 2005, Gattis released another album, Big City Blues, via Smith Music Group. Along the way, he penned songs that would become hits for Chesney and Strait, and contributed musically to an array of projects for artists including Randy Travis, Payne and Houser.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to support Gattis’ family, and at press time, had raised over $141,000.

Here’s a look at Gattis’ top Billboard Country Airplay hits as a writer and artist in ascending order.

“Little Drops of My Heart,” Keith Gattis, No. 53

In 1996, Gattis was an artist signed with RCA Records Nashville. He made his first foray onto Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart with this solo-penned track, which was produced by Norro Wilson. The track peaked at No. 53, but it was rooted in the piano-inflected, honky-tonk boogie so popular in the mid-1990s and positioned Gattis as a neo-traditionalist with plenty of twang.

“Let It Go,” George Strait, No. 46

Strait has a “Hakuna Matata” moment in this easy-going, loping song that was the lead-off track from his 2015 album, Cold Beer Conversation. Strait, already renowned for being laidback, takes it to a whole new level of nonchalance on this toe-tapper, written by Gattis, Strait and Strait’s son Bubba. Accepting life on life’s terms is the only way to go, Strait sings, and fighting fate leads to a world of misery: “Let it go/you really gotta let it go,” Strait stresses. “Let it all wash on under the bridge/blow it a kiss/Give it a rest ‘cause it is what is is.”

“What Whiskey Does,” Randy Houser featuring Hillary Lindsey, No. 31

The first single from Houser’s acclaimed 2019 album, Magnolia, was also produced by Gattis, who wrote the track with Houser and Lindsey. The swaying track, bolstered by stellar steel guitar work, reflects on letting the whiskey Houser’s about to partake in, do its thing—good or bad. Maybe it will “make me lose my mind” or “make me put my first through this wall,” he sings and those are only two of the possible options. Regardless, the contemplative track hits all the right notes as Houser gives in to chilling on a bar stool and letting the liquor lead him.

“I Got A Car,” George Strait, No. 17

Written by Gattis with the legendary Tom Douglas, George Strait landed a top 20 hit in 2014 with this charming mid-tempo full circle story song that starts Strait’s character picking up a woman hanging out in a “cotton dress/ summer tanned pretty,” with his main selling point seeming to be that he has a car. They amble into a relationship, taking it one day at a time as they take to the road with no particular goal. Cut to an indeterminate time later, she’s pregnant, the power’s out in their small home and she’s fretting, but he’s still got a car and once again, it will get them where they need to go.

“When I See This Bar,” Kenny Chesney, No. 14

In 2013, Chesney earned a top 15 Country Airplay hit with this song, which Gattis wrote with Chesney. The song was included on Chesney’s Life on a Rock album. In 2013, Chesney told Billboard that “When I See This Bar” “defines a time when I first started going to the Virgin Islands, and I had a group of people I became great friends with. It was completely different from the life I had built on the road, and here [in Nashville]. They didn’t know what I did, or they knew and didn’t care. And I think that all of us, no matter where you live or what your reality is in life, all of us have that circle of friends that have that place they hang out. For me it was a beach bar. I think a bar has a way of connecting all those friends, you have an emotional attachment to that place, even if you don’t know it at the time. That’s the place you guys meet, people fall in love at that bar, they fall out of love at that bar, I think it’s possible for them to fall back into life at that bar.”

“El Cerrito Place,” Kenny Chesney, No. 10

In 2012, Chesney earned a top 10 on the Country Airplay chart his version of Gattis’s “El Cerrito Place,” which Chesney co-produced with Buddy Cannon. The song had previously been recorded by Charlie Robison on his 2004 album Good Times, and Chesney included his own version on his album Welcome to the Fishbowl. In 2012, Chesney told Billboard that he realized the risk in recording a song that already has some well-known versions.

“‘El Cerrito Place’ was one of them, because it’s been cut twice before and both were really good,” Chesney said, adding that songwriter Keith Gattis’ version “is incredible, and I heard Charlie [Robison’s] version of it 10 years ago when it came out, and it haunted me. Now all this time has passed, and I still think it’s a little taboo to touch it-but I sure felt it. The time was right for me vocally and emotionally to sink my teeth into that song.”