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The Country Music Association’s CMA Fest has been experiencing a growth trend ever since it relocated to Downtown Nashville in 2001.
Last year, the festival hit 90,000 visitors a day for the first time, and local media reported that it equaled those numbers in the 2024 edition, held June 6-9.
But the growth most evident at this year’s festival was the bulging presence of “barroom takeovers.” From Spotify to iHeartMedia to Warner Music Nashville and even Billboard, at least 11 labels, booking agencies and other organizations rented out performance spaces — or even entire buildings — for a range of extracurricular concerts. In some cases, artists played shows at those venues on top of their official CMA Fest activities. In other instances, artists dropped into the side bars without appearing at a sanctioned CMA event.
The uptick in these ancillary events is a natural outgrowth of the booming business in artist-affiliated bars. In the last year alone, Garth Brooks, Eric Church and Morgan Wallen have all opened the doors on new clubs along Lower Broadway, and Lainey Wilson took over the FGL House from Florida Georgia Line, rebranding as Bell Bottoms Up. Bon Jovi even opened a new bar during the run of the festival.
Those locales offer a ready-made spot at the edge of the festival’s footprint for businesses that want to market to core fans; thus CAA took over the weekly Whiskey Jam at the Skydeck for one night, Big Machine Label Group offered daytime shows at Wilson’s club, and Sony Music Nashville occupied Acme Feed and Seed with its Camp Sony at the same intersection where CMA Fest hosted its Hard Rock Stage and Riverfront Stage. It’s advantageous for the label, fans and the artists, too.
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“Being right there at the end where all the action is happening, it helps in terms of foot traffic,” SMN senior vp of marketing Jennifer Way says. “It helps in terms of catching artists that [play] a show and then can just pop up into the bar.”
Not that the adjunct shows are limited to the run of the festival or to the Downtown footprint. WME held its annual three-night Losers Live at a bar on the edge of Music Row, about a mile and a half away, June 3-5. Randy Houser, Brantley Gilbert and Mark Chesnutt headlined the three nights, all playing for free to make an impression on country-centric fans and other members of the industry.
“Many people arrive in Nashville prior to the official start of CMA Fest, and they travel from all over the world to hear live music,” says WME country music agent Carter Green. “So WME and Losers give the people what they want.”
The volume is impressive. While the festival itself yielded more than 300 artist performances, Spotify House trotted out 40 acts — including BRELAND, Tyler Hubbard and Dustin Lynch — during its three-day run at the Blake Shelton-affiliated Ole Red. SiriusXM booked 56 artists across four days at Margaritaville for performances and/or interviews, including Lainey Wilson, Jake Owen and Riley Green.
“This is surely the only genre who could pull this off the way we pull it off because all of the artists are so punctual, on time or early,” SiriusXM associate director of strategy, operations, and artist and industry relations Alina Thompson says. “We were on schedule all four days, and I was just so grateful to every artist and every artist team that came through the door.”
The opportunities, though, also represent a potential long-term problem. Several veteran music executives grumbled that the festival’s official daytime stages lacked some of the star power that they have boasted in previous years, though that’s a direct result of country’s current popularity. At least 50 artists — including Kenny Chesney, Luke Combs, Kane Brown and HARDY — played up to four out-of-town gigs during the four-day CMA Fest. Many were booked at the Carolina Country Music Festival, which overlaps with CMA Fest in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Some of those acts made it back for the Nashville event. Some did not.
That’s not a new development, but combined with the artists who choose to play the nearby clubs, it meant that the smaller stages had a higher volume of acts who were unfamiliar to many festival attendees.
That doesn’t mean the festival faces any sort of imminent disaster or that it represents a long-term trend.
“I think it changes year by year,” Carter says. “If people feel that way this year, it could change next year, and you could have all the biggest acts in country at that time playing during the day.”
Artists’ outlook on the festival is tied to their place in the food chain. It’s great exposure for acts who haven’t hit the commercial mainstream — Wyatt Flores and Puddin (K. Michelle), for example, garnered attention with multiple appearances. But the artists play for free, and the headliners are key to attracting the thousands of fans whose ticket expenditures assist music education charities.
“If you’re a newer artist, you need to be there,” says SiriusXM/Pandora vp of music programming — country Johnny Chiang. “A-listers or B-plus artists, it’s not so much a need for them to do it. It’s just a way for them to give back. There’s a different perspective.”
In most instances, the artists and the ancillary businesses seem to defer to CMA in booking artists, a sign that the industry supports the festival’s mission.
“The CMA typically gets all their stuff scheduled first,” Way says. “We don’t really confirm the exact unique fan experience or activation until the stages are booked, until the artist knows where they’re going to be.”
Meanwhile, if the barroom takeovers syphon off too much of CMA’s business, Chiang suggests it might be effective for the organization to “get in deeper” with the unofficial groups, many of which are already partners in some way.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if it’s on one of their stages or one of our bar locations,” Chiang says. “What you’re talking about is still promoting country music and the CMA.”
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Just in time for CMA Fest, Morgan Wallen‘s This Bar and Tennessee Kitchen has a new opening date. The six-story bar, restaurant and music venue will open Saturday (June 1) at 11 a.m. CT in downtown Nashville. The venue’s original opening, set for Memorial Day weekend, was delayed, with a source previously telling Billboard that […]
Morgan Wallen‘s mom is not having it. The country singer’s mother took to Instagram last week to do some mama bear-ing after the Nashville Metro City Council voted to deny the singer’s request to install a large exterior sign (or “aerial encroachment” as they put it) for his soon-to-open This Bar and Tennessee Kitchen due […]
Morgan Wallen was slated to open his downtown Nashville bar during Memorial Day weekend, but those plans have been postponed.
Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen, located at 107 4th Ave. N., won’t open this weekend as planned, according to representatives for TC Restaurant Group, the organization that teamed with Wallen to open the establishment, and which is also behind other Nashville celebrity bars from Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert and Jason Aldean. No new opening date has been given.
A statement from Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen issued to Billboard read, “We’re proud of our team who has worked tirelessly to prepare Morgan Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen for opening. The ground-up construction of a six-story venue launching with hundreds of team members is a tremendous amount of work and a complex process.”
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The statement continues, “When we open, we want This Bar to be an exceptional experience for guests. Unfortunately, the process requires more time, and we are not able to open and provide that experience this Memorial Day weekend. Rest assured it will be well worth the wait. We look forward to welcoming guests soon.”
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A source tells Billboard that the restaurant/bar is awaiting final inspections, but declined to address whether TC Restaurant Group had been denied a catering license (which allows an establishment to sell liquor, wine and beer), as had been reported by online site, Scoop Nashville, or had even applied yet. The source did confirm that the postponement of the grand opening is not related to the Nashville Metro Council’s decision earlier this week to deny approval for an external sign for the bar.
On Tuesday (May 21), the council rejected plans for Wallen’s 20-foot external sign–labeled an “aerial encroachment” that would have encroached on the sidewalk, which is city property– for the six-story building. Thirty members of the council voted against the sign, with only three members voting in favor of it and four abstaining. Some members of the council cited Wallen’s past controversial incidents, including his use of a racial slur in January 2021 and his arrest on felony charges last month for throwing a chair off the six-story roof off of Eric Church’s Chief’s bar, as reasons for rejecting the sign.
Wallen announced the bar’s opening on May 4 at one of his three sold-out Nissan Stadium shows in Nashville, though never specified the exact date. “It’s over off 4th Ave. just beside the Ryman [Auditorium], and it’s going to be opening Memorial Day weekend, so I hope I see y’all there,” Wallen said from the stage. The bar’s official instagram picked up the video of Wallen making the announcement, but has since taken it down, and now has only a post with a video of downtown Nashville with the name of Wallen’s bar and the words “Coming Summer 2024.”
Wallen’s representative referred inquiries to TC Restaurant Group.
The results are in: for the first quarter of 2024, Warner Chappell earned the top spot on the Country Airplay publisher rankings for the second quarter in a row.
With a 33.08% market share, WCM, helmed in Nashville by president/CEO Ben Vaughn, is the top publisher. This is thanks to the shares the publisher had in eight of the top 10 songs of the quarter. Overall, it also had stakes in 68 of the quarter’s top 100 Country Airplay songs, including Country Airplay No. 1 Nate Smith’s “World On Fire,” HARDY’s No. 2 “Truck Bed,” and Warren Zeider’s No. 3 track “Pretty Little Poison.”
Apart from Sony Music Publishing’s five-consecutive-quarter reign at No. 1 from Q3 of 2022 to Q3 of 2023, Warner Chappell has consistently held the quarterly top country music publisher title in Nashville, dating back to about 2017.
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This quarter Sony Music Publishing held in second place with a 20.04% market share on the Country Airplay chart. SMP has shares in 51 of the chart’s songs including the top two tunes this quarter, which are both thanks to its tie to one of Nashville’s biggest hitmakers Ashley Gorley, who sold his catalog and signed a go-forward deal with SMP (in partnership with Domain Capital Group) in May 2022. For the first quarter, Gorley ranked as the top country songwriter, with a co-writer stake in 16 of the period’s Top 100 Country Airplay songs.
The rest of the market share for other companies on the Country Airplay chart lags far behind Nashville’s top two publishers. BMG comes in third, for example, with 8.18% market share, which is slightly more than two percentage points up from where they were last year in Q1 with 6.09% Country Airplay marketshare. It is the first time BMG has ranked above major publisher, Universal Music Publishing Group, since Q1 of 2018. Top songs for the publisher this quarter include Cody Johnson’s “The Painter,” the No. 4 song on the Country Airplay chart, and Chayce Beckham’s “23,” the No. 8 tune.
Universal Music Publishing Group holds the fourth spot this quarter with 6.85% market share on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. Just three quarters ago, UMPG had an especially good quarter with a 12.71% ranking — about double what it reached this time. Top songs for UMPG include Thomas Rhett’s “Mawmaw’s House,” the No. 5 song and Scotty McCreery’s “Cab in a Solo,” the No. 15 tune.
Looking at the rankings from No. 5 to No. 8, Kobalt ranks fifth in market share for the Country Airplay chart at 5.78%; Big Machine Music slightly surpasses Concord at 4.11% to 4.10% market shares, respectively; Spirit Music ranks eighth with 2.02%.
The ninth largest publisher on the Country Airplay chart belongs to Purple Rabbit Music, the publishing company that represents songwriter Tracy Chapman. The spot represents the continued impact her song “Fast Car,” which was covered by Luke Combs last year and performed by the two artists together at the Grammy awards earlier this year. Its placement in the rankings represents its debut for the Top 10 Country Airplay publishers.
Lastly, Anthem brings up the end of the Top 10 Country Airplay publishers with a 1.87% marketshare, a tick below Purple Rabbit’s 1.88% share for the quarter.
Last CPQ: Tracy Chapman and Oliver Anthony Make History
The Nashville Metro Council may have far exceeded its reach when it voted to not allow Morgan Wallen’s This Bar and Tennessee Kitchen to have external signage with his name on it, according to a prominent Nashville attorney.
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On Tuesday (May 21), the council voted to reject plans for Wallen’s 20-foot external sign to appear on the six-story venue, which is slated to open Memorial Day weekend. Only three members voted in favor of the sign, with 30 members voting against. Four council members abstained. Some members of the council cited Wallen’s past controversial incidents as reasons for rejecting the sign.
Signage requests for the outside of buildings that hang over public property — including sidewalks — are required to obtain council approval. “I don’t want to see a billboard up with the name of a person who’s throwing chairs off of balconies and who is saying racial slurs,” at-large council member Delishia Porterfield said, according to The Tennessean.
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“Mr. Wallen is a fellow East Tennessean. He gives all of us a bad name,” District 14 ouncil member Jordan Huffman added. “His comments are hateful; his actions are harmful.”
However, such a decision is a case of government overreach, says the attorney: “You can’t as the government take negative action against something someone said. The Council was way out on a limb. It violates the First Amendment to say, ‘You used the N-word therefore you can’t put your name on a building.’”
Porterfield is referencing Wallen’s January 2021 use of a racial slur that was caught on video, as well as his most recent arrest on April 7, when he was taken into custody on April 7 for allegedly throwing a chair off of the rooftop of Eric Church’s six-story Chief’s bar in downtown Nashville. Wallen was booked on three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct. Wallen is slated to appear before a Nashville court in August.
Wallen’s bar and restaurant, located at 107 4th Ave. N., adjacent to the Ryman Auditorium just off Nashville’s Lower Broadway, is a partnership between Wallen and TC Restaurant Group, which licensed his name for the project. TC Restaurant Group is also behind other celebrity bars in downtown Nashville including Luke Bryan’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink and Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar.
The next step, says the attorney, is for TC Restaurant Group to take action in federal or chancery court against the Council. “[TC Restaurant Group] has bought the right to use [Wallen’s] name,” the attorney says. “Basically the city has taken that piece of property away from them. They can’t do that without due process of law.”
A representative for Wallen declined to comment on the council’s decision, as did Wallen’s manager. Representatives for TC Restaurant Group declined to comment, adding only that the company is “focused on This Bar’s opening.”
Additional reporting by Melinda Newman.
Lainey Wilson, the reigning entertainer of the year at both the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards, has set an opening date for her new Nashville bar.
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Wilson’s Bell Bottoms Up Bar, located at 120 South 3rd Ave., will open May 31 — the same day Wilson launches her Country’s Cool Again Tour with two headlining shows at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater.
The Bell Bottoms Up bar will feature two stages, four bars and a mezzanine floor, while the rooftop level will feature 1970s western-inspired details, a dance floor, disco-inspired decor and frozen drinks. The three-story, 27,000-square-foot venue will open in partnership with TC Restaurant Group, the business that has also helped launch Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa, Luke Bryan’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink and Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar.
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In revealing the upcoming bar and giving fans a sneak peek via social media, the singer-songwriter said, “Yank up them britches and make plans to check it out on Broadway before my Country’s Cool Again tour kicks off that weekend in Nashville!”
Wilson also previously said in a statement, “I’ve always wanted to create a destination for all my fans to visit and create new memories at, in the heart of country music city. So, to have a permanent destination in Nashville, is such a dream come true. I can’t wait for all my Wild Horses to get to experience my home away from home.”
Wilson, the cover star for Billboard’s recent Country Power Players issue, is set to release her latest album Broken Bow, Whirlwind, on Aug. 23. She previously told Billboard the album is “the Western sister of Bell Bottom Country.” She added, “I feel like it’s got a little bit more character [and] cinematic storytelling.” She is working on the album with Jay Joyce, the same producer behind her 2022 album Bell Bottom Country and its predecessor, 2021’s Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’.
Morgan Wallen‘s Nashville bar will soon be open for business, according to the “Last Night” hitmaker. During his headlining set at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on Saturday (May 4), the country music star revealed that his Morgan Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen will open on Memorial Day weekend. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and […]
Live event production and rehearsal studio Rock Lititz and development firm Al. Neyer have teamed to open a 55-acre Nashville entertainment rehearsal and production campus, Rock Nashville, in 2025.
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The deal will include 44 acres of development over a 55-acre site in Nashville’s Whites Creek neighborhood. The Rock Nashville campus will include three buildings with more than 515,000 square feet of sound stages as well as creative offices and production facilities in various sizes with the capacity to support various production specifications for live shows, from local bands to A-list artists. The campus will include resources for performers and 13 band and production studio rehearsal spaces ranging from club/theater sizes to amphitheater, arena and stadium-scale (including one space up to 95 feet tall to replicate venues of that size), as well as set storage, backline rental, artist relation offices and a community cafe.
The campus is expected to become home to nearly 35 companies, including rehearsal studio complex SoundCheck, which had a hand in designing Rock Nashville and helped spearhead the strategic partnership between the team at Rock Lititz and Al. Neyer. SoundCheck will move from its current home on Cowan Street in Nashville, where it has been located for over three decades. Additionally, Clair Global, which provides live production spaces, systems integration and audio solutions, will be located at the new campus.
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Groundbreaking for the new facility occurred in mid-April, and construction is expected to be completed in Fall of 2025. Rock Nashville is expected to be home to 400 employees, and 85 employees at support businesses.
“As a full-service developer, we’re thrilled to be involved in the design, construction, and development of the future of Music City and live entertainment. As we continue to invest in the growing market of Nashville, this is our first foray into the entertainment world. We couldn’t imagine a more perfect operating partner to bring a new offering to the Nashville market alongside,” said Patrick Poole, Nashville Market Leader for Al. Neyer, in a statement.
“As we approach ten years since Rock Lititz opened its doors, we’ve been eager to find the next space and partner for expanding our support for the live entertainment industry. This unique and hard-working community thrives with access to specialized training, mentoring, and resources to help create custom live experiences for audiences worldwide. It is with great excitement that we’ve identified Nashville and Al. Neyer as the right city and partner. We are passionate about growing this network, and Nashville is the perfect location to join with other industry leaders to create something special,” added Andrea Shirk, Rock Lititz President and CEO, in a statement.
“SoundCheck has been part of the Nashville entertainment community for over 30 years, and we couldn’t be more excited to make Rock Nashville our new home,” said Soundcheck GM Kindal Jumper. “As Music City continues to grow as a premier destination for all genres of music, the campus’s state-of-the-art facilities will allow Soundcheck to meet the growing needs of today’s acts, ensuring the highest caliber production experience for artists and crews from Broadway to Bridgestone.
Rock Lititz was founded in 2000 by Troy Clair, owner of Clair Global, and Adam Davis, CEO of the TAIT Group. The Rock Lititz campus in Pennsylvania opened in 2014 and is home to more than 40 companies that support the live entertainment space.
In addition to earning his own top 20 Billboard Hot Country Songs hit “Flower Shops” in 2022, Big Loud Records singer-songwriter Ernest’s songwriting acumen has become a not-so-secret hitmaking weapon in Nashville’s songwriting circles, stealthily helping to fashion the sound of modern-day country music. He’s a writer on seven No. 1 Country Airplay hits, including Morgan Wallen’s 10-week No. 1 “You Proof” and three-week No. 1 “Wasted on You,” as well as chart-toppers by Kane Brown (“One Mississippi”) and Jelly Roll (“Son of a Sinner”).
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With that in mind, the industry has recognized his ability to spin words and melody into chart hits, lauding him with a nomination as artist-songwriter of the year at the upcoming Academy of Country Music Awards in May.
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On Ernest’s new album, Nashville, Tennessee, which released April 12, this rapper-turned-modern country traditionalist declares his intentions right from the start in not only honoring his hometown of Nashville, but the creative spirit and community that has long made Nashville “Music City.”
“It listens more like a playlist than a true album,” Ernest tells Billboard. “The true denominator is country music and all the influences I’ve taken, definitely going back to the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, all the way to present-day. It has a little bit of all of it.”
Nashville, Tennessee features collaborations Ernest’s with fellow Nashville native and country hitmaker Jelly Roll, as well as Lainey Wilson, Lukas Nelson, as well as the other members of his Big Loud Records labelmate singer-songwriter trifecta, Morgan Wallen and HARDY.
The sprawling, 26-song album’s essence is highlighting the artistry of country music’s top songwriters, including Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famers, alongside newcomer hit writers. Two sets of Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame country writers and their next-gen country songcrafters are present on the album: Dean Dillon (known for numerous hit songs including “Tennessee Whiskey,” Keith Whitley’s “Miami, My Amy,” Kenny Chesney’s “A Lot of Things Different” and George Strait’s (“The Chair”)) and his daughter, the Grammy songwriter of the year-nominated Jessie Jo Dillon, as well as Rivers Rutherford (the Dolly Parton/Brad Paisley collab “When I Get Where I’m Going”) and his son Rhys Rutherford (Bailey Zimmerman’s “Is This Really Over?). ACM and CMA song of the year winner Nicolle Galyon, Ryan Vojtesak and Grady Block are featured, in addition to writers signed to Ernest’s own Cadillac Music publishing company: Chandler Walters, Cody Lohden and Rafe Tenpenny.
Along the way, he nods to a plethora of country music’s towering figures, including Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, George Jones and Lefty Frizzell—while also signaling his expanse of influences outside the genre in covers of songs from John Mayer and even Radiohead. In simultaneously mining country music’s history, yet eschewing any borders, he sets forth a music-first mantra. Within Nashville and beyond, fans responded immediately, with 6,000 people showing up at Ernest’s pop-up show in Nashville on the album’s release day.
Ernest spoke with Billboard about some key tracks from the new album:
“Would If I Could” with Lainey Wilson was written three decades ago by Dean Dillon and Skip Ewing. How did you come across this song?
Ernest: Jessie Jo Dillon sent me that song and said, ‘This is the only song my dad and Skip ever wrote. I think you would like it.’ I did fall in love with it. I listened to it probably a thousand times, and within a week I recorded my own voice note of it on my phone, and I sent it to Dean just out of the blue. I don’t know that he even knew that I had the song, and I sent it to him and said, I’m going to cut this song. And he was like, well, damn son, if you’re writing him like this, what do you need me for? And then I was like, you wrote this. And it all came back to him.
How did Lainey come to be on the track?
Ironically, I guess within the same few days, Lainey put that song on hold. She found it in the Sony catalog, and cut it for an Apple Music session. I texted Lainey and said I planned on cutting the song. She called me and was like, ‘I’ll just sing on your record. I’ll do that song with you.’ So it worked out so naturally and beautifully, and it wasn’t written as a duet, but it turns out it’s a great duet.
You co-wrote “I Went to College/ I Went to Jail” with Luke Bryan, Chandler Walters and Rivers Rutherford. But it sounds perfectly written for you and Jelly Roll. How did it come about?
That song really is the perfect song for Jelly. We both grew up in Nashville. I’d known him for a while, and that’s what me and Luke Bryan were talking about. We’re playing golf. He was like, ‘You go back a while with Roll, don’t you? I said yes, and started singing, “I went to college and he went to jail,” and said, ‘We have to write that right now.’ We started writing it in the golf cart. The heavens dropped that song in our little golf cat that day. We FaceTimed Jelly Roll and he loved it was like, “Let’s go, baby!” Classic Jelly Roll.
It was a great song to start the album off with, with [both of us] being from Nashville and just kind of setting the tone for the record, that it’s a good time and it’s real storytelling and all that. It’s not too serious.
“Hangin’ On,” featuring Morgan Wallen, sounds a little more modern country than some of the other tracks on here. How do you decide which songs to keep and which to give away?
It was fun getting to be a bit selfish on this album. Usually, I’m just going in and writing a song that I’d like to sing. Then there are special days were Morgan will come in and we’re writing Morgan songs. I knew that I would typically have given that song to Morgan. So instead I just asked if he wanted to feature instead of just straight-up giving it away. [The 2024 Morgan Wallen collab] “Cowgirls” was kind of the same way. When I first did it, I didn’t show it to Morgan immediately, and when I finally did, it was always a no-brainer — it was going to be a Morgan song and he asked me to feature on it with him.
The midway point of the album is a family moment you share with your son Ryman Saint, singing “Twinkle Twinkle.” It’s from your concert at Boston’s Fenway Park. Why did you want to include that?
It’s a little palate cleanser, where you get into the “Life Goes On” segment of the record. But me and Ryman sing that song every night before he goes to bed and fall asleep singing it. And so when we were on our way to Fenway, I asked if you wanted to sing with Daddy, and he wanted to sing that song. So he did his first time ever. It was a proud parent moment.
You also include John Mayer’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” and a bluegrass spin on Radiohead’s “Creep.” Why was it important to include those on an album like this?
“Slow Dancing” has been one of my favorite songs for forever. I think that’s true for most people. It’s one of the best John Mayer songs, and it’s fun to play it with the steel guitar in it. And then as for “Creep,” that just was a fun little accident of me picking up a banjo and realizing it was the “Creep” chords. We were like, “If Old Crow Medicine Show did Radiohead, what would that be like?” Then it sat around for a year and I was like, “This would be the perfect song to get Hardy on for the record.” It was kind of the perfect way for me and Hardy to coexist on that album.