“I’m trying to make Luke Bryan money singing Chris Knight-caliber songs,” Parker McCollum says. Parker says he’s taking his cues from folks like Chris Stapleton and Kacey Musgraves who’ve found huge reception for their music despite a cold shoulder from country radio.
It’s uncanny how Chris Knight takes such simple notions, and turns them into exaltations for the common man, their common struggles, and imparts solutions to everyday dilemmas. He’s the headwaters of erudite knowledge served in plainspoken terms that all other country songwriters seek.
There is daylight at the end of the long tunnel that has been the dearth of new music from one of country music’s most revered songwriters. Chris Knight can stand toe to toe with just about any of the songwriting stalwarts of the era, but it’s been seven years since he last hunkered down in the studio and given us something new.
September of 2012 was the last time well-respected country music songwriter and performer Chris Knight released new music in the form of his album ‘Little Victories,’ and in the years since, his devoted fans have been salivating for information on when something new might be coming.
Fans of Kentucky-based singer and songwriter Chris Knight have been waiting impatiently for news on a new album for a few years now. His last record ‘Little Victories’ was released in September of 2012, and since then folks have been salivating for new material.
There is nothing like a Chris Knight album and a Chris Knight song. The consummate songwriter’s songwriter, Chris Knight is one of the most revered in the craft, and all you have to do is look at the list of artists who’ve covered his songs over the years, from Randy Travis to Lee Ann Womack.
When Lee Ann Womack set out to construct her 2014 album The Way I’m Livin’, she went looking for songs that weren’t written by committee as is the norm in Nashville these days, but songs that originated from one person going through a human experience who then shared that experience through song. Such a search if it was to be thorough and prudent would almost invariably involve Chris Knight.
This is the exact album that the United States of America needs right here, right now, at this very moment in time. Finally, someone has the courage and the wisdom to use music to reassure people of the power of individual will, and the beauty of the rising action embedded in every human soul instead of as a vehicle to lay blame on everyone else for the problems the individual faces.
Move over Chris Gaines and Earl Dibble’s Jr., there’s a new alter ego in the country world, and he’s a soft-core porn semi-star sporting a mullet and playing cheesy 90’s country rock in the country music equivalent of a hair metal band. Douglas “Big Rhythm Doug” Douglason and his band Hot Country Knights is apparently a real thing, or a fake thing that’s pretending to be real
Like Chris Knight, Ray Lawrence Jr. is a simple man who has this sensational talent to be able to put defining moments of the human experience to words and music in a way that rekindles the feelings of those moments. Ray’s simplicity becomes his strength by imbibing his music with a blue collar, colloquial grace. Ray Lawrence Jr. is America’s local honky tonk singer.
There are songwriters. Then there is that most exclusive pantheon of songwriters who graduate to imparting new perspectives on life otherwise inaccessible, and opening up entirely new avenues of thought in the audience.
‘Together Through The Dark’ is a tempered and thoughtful mid/late career effort by Cleaves that compliments his tranquil voice and calming disposition … until it isn’t, and the passion for imperative topics comes boiling up…
Though you may not nerd out enough about country music to wonder how your favorite Texas/Red Dirt artists end up playing at your local watering hole or wind up on a festival lineup, it’s a very big part to how an artist or band either makes it breaks it in the music business.
Friday night (4-7), 49 Winchester rolled into Pittsburgh, a.k.a the Paris of Appalachia, and played the newly renovated Thunderbird Cafe on a hot sell-out streak. After warming up the crowd with the road weary anthem “All I Need” and a soaring rendition of “Second Chance,” the crowd really got rocking…
The Saving Country Music Top 25 Playlist is built to keep you informed on all the best songs and albums coming out right here, right now in country and roots music. It’s available on most all streaming formats, or you can just use the song, artist, and album recommendations.
It may sound like a mantra at this point, but it bears repeating so often these days: Go see your favorite artists in small and medium venues when you still have the opportunity. This definitely is the case with Charles Wesley Godwin, who is already selling out shows left and right.
Make your way off the main roads, and down the two tracks of rural Western Kentucky where the promises of modern society are left unfulfilled, and the souls haven’t been lifted up by the march of progress, they’ve been abandoned by it, and become refugees of it.
Parker McCollum is just kind of an enigma. His sleekness and attractiveness makes it easy for some to dismiss his music before a lick of it is even heard. For those who’ve migrated from the mainstream, his songs and melodies just carry so much more meaning and weight.
Drawing influences from both their native environs, as well as bordering states like Texas for a more open sound, and Wyoming for some Western flavor—and then hopscotching a few states to draw on Southern rock as well—The Barlow is one of those bands you immediately warm up to.
Congratulations are due to Texas born and raised performer and songwriter Parker McCollum, who just put the first #1 on his resume with his debut major label single “Pretty Heart.” Parker is the first of the latest crop of Texas artists recently signed to major labels to reach #1.
New for 2020, Kentucky singer songwriter Justin Wells has released the album The United State. Ambitious and involved, Wells himself says the album “is a life, from before birth til after death. The songs are a timeline. I’m somewhere on it. Every one of you are somewhere on it.”
You can’t have a discussion about the important progeny of country legends who’ve gone on to offer their own lasting contributions to the music without at least mentioning Dean Miller, son of Roger. But too often he gets overlooked. Dean Miller might be partly to blame for that ….
Whether it’s tried-and-true traditional country, more modern Texas-style country with a little rock ‘n roll swagger, singer-songwriter stuff, or something in between, Laredo, TX-native Bo DePeña has you covered in this new self-titled record, and in only nine songs. Bo DePeña is a name on the rise.
Texas-based Southern rock band Whiskey Myers is set to launch their own personally-curated festival and annual gathering for their fans called the Firewater Festival, and they have just announced the inaugural lineup. The event has been cleared by state and local officials to move forward.