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NBC will be ringing in the holiday season with A Motown Christmas. Hosted by Smokey Robinson and Halle Bailey, the two-hour special will feature Motown legends and contemporary stars performing more than 25 of the label’s timeless hits as well as holiday favorites. A Motown Christmas will air Dec. 11 (9 p.m. ET/PT) on NBC and the next day on Peacock.
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In addition to Robinson, the lineup of Motown legends who will be performing includes Gladys Knight, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas and the Temptations. Besides Bailey, the contemporary stars also sharing the stage are Ashanti, Andra Day, BeBe Winans, Jamie Foxx, JoJo, Jordin Sparks, mgk, October London and Pentatonix.
Among the special’s musical highlights: a selection of chart-topping hits such as “My Girl,” “Tears of a Clown” and “ABC”; tributes to Diana Ross and The Supremes, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder; a new rendition of “Last Christmas” by mgk; a salute to Motown founder Berry Gordy by Day and a world exclusive performance from the Broadway company MJ the Musical
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In a statement, NBCUniversal Entertainment’s executive vp of live events & specials Jen Neal said, “Motown’s timeless hits have played as a soundtrack for American families for the last six decades. NBC is honored to spotlight the iconic legacy of Motown with a festive celebration for the holiday season.”
A Motown Christmas is executive produced by actress/director/choreographer Debbie Allen and former Motown Productions president Suzanne de Passe and Madison Jones of De Passe Jones Entertainment. Leading production of the telecast is SpringHill; musical director is Rickey Minor.
“We’re excited to usher in the holiday spirit by bringing nostalgic performances and fresh renditions of Motown hits to homes across the world,” said SpringHill CCO Jamal Henderson. In the same announcement release, de Passe added, “I’m delighted to join Debbie Allen, SpringHill and NBC to bring Motown music, great artists and warm, family feelings together in a grand celebration of Christmas.”
Noted Allen, “I’m thrilled to be back in the saddle with Motown and Suzanne de Passe to bring to the world this much-needed holiday family special. The music of Motown has always been magical, and we are going to sing and dance everyone into Christmas joy!”
Prior to A Motown Christmas, NBC has aired two Motown television specials: Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever and Motown Returns to the Apollo. Each won the Emmy Award for outstanding music or comedy program.
Among Texas born-and-raised entertainer Cody Johnson’s five nominations at the upcoming CMA Awards is an album of the year nomination for his 2023 Warner Music Nashville/CoJo Music project Leather, which spurred the No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit “The Painter” and the top five hit “Dirt Cheap.”
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Just a year removed from that album’s release, Johnson is already building on that work with the Leather Deluxe Edition, featuring 13 more songs, out today (Friday, Nov. 1).
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With Leather, Johnson aimed to create a work that represented his creative vision at that moment — a project worthy of an album of the year nomination — whereas the additional songs as part of the deluxe album offer Johnson a broader palette for exploration, musically and sonically, fusing elements of rock, ‘90s country, bluegrass and even blues.
“I wanted to have fun with Deluxe,” Johnson tells Billboard. “If you were to listen to one through 12 [on Leather] and then one through 13 [the deluxe version], it should all go together and it should make you feel like we put out two different things, but it should be something that’s kind of cohesive as one big piece.”
Even before partnering with one of Nashville’s powerhouse major labels in 2019, Johnson had already independently issued a half a dozen projects on his own CoJo label. He broke through to mainstream country radio success with 2018’s top 5 Country Airplay hit “On My Way to You,” rang the bell with his first Country Airplay No. 1 hit “’Til You Can’t” in 2021 and expanded on those laurels with Leather.
Along the way, pairing those releases and hits with steady-handed touring and his hard-charging, energetic stage show has aided in building Johnson’s reputation as one of traditional country music’s tip-of-the-spear torchbearers.
He’s also fast gaining prominence as a go-to artist for any songwriter with their sights set on potential awards recognition. The Johnson-recorded “’Til You Can’t” earned a Grammy for best country song. Two other Johnson-recorded songs, “Dirt Cheap” (written by Josh Phillips) and “The Painter” (written by Benjy Davis, Kat Higgins and Ryan Larkins) are contenders for CMA song of the year (the honor goes to the writers).
On his deluxe album, Johnson contributed writing to a trio of songs, “The Mustang,” “Georgia Peaches” and “Country Boy Singin’ the Blues,” but as with his previous albums, he largely turned to Nashville’s top-flight songwriters. Whether he is a writer on a particular song or not, he delivers each with his straightforward candor.
Another standout on Leather Deluxe Edition is the cinematic “The Fall,” which lays out an arc of triumphs over setbacks, heartbreaks, and failures.
“You can visualize a movie in your head when you listen to it and everybody’s story is a little bit different…that’s kind of the story of my life,” Johnson says, quoting a few of the song’s lyrics. “’The ride was worth the fall. The fall was worth the smiles. The smiles are worth the tears. The tears are worth the miles.’ [Durango Artist Management’s] Scott Gunter played me the demo and I just had tears in my eyes. It made me sit down and listen, just visualizing things I’ve been through, the climb and the fall and getting back up again and persevering. It’s a very well-written song.”
“I’m Gonna Love You,” an eight-year-old song, had previously been pitched to Carrie Underwood, before it made its way to Johnson, who asked Underwood to collaborate on the song with him.
“I had no idea that she had even heard the song,” Johnson says, adding, “When I sent it over to them, she was like, ‘Well this is the second time this song has made its way into my life.’ I think it’s a God thing. I think we were meant to sing that song together and the timing was right. And it could almost be a pop crossover, it has that feel to it, but we’re singing it like a gospel song.”
Both Johnson and Oklahoma native Underwood possess powerful voices, but he says their work together laying down the lead vocals and harmonies was easy: “A lot of times when you get big singers in the same studio, it can turn into a ‘who outsang who’ thing, but this was not the case. And I have a lot of respect for her as a person and as a vocalist.”
His prolific release of songs over the past year does present the task of continually updating his setlist, especially as he will launch his Leather Deluxe Tour in 2025, which will includes shows in Australia and New Zealand.
“There are a few songs that have similar values,” he says. “To me, ‘People in the Back’ from Leather is a huge live song, the rock moment. ‘How Do You Sleep at Night’ from the deluxe edition has a lot of that same value. There will be sections of the set that I will move stuff in and move stuff out. Because my set list is very strategically organized as far as the feeling of the crowd. But then again, with songs like [2011’s] ‘Diamond in My Pocket,’ it’s hard not to play that song.”
Another fan favorite that occasionally makes it into Johnson’s setlist is a cover version of The Chicks’ “Travelin’ Soldier” — but while fans have regularly asked for him to release a recorded version of the song, Johnson says, “I kind of think just let it live in the moment. If you try to overthink it, sometimes it might not turn out the way you want. I think there’s a live version out there. Until people just absolutely beat my door down and say ‘You gotta put this on there.’ There’s a cover I have in mind for my next album and it’s probably something nobody’s going to expect, but that will be another moment. We may never do that one live and just kind of keep people guessing.”
Just how to work in the Underwood duet into Johnson’s solo headlining sets presents somewhat of a challenge for an artist who has fashioned a career dedicated to giving fans authentic musicianship.
“My band and I don’t run tracks. We don’t have a single track onstage,” Johnson says. “But I think this is a track that if we run a video wall [featuring Underwood] and have her voice there, I think that’s an obvious track. It’s one thing if you’re listening to a band, you hear fiddle and there’s no fiddle — that’s just a track, man, and we ain’t never doing that. But if you obviously know that Carrie Underwood is not there [at the show] … I think that that might be the one that we can pull it off and say, ‘Look, come on. Y’all knew she wasn’t here. We’re just doing this so we can play the song for you, and it’s going to sound really weird if I sing it by myself.’”
In 2021, the Shaun Silva-directed documentary Dear Rodeo: The Cody Johnson Story spotlighted his journey from professional bull rider and corrections officer to arena-headlining, country music hitmaker. More recently, Johnson has been in talks with Yellowstone creator/director Taylor Sheridan about upcoming projects. Though there is nothing official in the works at the moment, Johnson says he is interested in prospects as an actor.
“I think I could play the villain just as well as I could play the hero,” he says. “I love movies and cinema, and hunting for little Easter eggs in the movie. I think it doesn’t matter what kind of part I get, I’ll try my best in that role.”
For now, Johnson is focused on two of his first loves: music and roping. A few weeks ago, Johnson launched the inaugural CoJo Open Team Roping event in Belton, Texas.
“This will be an annual thing,” Johnson says. “I think it was a huge success, and it was important for me to have something like that in the western world to not only give back to charities, but to give back to the rodeo and a cowboy, western way of life for these guys that live the same life I do. I just happen to play music on the weekends and be on camera and go across the world doing all that stuff. But at my core, that’s who I am, is a cowboy.”
Whether onstage or in the riding arena, the father of two is mindful of the message of ambition, resilience, and a dogged work ethic he’s sending to the next generation.
“I think it’s also important for kids to see me on stage and on TV, but then watch me go out there and battle it out in the arena. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but [it’s about being able] to keep the same head on your shoulders and say, ‘Look, if we were roping tomorrow, I’d be back tomorrow competing.’”
Jamey Johnson is alive and well. That is more than evident on Midnight Gasoline, the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s first new solo studio album in 14 years, out Nov. 8.
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However, the 10-time Grammy nominee is the first to admit he was guided by the spirits of those who have passed while making the set. There’s Toby Keith, whose death spurred him to return to the studio. Then there’s Tony Joe White, who he was writing “Saturday Night in New Orleans” with when the “Poke Salad Annie” writer died (he finished the song years later with Chris Stapleton). Then Johnson recorded the album at Cash Cabin, Johnny and June Cash’s former studio now run by their son, musician/producer John Carter Cash.
Earlier this year, Johnson recorded 30 songs over three weeks at Cash Cabin, so dedicated to the effort that he slept outside the studio in his bus. The 12-track Midnight Gasoline will be the first in a number of albums called the Cash Cabin Series coming through Warner Music Nashville in conjunction with his own Big Gassed Records.
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Over Zoom in his first interview about the new album, Johnson stresses that he’s been busy touring and writing since he released his last solo album, 2010’s The Guitar Song, but also admits that while he never stopped writing completely, his output was often severely limited as he replenished his creativity. “I didn’t write unless I absolutely had to write. And that was taking a page out of Roger Miller’s book,” he says. “Roger told Willie [Nelson] years ago that if you’re not writing, it’s because your well is empty, and you need to go out there and live some and fill up your well. And that’s what Willie told me. I think it just took me a long time to get my well full.”
Johnson’s well has provided country music with some of its most resonant music over the last few decades. Johnson, considered one of the most significant country songwriters and vocalists of the last generation, is one of only two songwriters to win two song of the year awards in the same year from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association — the other being one of his musical heroes, the late Kris Kristofferson. (Johnson won for “Give It Away” in 2007 and “In Color” in 2009.)
Johnson, who is on Life is a Carnival: The Last Waltz Tour ‘24 with musicians Don Was, Ryan Bingham, Lukas Nelson, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench celebrating the music of The Band, talked to Billboard before he flew from Nashville for a date in Omaha.
Johnson is as eloquent in conversation as he is in song, giving thoughtful, reflective answers. He spoke candidly about his hard-won sobriety, what he thinks about the new generation of artists and why he and Keith had unfinished business.
You’ve been touring a lot the last several years. How did that inform your writing and getting back in the studio?
There’s the songwriter that just watches people and studies. There’s a part of that you get standing on the center of that stage, looking out over the faces and seeing how they react to certain messages or certain lines that enhances you as a songwriter. So, when you get that kind of positive feedback as a songwriter just off of the faces, you tend to go back in the writing room and you want to write something that draws a similar reaction or at least it feeds you to say that as a songwriter you’re headed in a correct direction or in the desirable direction.
The album’s emotional centerpiece is “One More Time,” about the deep longing to hold a lost loved one again and playing God to make that happen. What inspired it?
I wrote it with good buddy of mine, Rob Hatch, and Ernest. The inspiration behind that [was] in a short amount of time in my life I had a lot of death to deal with. It was very close friends, mentors, legends in the business, people that I was close to, people that I had benefited by knowing in a very heartfelt way, people that I owe a lot of my success to, people that I loved. And when they’re gone, you can’t help it— you dream of the day when you get to see them again. This song basically says. why would l feel this way unless there’s a time I can see you? If I were the Creator, I would create these things in such a way that I’ll always get you back one more time.
It was your first time writing with Ernest. You’re usually writing with your contemporaries more than the next generation.
We did a charity golf tournament together. It’s one that I do every year with George Strait. Ernest came to be my partner this year. And one thing I’ve learned about Ernest is he is quick-witted beyond belief. His mind’s always working. He and I were absolutely miserable golfers together, but we had the most fun out there doing it. That speaks volumes about somebody: how well can you keep your head up, keep your spirits up and have fun even while you’re losing on a golf course. You would have never thought we were losing, we looked like a couple of champions out there having the time of our life [Laughs.]
He’s just absolutely brilliant. He’s got to be one of the brightest in this younger class of songwriters today. And that’s saying something. He is holding his own with artists like HARDY and Riley Green, Luke Combs. He’s got that high frequency going on. Lainey Wilson, Ella Langley, Megan Moroney, Ashley McBride. I get around these people at the different industry things that we do, and I’m just mesmerized. There’s a reason these kids are on top of the world today, because they’re f–king good.
Another song on here that feels personal is “21 Guns,” a very moving song about being at the graveside of someone who dies in the line of duty, which you performed at PBS’ National Memorial Day Concert this year. As a former Marine, what does it mean to you that you’ve written a song that can be played on these very momentous, somber occasions?
One song could never be enough to properly acknowledge the sacrifice that’s been made by not just men and women in uniform, but also the Gold Star families that are left behind after that sacrifice has been made. It takes a bunch of songs to get to the heart of that subject and I’m glad I’ve got one to add to that mix. My only concern [was] I didn’t want to feel like it was pandering, because for me it comes from a really honest place. I’ve had friends die in combat. I’ve had friends die in the line of duty, whether it’s in combat or on the police force or fire department.
One of the first songs released from the project is Sober. How long you’ve been sober and what prompted that song?
I had my last drink in September 2011. Then I quit smoking pot in 2015. I think that lasted about eight years. Nine years. In that time period, it was all about sobriety. And with a sober mind, I’m able to do things like get a pilot’s license, manage a business, start a product line. I’m sober for the most part, but every now and then, I may still break out a joint if I’m writing or something like that. But I don’t play games with the alcohol. That’s what led me down a dark path of self-destruction back then and I barely survived. Alcohol was an incendiary way of destructing myself. Everything just went up in in flames and you couldn’t put the fire out, you just had to wait for it to all come to ashes and then try to rebuild when you got done. And it seemed to me like I owed myself a better way to live than that.
You recorded 30 songs. What kind of roll out do you see for the rest of the Cash Cabin Series?
We’re gonna keep them coming. I’m not waiting for a specific time period. I’m happy with whatever release [schedule] Warner decides to make. That’s what I’m using the label for. I don’t have a marketing department and I don’t have a bunch of people that that sit around testing the climate to find out when’s the best time to release this or that. I’m happy to let the label make that their contribution.
This is your first album for Warner Music Group. You signed with the label based on your relationship with co-chair/co-president Cris Lacy. What makes that so special?
We’ve known each other since both of us were starting our careers in this business. She was a song plugger. I was a songwriter and at the time, I didn’t even have or want a publishing deal. I was just a rogue writer running around singing demos, and everybody knew my name. We kept up over the years, but there never was an opportunity for us to work together. A couple of years ago she came to me and said, “You have got to start making records again.”
It wasn’t like the only reason she wanted a record was to have something to sell. She wasn’t coming to me from her position of authority at Warner [Music Nashville] Warner is doing fine without me. Chris Lacey is doing fine without me. She just wanted me to do fine, too. She wanted me to be doing better than what I was doing, and she knew that releasing the music was going to make me better. It was going to heal me, and she was right. She had to come and pull me through the motions. Everything that she did for me, I desperately needed it. And at this point, I have nothing but appreciation for her and gratitude for her as a friend coming and helping me through that process.
You’ve really stepped up your social media game recently and posted a really sweet post when Kris Kristofferson died a few weeks ago. You both were in the military and both are considered among the best country songwriters ever. Did you ever get to write together?
Well, especially with those guys I was reluctant to ever mention writing. I didn’t want to. As much as I wanted to as a songwriter, I always felt like it would have dampened the relationship if I seemed like just another handout going, “Hey, please give me some of your time. Please endorse me in this way.” I’d rather just be the friendly face that sits around gobbling up stories that they’re willing to share, so I spent my time around Kris and Merle [Haggard] and Willie [Nelson], just absorbing whatever they were willing to share. Hank Cochran and I even talked about writing, but I benefited more from my time being around him not writing than I would have if I had left there with a catalog of No. 1 hits.
You did write with Toby Keith. What was that like?
Toby Keith had one of the most amazing memories of anybody. I mean, perfect recall on lyrics he hasn’t seen or heard in 34 years. Remembers every chord, remembers every word. He could remember names, faces, conversations, ideas, just an infinite stream of memory. And as a songwriter, he was very picky about phrases he would use. If it didn’t sound like his vernacular, it had to change until it fit right because he wasn’t going to put something in there that didn’t sound the way he would talk… We were working on a song toward the end. I called him up one night and shared a few lines with him, and he added a few lines and we turned around and wrote this whole verse. We laughed a bunch, and it was one of those that I thought, “This is great. There’s gonna come a time I’ll get out to Oklahoma or maybe he and I will meet up somewhere at a golf tournament, but we’ll have some time sit down and finish this thing up.”
He always gave me the feeling that this wasn’t nothing. He was gonna beat this: “You don’t worry about me, pal. I got this” — and that lasted right up until February [when he died of cancer.]. I don’t know what happens with the songs now, but I know some time is probably going to go by, and I might break them back out and revisit them later on. But I think right now, the friends of his that I would consider finishing those songs with are still hurting, and it’s probably not time to start trying to do that just yet.
How did his death affect this album?
The writing was already coming back to me, piece by piece, but I still didn’t have any ambitions on making a record. When Toby passed away, it moved everything into high gear because I realized that that was the end of his discography, that we weren’t getting another Toby Keith record. And that’s what drove me to wanting to finish my own discography. It’s what made me understand that I’m nowhere near done, and so it’s time to get busy. After he passed away, I immediately started talking about this session and started trying to get all the particulars in order. It was time for me to get in the studio again.
Like many songwriters, you strongly feel that you are a conduit for God or a higher power to work through you with your music. How do you honor that gift?
Giving it my best is how I honor the calling. At the end, I don’t have to worry about how it’s being used. That’s up to God. Somebody’s going to hear that song that I would have never known existed and that this person would have never known that I existed except for the fact that my song reached them. When they come looking for me, they want to share that experience and they want to tell me all about it, but what they really want to do is connect with God and say, “God, I got the song you sent me through this bearded weirdo over here.”
Olivia Rodrigo pulled off the ultimate Halloween trick on Thursday night (Oct. 31) in a Jimmy Kimmel Live! bit in which the “Vampire” singer popped out to adorably shock her youngest trick-or-treating fans. The bit opened with Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, dressed up as a mustachioed Olivia in tight sparkly black hot pants, an “eat, drink, sleep” crop top and long brown wig.
“I’m Olivia Rodrigo!” Guillermo said as he dropped a Rodrigo paper mask and an on-screen chryon clarified: “NOT Olivia Rodrigo.” Luckily, the real Olivia was right there, hopping into frame in the same black hot pants and a matching red heart necklace, white tank with red bra straps showing with the message “Live, Laugh, Love.”
“And I’m Olivia Rodrigo!” she said holding up a bowl of candy. “Let’s mess with some kids!”
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The first victims included a young girl and boy, who correctly guessed who Guillermo was supposed to be. When he asked the girl if she liked the singer, she said Rodrigo was one of her favorite artists. Then Olivia popped out unexpectedly and the girl lost her breath and nervously said she’d gone to one of Rodrigo’s concerts. “Do I look just like that?” she asked pointing to Guillermo. “Yes,” the girl laughed.
When another group of kids showed up, they rejected an offer of a pile of guts from Guillermo, and when one of the girls was dumbstruck after being asked if she recognized the Kimmel sidekick’s costume, a young boy said, “Why are you not talking?”
“It’s like if you met whoever you like the most,” she explained. “Wait, you’re the real Olivia Rodrigo?” he asked. “You don’t believe that it’s me?” Rodrigo asked, proffering her, wah wah, driver’s license as proof. “It doesn’t say Rodrigo,” the boy said incredulously. “Oh wait, it does.”
The fun continued, with one girl bursting into tears at the sight of Rodrigo, telling her friend as they walked away, “I’ve never happy cried in my life.” The shock on the face of one boy dressed as a crabby old man was so intense that Rodrigo asked, “Sir, are you having a stroke?”
Another group of freaked out girls engaged in a scream-off with Rodrigo and one superfan proved her love by crushing a game where she got one piece of candy for every one of the singer’s song titles she named. And she came to play, racking up a total of 11 pieces while stumping the singer with tracks even she forgot about, such as “The Rose Song,” as well as pulling out some deep cuts including the Bizaardvark theme song.
The bit ended with Rodrigo harmonizing on “Vampire” with a succession of trick-or-treat groups, giving the kids what is likely the greatest treat of their lives. The singer’s Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS World Tour concert doc premiered on Netflix earlier this week.
Watch Rodrigo on Jimmy Kimmel Live! below.
The pioneering alternative band’s 14th album is an unapologetically gloomy meditation on mortality. Read Billboard’s preliminary ranking and review.
Just a few weeks after finally being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cher could receive a Grammy nomination for best traditional pop vocal album for her first holiday album, Christmas. The nominations will be announced on Friday Nov. 8.
The worlds of rock and roll and traditional pop were once far apart, but those worlds been coming together in recent years as genre lines blur across the board. Six artists who are in the Rock Hall have won Grammys in this category – Joni Mitchell (for Both Sides Now), Rod Stewart (Stardust: The Great American Songbook, Volume III), Paul McCartney (Kisses on the Bottom), Willie Nelson (Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin and My Way, a tribute to Frank Sinatra), Elvis Costello (Look Now, with the Imposters) and James Taylor (American Standard).
Should Cher’s album win when the Grammy Awards are announced on Feb. 2, it would be the first holiday album ever to win in this category, though many have been nominated.
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Cher has won just one Grammy over the course of her six-decade career – best dance recording for her 1999 megahit, “Believe.” Her nominations stretch back to 1965, when Sonny & Cher were nominated for best new artist.
Cher is vying for a nomination in the traditional pop category with Stephanie J. Block, who portrayed the icon in The Cher Show on Broadway in 2019, winning a Tony Award for best actress in a musical. Block is represented with her own Christmas album, Merry Christmas, Darling. (The title track is a cover version of the ballad made famous by the Carpenters in 1970.)
Several other Christmas albums are vying for nominations, including Brandy’s Christmas With Brandy, Johnny Mathis’ Christmas Time Is Here, Seth MacFarlane & Liz Gillies’ We Wish You the Merriest, Gregory Porter’s Christmas Wish and Jim Brickman’s Brickman Sings Christmas. Brandy has received 12 Grammy nominations over the years, winning for “The Boy Is Mine,” her Billboard Hot 100-topping collab with Monica. This would be her first nomination in this category.
Mathis is a four-time nominee in this category. He was nominated in 1991, the year the category was introduced. But Mathis’ history with the Grammys goes back much further than that. He received his first nomination in 1960, the third year of the Grammys, for his exquisite recording of “Misty.” Shockingly, Mathis, 89, has yet to win a Grammy in competition. He received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2003.
MacFarlane is a three-time nominee in this category. This is his second collab with Gillies.
Stewart is vying for a nomination with Swing Fever, a collab with Jools Holland. Stewart is a five-time nominee in this category, winning once.
Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends: A Celebration (Live at the Sondheim Theatre) is a strong contender. Last year, two of the nominees in this category were salutes to the legendary Broadway composer, who died in 2021 at age 91. Liz Callaway was nominated for To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim. A Various Artists collection, Sondheim Unplugged (The New York City Sessions), Vol. 3, was also nominated last year. “Old Friends,” which is part of the title of the new collection, is a highlight of Sondheim’s 1981 show Merrily We Roll Along, which won a Tony for best revival of a musical in June.
Another celebration of legendary Broadway composers is on the entry list — My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert (Live from Theatre Royal Drury Lane/ 2023.
Broadway legend Patti LuPone is entered with A Life in Notes. LuPone has won Tonys for her performances in Evita, Gypsy and Company. Ben Platt, who won a Tony, Daytime Emmy and Grammy for Dear Evan Hansen and related projects, is entered with Honeymind. Nine-time Grammy winner Dave Cobb was one of the album’s producers.
Raye & the Heritage Orchestra are entered with My 21st Century Symphony (Live at Royal Albert Hall). Raye has a good chance to receive a best new artist nomination next week. She took home six Brit Awards in March.
Two albums by past Grammy winners for best new artist are vying for nominations — Norah Jones’ Visions and Paula Cole’s Lo. Jones has received two nods in this category.
Janis Siegel and Yaron Gershovsky are entered with The Colors of My Life. Siegel is a nine-time Grammy winner for her work with Manhattan Transfer. Straight No Chaser has two albums on the entry list – 90s Proof and Stocking Stuffer.
Other notable albums on the entry list of 78 albums include Crowded House’s Gravity Stairs, Toby Gad’s Piano Diaries – The Hits, Gaither Vocal Band’s Let Me Be There, Il Divo’s XX: 20th Anniversary Album, Joe Jackson’s Mr. Joe Jackson Presents Max Champion in ‘What a Racket!,’ Ingrid Michaelson’s For the Dreamers, Steven Pasquale with John Pizzarelli’s Some Other Time and The Sound of Rusic by the cast of Rupaul’s Drag Race.
Our Fearless Forecast
Brandy, Christmas With Brandy
Cher, Christmas
Ben Platt, Honeymind
Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends: A Celebration (Live at the Sondheim Theatre)
Rod Stewart & Jools Holland, Swing Fever
In July, when Ricky Skaggs surprised Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) artist Steven Curtis Chapman with an invitation to become an official member of the Grand Ole Opry, it marked a full-circle moment for the Paducah, Kentucky native. Chapman grew up listening to the sounds of the Grand Ole Opry each week on his father’s radio. Chapman’s father ran a small music store in Kentucky and on the weekends, he would play music with friends including dobro player Jack Martin, who played with bluegrass pioneer Lester Flatt and performed on the Opry.
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After receiving his invitation, one of the first things Chapman did was call his parents back home in Kentucky to tell them the news.
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“I said, ‘You’ll never believe what happened tonight.’ And [my father] said, ‘I know exactly what happened–I’m still crying. I was listening.’ He was so proud and excited,” Chapman recalls. “They are going to make plans to be there and [I’ll have] my whole family to celebrate the moment. It’s going to be very special.”
When Chapman is officially inducted as the 239th member of the Grand Ole Opry on Friday (Nov. 1), he will be the first CCM artist to receive that honor.
Chapman made his Grand Ole Opry debut at 18, as a performer at Opryland USA theme park, singing Skaggs and George Jones songs during a matinee. He estimates he’s appeared at the Opry 50 times in the last four decades.
Over the last 40 years, Chapman has become one of CCM’s foremost architects, thanks to songs including “The Great Adventure,” “For the Sake of the Call,” “Dive” and “Love Take Me Over.” He’s had nine projects reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Christian Albums chart and earned five Grammys and nearly 60 GMA Dove Awards.
“We felt it was time for Steven to become an Opry member, looking at his incredible career and his connection to the Opry since he was a teenager. He loves every style of music that’s played out here and can play that style of music,” the Grand Ole Opry’s senior VP/executive producer Dan Rogers tells Billboard. “He brings his own genre to the show, and his credentials are impeccable, but we often say when someone’s inducted, that at its core Opry membership is about relationships — relationships with fans of the Opry, between members and the between artists and the ideal of the Opry.”
Chapman’s induction also acknowledges the deep shared history of faith-based songs and country music. Over the decades, country artists have recorded gospel albums or included gospel songs in their sets—an approach that counterbalances country music’s songs of alcohol, broken relationships and cheating, highlighting the duality of Saturday nights are for sinning and Sunday mornings are for redemption that the genre is known for.
Hank Williams, Sr.’s “I Saw the Light” traces a spiritual conversion story, while Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me” is a plea to a higher power for grace and mercy. The country music anthem “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” looks at death through a spiritual lens. Dolly Parton’s “Silver and Gold” and “He’s Alive,” the Brad Paisley/Parton collaboration “When I Get Where I’m Going,” Johnny Cash’s “Jesus Was a Carpenter,” George Strait’s “Love Without End, Amen,” Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” and “Something in the Water,” Garth Brooks’s “Unanswered Prayers,” Morgan Wallen’s “Don’t Think Jesus,” and Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” all weave in sentiments of faith.
“One of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar was [Cash’s] ‘Folsom Prison Blues,’” Chapman notes. “Songs [with lyrics about] ‘I was on my way to prison… but I saw the light,’ you have to have both of those. And that is the Grand Ole Opry in a nutshell, those songs are so baked into the DNA. You listen to Bill Monroe and all these songs… ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken.’ ‘I Saw the Light,’ ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ those songs are synonymous with the Opry.”
One of the Grand Ole Opry’s earliest homes-from 1943 to 1974- was the church-turned-music venue the Ryman Auditorium. The building, originally known as the Union Gospel Tabernacle, was built by riverboat captain Thomas Green Ryman and opened its doors in 1892, seven years after Ryman attended a tent revival in Nashville led by evangelist Samuel Porter Jones. Ryman was inspired to build the Union Gospel Tabernacle as a place people could join in worship (the building was later renamed the Ryman Auditorium).
In 1994 came the first incarnation of the Ryman’s “Sam’s Place—Music For the Spirit,” (named after Jones), which welcomed some of the top names in Christian, gospel, bluegrass and country. Two decades later, Chapman helped revive the series at the Ryman.
In 2008, the Grand Ole Opry released How Great Thou Art: Gospel Favorites From the Grand Ole Opry, a collection of country artists’ Grand Ole Opry performances of gospel standards. For the past four decades, the Opry House has also hosted the annual Sunday Mornin’ Country, with country artists expressing their faith in song.
In recent years, several CCM and Gospel artists have made their Grand Ole Opry debuts as the Opry continues welcoming a breadth of genres to its stage, including Wilson, for King & Country, We the Kingdom, CAIN, Blessing Offor and Naomi Raine. Opry inductees in recent years have included bluegrass/southern gospel group The Isaacs, bluegrass icon Rhonda Vincent and comedians Henry Cho and Gary Mule Deer.
“Half of our crowd is here because they love country music and the other half is in Nashville and they know the Opry is a microcosm of the music of this town,” Rogers says. “We try to program the best country music show we possibly can, but also give them a real taste of the different styles under the country music umbrella.”
Lady A’s Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood will induct Chapman, while Friday’s performance lineup will also feature Skaggs, Carly Pearce, Russell Dickerson and alternative rock band Colony House, which includes Chapman’s sons Caleb and Will.
One of the songs Chapman will perform is “The Grand Ole Opry Stage,” a song he crafted for the induction, which chronicles his journey.
“The song ends with the lyrics, ‘We’ve all been invited to the unbroken circle of the Grand Ole Opry stage,’ and I’ll go into ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken,’ and my family and Ricky Skaggs and any artists that are there that will join me and finish out my induction by singing that song,” Chapman says, adding, “Of course, I’ll be a blubbering mess by the end of it, just taking it all in.”
Brat summer is now endless. After the title of Charli XCX‘s smash sixth album became an inescapable meme this year, the Collins Dictionary has dubbed the “brat” its word of the year for 2024.
The dictionary announced the designation on Friday (Nov. 1), noting that “brat” refers to someone who is “characterized by a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude.” According to the full entry, “Brat, newly defined in 2024 as ‘characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude’, has been named Collins’ Word of the Year 2024. Inspired by the Charli XCX album, brat has become one of the most talked about words of 2024. More than a hugely successful album, brat is a cultural phenomenon that has resonated with people globally, and ‘brat summer’ established itself as an aesthetic and a way of life.”
The singer’s own definition of “brat” is “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes,” which, when paired with the album’s signature lime green square background and blurry Arial font created an aesthetic that ruled the summer. Charli’s also described the aesthetic as, “me, my flaws, my f–k ups, my ego rolled into one” and “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”
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Some of the necessary items for a brat girl summer, according to Charli, include: “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, and a strappy white top with no bra.” The vibe became so hot, in fact, that Vice President Kamala Harris began using it to boost her presidential campaign after Charli declared “kamala IS brat” in July.
Experts at Collins comb through their 20-billion-word database to make their annual list of new and notable words that represent the evolution of the English language. Other words that were short-listed for this year’s WOTY included: brainrot, era (defined as “a period in one’s life or career that is of a distinctive character” in honor of Taylor Swift’s global tour), as well as looksmaxxing, rawdogging, anti-tourism, delulu, romantasy, supermajority and yapping.
Finally! Mariah Carey was right on time on Friday morning (Nov. 1), ushering in the holiday season with her annual Christmas kick-off video. The Queen of Christmas officially declared that the countdown to the most wonderful time of the year had begun with her eagerly awaited “It’s Time” video.
This year, her Instagram post featured a video of Carey, 55, dressed as Morticia Addams from the Addams Family. The clip opens on a dark and spooky night, complete with a full moon, howling wolves and a steady rain falling on a haunted mansion. Cut to Carey in a sparkly black dress, a black wig and dark makeup taking the hand of a dancer dressed as Gomez Addams as they do the couple’s signature terrifying tango.
But after a few spins and dips, Mariah gives Gomez a hard push out of frame, tosses a dagger at his face — which narrowly misses her smiling beloved — and then gives a knowing look right down the lens and uses her mind to open a curious cabinet as the final calendar pages from October fly away.
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You know what was inside: Mariah’s red and white Santa jumper, of course. “IT’S TIME!!!!” Mariah wails in her signature whistle register from the seat of a sleigh filled with presents as the scene fills with fake snow, Gomez is transformed into a snowman and, of course, MC’s iconic holiday classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You” blasts out.
The video ends with Carey smiling broadly as she and her reindeer prepare to take off in her sleigh. Carey had been teasing the launch of Christmas season for weeks, including dropping a “Christmas Time Set List” on Apple Music, unwrapping the cover art for four new “All I Want For Christmas” physical singles and, as always, posting a “not yet” video to make sure nobody jumps the gun on her favorite holiday.
Now that the skeletons needs to be packed away for another year, ’tis the season to crank up “All I Want,” because Carey is celebrating the 30th anniversary of her Merry Christmas album on the Merry Christmas Time Tour, which is slated to kick off on Nov. 6 in Highland, CA. Last year, “All I Want” topped the Billboard Hot 100 once again, marking the fifth year in a row that the holiday classic has topped the tally since first doing so in 2017.
Watch Carey’s “It’s Time” video below.
U.K. rapper Central Cee has announced the release date for his long-awaited debut album, Can’t Rush Greatness. The LP is slated for release on January 24, 2025 via Columbia Records and will be the first full body of work since his 2023 mixtape 23.
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The 26-year-old shared the news on his social media feeds alongside the artwork, which you can see below. Pre-orders are now open on Cench’s website.
No tracklist has been released for the album so far, but it has been confirmed that his new song “One By One,” which was recorded in a Colors session, would not feature on the record.
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A press release also confirmed that the album was recorded in multiple locations over the last year, and it will feature guest producers as well as an appearance from fellow U.K. rapper Dave. The pair collaborated on the single “Sprinter” in 2023, which topped the U.K.’s Official Singles Charts for nine weeks and landed at No.10 on the Billboard Global 200.
2024 has seen a number of singles from the west London artist. In May, he teamed up with Lil Baby for “BAND4BAND” which landed at No.18 on the Billboard Hot 100, and at No.3 on the Official Singles Chart in the U.K. The song was the highest-charting U.K. rap single on the charts in Hot 100 history.
Elsewhere there was an appearance on Ice Spice’s debut Y2K, a team-up with Afrobeats star Asake on single “Wave” and most recently with RAYE on the single “Moi” in September.
Speaking to Dazed, Central Cee elaborated on the process of the making of Can’t Rush Greatness. “With the mixtapes, I was living in [the same] house I grew up in,” he said. “Now we’ve elevated, we’re actually musicians. There were times it was hard to say man’s a musician. I was just a guy that [went into the] studio [sometimes]. Now, I’m an artist.”
Last week, Central Cee was named as an additional headliner for Spain’s Primavera Sound Festival in June 2025, topping the bill alongside Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan.