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27 Feb 2023

Miley Cyrus’ ‘Flowers’ Rules Hot 100 for Sixth Week, PinkPantheress & Ice Spice Rise to No. 3

Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” leads the Billboard Hot 100 for a sixth week, encompassing its full run on the chart so far, dating to its debut at No. 1.

The song has doubled the three-week command of Cyrus’ prior Hot 100 leader, “Wrecking Ball,” in 2013.

Meanwhile, PinkPantheress and Ice Spice’s “Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2” pushes from No. 4 to No. 3 on the Hot 100 and is the newly minted most-streamed song in the United States, hitting No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart.

The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data. All charts (dated March 4, 2023) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow (Feb. 28). For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

“Flowers,” released on Smiley Miley/Columbia Records, drew 95.2 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 11%, good for the Hot 100’s top Airplay Gainer award for a fourth consecutive week – the longest such streak since Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” linked four wins in a row last June-July); logged 28.7 million streams (down 15%); and sold 18,000 (down 16%) Feb. 17-23, according to Luminate.

“Flowers” claims a fifth week at No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart and a second frame atop Radio Songs and slips 2-4 after four weeks atop Streaming Songs.

Plus, as “Flowers” adds a second week at No. 1 on the Pop Airplay chart, having become Cyrus’ third leader on the mainstream top 40-based radio ranking, it becomes her first No. 1 on the adult top 40-based Adult Pop Airplay chart.

SZA’s “Kill Bill” places at its No. 2 Hot 100 best for a seventh week. It leads Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot R&B Songs, which use the same methodology as the Hot 100, for an 11th week each. Meanwhile, parent album SOS crowns the Billboard 200 albums chart for a 10th week – the longest domination for an R&B album since the Whitney Houston-led soundtrack to The Bodyguard ruled for 20 weeks in 1992-93. (R&B albums are defined as those that have hit or are eligible for Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart.)

Plus, “Kill Bill” tops its first airplay chart, rising to No. 1 on Rhythmic Airplay, scoring SZA her first leader on the rhythmic radio-based survey. It advances 6-4 on Radio Songs (71.5 million, up 11%), marking SZA’s third top five hit and first in a lead role.

PinkPantheress and Ice Spice’s “Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2” climbs 4-3 on the Hot 100, a week after it became each act’s first top 10. The team-up, released Feb. 3, drew 33.7 million streams (up 8%) and rises from No. 3 to No. 1 to become the singer-songwriter and rapper’s first leader each on Streaming Songs. It marks the first No. 1 on the chart by multiple acts each achieving their first leader with an initial entry since Disney’s Encanto smash “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” by Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz and the Encanto Cast, reigned for 13 weeks in January-April 2022.

“Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2” also drew 6.4 million in airplay audience (up 205%) – as it debuts at No. 32 on Rhythmic Airplay and jumps 39-33 on Pop Airplay – and sold 1,300 (up 36%) Feb. 17-23.

The track is a remix of PinkPantheress’ original solo “Boy’s a Liar,” released in November. (All versions of the song are combined into one listing on Billboard’s charts.)

Metro Boomin, The Weeknd and 21 Savage’s “Creepin’ ” recedes to No. 4 from its No. 3 Hot 100 high and Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” holds at No. 5, after reaching No. 3, as it tops the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart for a third week. (The latter is now being promoted as a pop radio single and debuts on Pop Airplay at No. 40.)

The Weeknd’s “Die for You” returns to its No. 6 Hot 100 best, from No. 7. It’s expected to gain on next week’s charts following the Friday (Feb. 24) release of its buzzworthy remix with Ariana Grande.

Elsewhere in the Hot 100’s top 10, Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” backtracks 6-7, after it led for a week in October; Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” holds at No. 8, following a personal-best eight weeks at No. 1 in November-December; Beyoncé’s “Cuff It” keeps at No. 9, after hitting No. 6; and David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s “I’m Good (Blue)” repeats at No. 10, after reaching No. 4, as it leads the multi-metric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for a 23rd week.

Again, for all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram and all charts (dated March 4), including the Hot 100 in its entirety, will refresh on Billboard.com tomorrow (Feb. 28).

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.

27 Feb 2023

Miley Cyrus Reveals ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ Tracklist Featuring Two Surprise Collabs

On Monday (Feb. 27) Miley Cyrus finally revealed the track listing for her upcoming eighth studio album, Endless Summer Vacation. The 13-track collection opens with the singer’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash “Flowers,” and also features the songs “Jaded,” “”Rose Colored Lenses,” “You,” “Handstand,” “Violet Chemistry,” “Wildcard” and “Wonder Woman,” as well collaborations with Sia (on “Muddy Feet”) and Brandi Carlile (on “Thousand Miles.”)

At press time Cyrus had not release any additional production or songwriting credits for the follow-up to 2020’s Plastic Hearts, which is due out on March 10 on Columbia Records.

“Flowers” is blossoming into one of Cyrus’ biggest hits to date, with six consecutive weeks atop the British singles chart. It is also in the midst of its fifth consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Additionally, the empowering anthem recently notched Cyrus her third leader on the Pop Airplay chart (dated Feb. 25), becoming the fastest song to reach No. 1 on the chart since 2016 when Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” made the same leap to the top.

And, in case you were wondering, “Flowers” has already surpassed the three-week No. 1 run of Miley’s “Wrecking Ball,” making it her biggest charting single so far thanks to its hefty streaming and radio airplay numbers. “Flowers” will, however, have some way to go to match the singer’s most-streamed song ever, which is “Party in the U.S.A.,” with more than 970 million on-demand streams to date; “Flowers” has 182 million streams so far.

Check out the full Endless Summer Vacation track list and a video promo from Cyrus below.

Endless Summer Vacation:

“Flowers”

“Jaded”

“Rose Colored Lenses”

“Thousand Miles” (feat. Brandi Carlile)

“You”

“Handstand”

“River”

“Violet Chemistry”

“Muddy Feet” (feat. Sia)

“Wildcard”

“Island”

“Wonder Woman”

“Flowers (Demo)”

27 Feb 2023

Bluegrasser Billy Strings Completes Trifecta of Nashville Shows With Ryman Auditorium Homecoming

In December 1945, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium hosted the meshing of sounds that was Bill Monroe’s mandolin, Earl Scruggs’ three-finger banjo-picking style and Lester Flatt’s guitar, along with Chubby Wise’s fiddle and Howard Watts’ upright bass, becoming what would become the exemplar for the sound of bluegrass music.

Just over 77 years later, on Sunday evening (Feb. 26), another Bill held court on that same hallowed stage, playing to a sold-out crowd of bluegrass aficionados, as an artist revitalizing the genre and taking it to greater heights. Since releasing his debut album in 2017, Billy Strings has won a Grammy for best bluegrass album (2021’s Home), been named artist of the year at the Americana Music Awards, picked up six International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards and performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Strings’ performance at the Ryman concluded a trifecta of Nashville shows over the weekend, which also included two sold-out shows at Nashville’s approximately 20,000-seat Bridgestone Arena. The arena shows are among several such dates included on Strings’ current tour — a rarity in bluegrass, and a testament to Strings’ gut-punch vocals, fleet-fingered guitar prowess and high-octane approach to performing.

But on Sunday night, he told the fervent, sold-out crowd that had gathered at the 2,362-person capacity venue, that the Ryman had special significance for him and his genre. “This is hallowed ground. This is ground zero for bluegrass music.”

For the Ryman show, Strings teamed with Nashville-based clothing line Imogene + Willie for an exclusive merch collection — which was well-received, judging by a merch line that wound from the Ryman’s upstairs lobby into the auditorium itself, snaking behind the upper-most wooden pews. Last year, Strings performed three sold-out shows at the iconic venue.

During Sunday’s show, instead of diving deep into his own catalog of music, as he did with his Bridgestone concerts, Strings’ Ryman concert leaned heavily on the copious amount of songs he learned to play since first picking up a guitar as a child. Donning suits and their signature hats, Strings and his bandmates — banjo/vocalist Billy Railing, bassist Royal Masat, mandolin player Jarrod Walker and fiddle player Alex Hargraves — launched their Ryman show with the appropriate “Tennessee,” followed by the Dillards’ “Old Home Place,” and soon after, renditions of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” “Katy Daley,” and Larry Sparks’ “A Face in the Crowd.”

“Each of us has been playing this music since we were little kids so it’s fun to just play bluegrass,” Strings told the crowd. “We’re sure glad y’all like it, because we’d be sitting here doing this shit either way.”

His nearly-three-hour show did not feature an opener; instead, the evening was all Strings and his band, who played two sets with a brief intermission.

“Freeborn Man,” with its lyrics, “You may not like my appearance, may not like my song/ May not like the way I talk, But you like the way I’m gone,” drew especially fervent cheers, feet stomping and rafter-scrapping singing from the crowd. Strings also performed “Long Journey Home (Two-Dollar Bill),” which he recorded on his 2022 album Me/And/Dad, with his father Terry Barber.

His sole guest during the nearly three-hour show was banjoist Rob McCoury, who joined for a rendition of “Bringing Mary Home,” and “Eight More Miles to Louisville.” McCoury played banjo on Me/And/Dad.

Strings said of making the project, “It was so awesome to be in the studio with you and your brother to make that record. We made the whole record and Rob never had to overdub anything or change one part. Everything he played was just fine and I asked him, ‘How did you do that? You got through the whole record with every take was the one.’ He said, ‘Man, those notes are flying by so fast anyway that nobody notices the wrong ones.’”

Joking about letting a few curse words fly while onstage in the Mother Church, Strings said, “Gonna need to do a gospel number now. We could do that, or I could just get a haircut,” before introducing mandolin player Walker, who led the Clinch Mountain Boys in the Stanley Brothers classic “Nobody’s Love Is Like Mine.” Hargreaves led on “Ashland Breakdown,” while the band followed with another Monroe classic, “My Sweet Blue-Eyed Darling.”

“Thank you for coming out tonight. We love and appreciate you,” Strings concluded the set’s main run, before introducing each member of the band once again. “I’m Bill. What a thrill,” he said. However, given that the audience had not sat down once during this nearly three-hour show, it was clear that wouldn’t be their last song.

From there, they offered another Monroe classic, “Roll On, Buddy, Roll On,” which seemed appropriate, given that’s just what Strings will be doing on tour for the majority of the year, bringing his celebrated brand of bluegrass to new converts. “Thank you and goodnight,” Strings offered in closing.

27 Feb 2023

Twenty One Pilots‘ ’Heathens’ Video Hits 2 Billion Views on YouTube

Twenty One Pilots‘ videography has hit yet another milestone. The group’s video for “Heathens” has now reached two billion views on YouTube, marking its second visual to reach the two billion mark after its smash hit “Stressed Out.”

Originally released as the lead single from the Suicide Squad soundtrack in June 2016, the video features members Josh Dun and Tyler Joseph in Belle Reve, a prison in the DC Comics universe. As Joseph makes his way though the jail, he meets up with Dun at the jail’s center and plays “Heathens” for a group of inmates. Footage of the movie’s cast members (Jared Leto as the Joker, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Will Smith as Deadshot) are interspersed throughout the dark visual.

Following its release, “Heathens” was a success for the rock duo. The track spent a total of 39 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at No. 2. The song marked the band’s second to chart in the No. 2 spot on the all-genre tally, right after its other smash “Stressed Out.”

“Heathens” additionally earned three nominations at the 59th annual Grammy Awards for best rock song, best rock performance and best song written for visual media. While at the Electric Castle Music Festival in Romania in July 2022, Twenty One Pilots performed the song as a mash up with the Stranger Things theme song. “This performance could save me from vecna any day of the week,” the hit Netflix show’s official Twitter account declared.

Revisit the music video for “Heathens” above.

27 Feb 2023

The Kid LAROi Mocks Celebrity Sex Tapes, Paparazzi in ‘I Guess It’s Love?’ Video

The Kid LAROi may only be 19, but the singer has already had plenty of experience with being chased by the paparazzi and seeing fake news about himself in the tabloid press. That dark side of stardom appears to have inspired the satirical video for the singer’s new single, “I Guess It’s Love.”

In the Helmi-directed clip that dropped on Monday (Feb. 27), the Kid stars alongside his influencer/model girlfriend Katarina Deme as a photogenic, young-and-in-love celebrity couple whose every kiss and fight is caught on camera by prying eyes.

Things start off pretty cute, with LAROi pulling pranks on his beloved, jumping on a trampoline with her, sharing salty snacks, exotic vacations, poolside makeouts and plenty of intimate moments rolling around in bed. Some, in fact, seems NSFW, including a barely clothed sauna session, plenty of shots of the pair in their underwear and footage of Deme just barely covered in bubbles in a bath.

Is it real, or is it a set-up?

Things get weird a minute in, when the visuals go wonky and suddenly LAROi seems out of sorts, bloated and rocking a bad goatee and mustache and floppy, unkempt blonde hair. What follows is an avalanche of kissing for the camera shots, a parade of exiting the limo footage and what looks like long-lens snaps of the happy couple in mid blow-out argument.

They keep performing for the camera as their visages get more and more Hollywood, with Deme suddenly developing wildly exaggerated features and lips as she and LAROi rapidly age. Even as they transform into middle-age social media junkies, the pair continue to chronicle every private moment, including their octogenarian wedding.

The dreamy FnZ-produced song is slated to appear on the Kid’s upcoming debut full-length album, The First Time; so far fans have already heard the single “Kids Are Growing Up” and “Love Again.”

Check out the “I Guess It’s Love?” video below.

27 Feb 2023

Flag on The Play: Deion Sanders Dragged For Perpetuating Stereotypes With His Recruiting Philosophy

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Coach Prime hasn’t coached a game at Colorado yet, but his tenure is off to a rocky start, at least public-wise. His latest comments aren’t helping his case either.

Since his controversial exit from Jackson State University, Deion Sanders has been making his rounds gearing up for this coaching debut at Colorado, hoping he can bring the same energy he had at JSU to the fledgling Buffaloes, who have not been relevant in quite some time but when the season does begin all eyes will be on them to see if Coach Prime can deliver and prove his coaching skills will translate at a D1 school.

During Super Bowl weekend Sanders stopped by the Rich Eisen Show and shared his recruiting philosophy, which is not sitting well with people.

So What Exactly Did Deion Sanders Say?

Well, what’s rubbing many the wrong way, including former NFL players, was Coach Prime’s mental breakdown when it comes to recruiting quarterbacks and other position players like defensive linemen eluding that he prefers his QBs to come from two-parent households and DLs to come from single-parent households because they are hungrier due to their struggle.

“Well, we have different attributes. Smart, tough, fast, disciplined with character. Now, quarterbacks are different,” Sanders told Rich Eisen. “We want mother, father. Dual parent. We want that kid to be 3.5 [GPA] and up because he has to be smart. Not bad decisions off the field at all. Because he has to be a leader of men.”

“Defensive linemen is totally opposite,” said Sanders as he went even deeper into his flawed and racist philosophy. “Single mama, trying to get it, he’s on free lunch,” Sanders added. “I’m talking about just trying to make it. He’s trying to rescue mama. Like mama barely made the flight. And I want him to just go get it. “It’s a whole different attribute that you look for in different positions. And we have that stuff just chronicled. We know what we want, and we go get it.”



Whether Coach Prime and his recruiting methods were serious or just a joke is unknown, but as noted above, they are not going over well with Black folks.

ESPN NFL analyst Marcus Spears was not feeling Coach Prime’s comments writing in a tweet, “this shit ain’t funny.”

“This is very problematic, and not funny. Notice who is laughing the loudest. Respect for his game/record, but this is full of stereotypes and juvenile thinking. He’s dissing his *own* players,” another tweet read. 

Welp.

Coach Prime has yet to respond to the criticism. You can see more reactions in the gallery below.

—

Photo: Cindy Ord / Getty

2. Trueeeee

27 Feb 2023

Unwinding the Birth, Rise, Fall and Return of the Cassette Tape

While the use of magnetic tape to record and play music dates back to the 1930s, it wasn’t until 1963, at the Berlin Radio Show, that Philips introduced the two-spool cassette. Twenty years later, the finicky format passed vinyl as the most popular music medium in the United States, but it was a short-lived victory: The CD soon spun it into the bargain bin of history. But two decades after most music fans pressed the Eject button, cassettes are following vinyl’s comeback in stores and stereos.

Reel Love

Operating under the Norelco brand in the United States, Philips launched an “intensified advertising and promotion drive” to get cassettes into American homes,” according to the Sept. 24, 1966, Billboard. “The Norelco success on TV with shavers will hopefully be duplicated with recorders.” By the Nov. 26 issue, Philips predicted that “the market for equipment that can record and play back cassettes will reach 4 million sets” within a few years, citing one advantage the format had over vinyl: the “capability to play in any position, even upside down.”

Hitting Pause on High-End

Over the next decade, cassette sales were on fast-forward — but the format struggled to attract audiophiles, who stuck with vinyl. “A $19 cassette is a difficult sale to make,” mused an ad executive who worked for a chain store in the May 8, 1982, Billboard, referring to high-end cassettes. But electronics company Maxell tried: In that very issue, a pre-fame Geena Davis, leaning on a shelf full of tapes, appeared in a full-page ad targeting audiophiles.

Tapes and Tapes

Big Brother must have carried a Walkman: In 1984, the March 24 issue reported that “cassettes toppled LPs as the dominant prerecorded audio configuration last year, accounting for almost 53% of all album product shipped to trade.” Cassettes were up 30.1% year over year, while vinyl dropped 14.1%. The “portable lifestyle,” Billboard noted, “continues to propel sales to new peaks.”

Find Cassingles Near You

“Is Cassette-Single Format Winding Down Already?” asked the front page of the Dec. 21, 1991, Billboard. Apparently so: “The dollar value of CD sales surpassed that of cassettes,” according to an article in that issue. “Most distribution executives [agree that] the format has passed its peak,” though one Midwest chain store owner blamed “lousy songs,” insisting that the decline was nothing “a couple of hits couldn’t fix.”

Measuring Tapes

By the end of the ’90s, cassette sales were unspooling. “The decline of today’s cassette mirrors the disappearance of the 8-track tape two decades ago,” Billboard reported in its Dec. 28, 2002, issue. A year later, cassette sales had dropped 40.3% while CD sales had dropped just 3%, due to the rise of online piracy. In a Dec. 19, 2009, year-end “Sales by Album Format” graphic, cassettes had been folded into the “other” category. But reports of the format’s death were greatly exaggerated. From 2015 to 2022, the little tape that could saw a 443% increase in U.S. sales, according to Luminate, as marquee names like Taylor Swift, Megan Thee Stallion and Maren Morris cued up the cassette’s comeback.

This story originally appeared in the Feb. 25, 2023, issue of Billboard.

27 Feb 2023

Arrest Warrant Issued For Kodak Black After Failed Drug Test

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It looks like Kodak Black’s freedom is once again in jeopardy as an arrest warrant has been issued for the staunch Trump supporter in his home state of Florida.

According to TheGrio, Thursday (Feb. 23), a Florida judge issued an arrest warrant for Bill Kapri aka Kodak Black after he failed a drug test that he avoided taking for a few days. Earlier this month, Kodak was scheduled to take a drug test Feb. 3, but failed to appear on the day of the test. And when he did turn in a sample Feb. 8, the “Super Gremlin” rapper tested positive for fentanyl.

From TheGrio:

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Broward County Judge Barbara Duffy issued the warrant and wrote that the rapper had violated the conditions of his pretrial release for an oxycodone trafficking charge from July.

Black had pleaded not guilty to the trafficking charge. His attorney was not immediately available to comment on Sunday.

Since then, Kodak Black has been MIA in the Sunshine State. We wouldn’t be surprised if Kodak remains in hiding until Donald Trump wins another term presidential term and grants him another pardon or something. It’s probably best for Kodak to turn himself in, if for nothing else, to make sure he doesn’t end up the latest casualty of fentanyl as it’s been killing off its users at an alarming rate.

What do y’all think of Kodak Black’s current situation? Should he remain on the run or turn himself into authorities? Let us know in the comments section below.

27 Feb 2023

Austin Butler Recalls Going to the ER the Day ‘Elvis’ Wrapped

Austin Butler has been open about the demanding preparations he underwent for his title role in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, and immediately after filming for the biopic wrapped, it all caught up to him.

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In an interview with People on the SAG Awards red carpet Sunday (Feb. 26), the 31-year-old actor recalled being hospitalized on the very day he finished Elvis. “I didn’t get sick the entire time I filmed, but the day that I finished, I ended up in the emergency room,” he remarked. “I spent a week in bed, then I went to this other job.”

Butler previously shared that the hospitalization was due to his contracting a virus, which simulated the symptoms of appendicitis. “I woke up at 4 in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to hospital,” he told British GQ before the film came out. “My body just started shutting down the day after I finished Elvis.”

And though he managed to avoid getting sick until his time as The King was over, there were other signs of strain along the way. “We did so many takes,” he said at the SAG Awards, recalling a scene in which he sang “Never Been to Spain” over and over. “At a certain point, I just lost my voice. So then I went on vocal rest for a couple days and I was able to come back.”

“You get through it all,” he added. “There was those days, but it was the greatest ride of my life.”

Though Butler didn’t take home outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role Sunday night — the honor went to Brendan Fraser for The Whale — he did pick up best actor in a drama, motion picture at the Golden Globes in January. He also won best actor Feb. 19 at the BAFTA Awards, and is in the running for best actor at this year’s Oscars.

27 Feb 2023

The Willie Nelson Brand Is Having a Moment as Icon Stares Down 90

When Willie Nelson became the only country artist to win two Grammy Awards during the Feb. 5 ceremony, he was in the middle of texts with producer Buddy Cannon.

Nelson didn’t give the trophies much thought.

“All he wanted to talk about was the next record,” Cannon says.

That hunger is present at a time in Nelson’s career that’s remarkable, and likely unprecedented, among country acts. Fewer than 1 in 5 people live to age 90, according to the Social Security actuarial table, and as Nelson proceeds one day at a time toward a two-day celebration of the milestone April 29-30 at the historic Hollywood Bowl, he is doing so with an impressive level of activity. 

The two Grammys arrived just a few months after Me and Paul — a book about his late drummer, Paul English, co-written with David Ritz — and shortly after he received a nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A BIC commercial with Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart aired during the Super Bowl, and Nelson is prepping the March 3 release of I Don’t Know a Thing About Love, a 10-song collection of material penned by late songwriter Harlan Howard. That next record he was focused on during the Grammys is bluegrass recordings of songs from his own catalog; it will likely be released later in 2023. 

The Hollywood Bowl weekend, dubbed Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90, has a stacked lineup of well-wishers: Chris Stapleton, Beck, Leon Bridges, Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, Rosanne Cash, Neil Young, Tom Jones and The Chicks, to name a few. And Nelson has his usual array of standard concerts on the calendar before that event.

“It’s something that people half his age would have a hard time keeping up with,” says CAA senior music agent Brian Greenbaum, who has booked Nelson’s shows since 2010.

Nelson, of course, has never been one to approach life quite like anyone else. His trademark braids and bandana set him apart visually from the rest of his peers. So did his grainy timbre, his unpredictable phrasing and the twangy resonance of Trigger, a beat-up guitar that provides a vehicle for improvised solos that are simultaneously adventurous and reassuring. 

In a crowded business where it’s challenging for artists to carve out an identifiable lane of their own, Nelson managed to brand himself so well that he can enter any scenario and maintain his individuality.

“It gives us more leeway to think outside the box with Willie,” Greenbaum says. “He is such a multigenre artist, so you can tour Willie with a straight-ahead country artist, but you could also tour Willie with Bob Dylan, which we’ve done. And you can present him with some young up-and-coming artists like we’ve done with the Avett Brothers and a bunch of other artists in that vein.”

Part of what makes Nelson so appealing as an artist is his embrace of his story. Like Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash or Tony Bennett, he has aged gracefully under the glare of the spotlight. Instead of attempting to mask his experience, he wears it with an admirable authenticity. Both of his Grammy-winning entries at the recent ceremony — best country album A Beautiful Time and best country solo performance “Live Forever,” pulled from a tribute album to late singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver — are frank examinations of mortality. Beautiful Time ranges from the inspirational “Leave You With a Smile” to the humorous “I Don’t Go to Funerals,” with Nelson acting as an aspirational guide through a difficult topic. And that’s part of his brand, too.

“I’ve had the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama and to meet Bishop Desmond Tutu,” says Bill Silva, who booked the Hollywood Bowl concerts as a principal in events company Live Nation-Hewitt Silva, in association with Blackbird Presents. “These guys are different than people you meet every day. They vibrate a little differently. And I would put Willie in that same category.”

Nelson is in that company because he approaches the world with such a laid-back attitude. Many observers credit that to marijuana, and there is likely some truth to that. But there’s a philosophical component to that stance, too. Nelson embodies it in person, and he brings it to the stage, where he has a jazz-like propensity for creating setlists and interpreting solos on the fly.

“He’s always in the moment,” says Sheryl Crow drummer Fred Eltringham, who has played on at least five of Nelson’s albums and sat in with the band when one of Nelson’s road musicians got COVID-19. “When you see him live, even if people perceive it as sort of a mess, he’s in it. And it’s not a mess. They’re just having fun.”

It’s a reason why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination makes sense. It came as a surprise to some, but others who assumed he was already a member viewed it as an overdue honor. 

“I don’t think there are too many artists that are as punk rock as Willie Nelson, as far as just embodying the things that rock’n’roll is supposed to be,” Legacy vp of marketing Zach Hochkeppel says. “It seems like he kind of does it a lot better than most of the folks in the building.”

For now, Nelson is focused on that bluegrass album, recording it in his own way with Cannon overseeing the process. Nelson isn’t there when they cut the tracks — Cannon or studio singer John Wesley Ryles provides a reference vocal for an A-list band of gypsies that has seen enough Nelson shows or listened to enough of his records that they can anticipate the kind of arrangements that work for him.

Nelson adds his lead vocal and Trigger, at a later date, rarely performing more than three takes before he moves on. He’s so attuned to the song that even though he approaches it with a unique stylistic voice, he typically delivers the material with humility and a touch of reverence.

“It’s just like a strong magnet,” Cannon says. “It makes me listen to the song closer.”

That’s all part of what makes Nelson so remarkable in the current moment. He finds himself in a swirl of activity 25 years after most of his former contemporaries have retired, and he continues to do what he’s always done, focused on the project in front of him. The 90th birthday concerts will get here soon enough, and so will the Rock Hall’s May induction announcement.

Says Hochkeppel: “I don’t think that’s something that Willie himself is going to lose sleep over either way.”

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