Beginning in the 00’s, songwriting in country music began to change, and by the early 2010’s, the population of country music songwriters had contracted by as much as 90% by some estimates, as the royalties that helped sustain these writers also began to dry up.
Willie Nelson gives a lot of credit to his success to the fact that he’s been able to keep the same people around him for so long. The very first part of that family was Paul English. Paul’s skills as a manager made him a mainstay in Willie’s band all the way until he passed away.
Willie Nelson is paying tribute to close friend and musical colleague Frank Sinatra with his 71st studio album and 15th album for Sony’s Legacy imprint called ‘That’s Life.’ To capture the essence of Sinatra, Nelson recorded the new album at Capitol Studios in Hollywood
Hold My Beer Vol. 2 is like a love letter to classic country from a Texas perspective. In many respects, it’s a country music album about country music. Along the way though, Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen don’t forget to have some fun. After all, that’s the underlying reason for this project.
“Our Song” reminds us that the most important thing in our lives is each other. “You make it right when everything’s wrong,” Willie sings, which is a message that rings true as many sit virtually locked down with our loved ones due to the Coronavirus. A song like this may seem a little too sappy coming from some, but it’s welcomed from Willie.
Willie Nelson will release his triumphant 70th studio album called First Rose of Spring come April 24th via Sony’s Legacy imprint. Seceding much of the songwriting to others on this effort aside from a couple of tunes, the title track comes from the pen of Randy Houser, Allen Shamblin, Mark Beeson, and has been released ahead of the record.
Well because they’re fans of The Likely Culprits, of course. Who are The Likely Culprits? It’s a crew of seven all-star band members and session musicians who comprise some of the most highly-regarded pickers and singers in the country music business.
Willie Nelson turned 86-years-old last week, but don’t expect to see him slowing down anytime soon. If anything, he’s putting his foot down on the gas for 2019, announcing a new album, and recently extending his Outlaw Music Festival dates which will keep him busy well into the summer.
Willie Nelson’s latest album will be called ‘Ride Me Back Home,’ and will once again be produced by Buddy Cannon, with a release date forthcoming sometime in June. This is the news coming out of an exclusive SiriusXM taping that occurred at Willie’s ranch outside of Austin on April 13th in the chapel of his own private Western town, Luck, TX.
It really is hard to know just what the hell to do with Aaron Lewis. On the one hand, his music is definitely country, and don’t go citing his former life as the frontman of Staind as some rebuttal to this conclusion. On the other hand, Aaron Lewis comes with a very large amount of baggage.
Reba McEntire has nothing to gain by making a strong country record at this point in her career. But she did it anyway because she wanted to. And that sense of deliberate passion and comes through in the twelve inspired songs of ‘Stronger Than The Truth.’
Reba McEntire has a new album coming out on April 7th called ‘Stronger Than The Truth,’ and she’s promising fans that it will be the most country record she’s done in a long time, if not in her career. That says a lot considering just how country many of Reba McEntire’s earlier albums were.
It’s both weird that fellow Texans and country legends Willie Nelson and George Strait have never collaborated together or even performed side by side in their illustrious careers, and yet it also makes perfect sense. But it was bound to happen eventually that the two would sing together.
Reba McEntire’s got something cooking. And according to the Country Music Hall of Famer who’s certainly flirted with more pop and contemporary sounds throughout her career, what she’s got cooking is country, and probably more country than anything we’ve heard from her before.
It’s very early in the process, and we don’t know if it’s just a few songs or an entire album. But the word out of Pittsburgh, PA is that Irish singing/songwriting legend Van Morrison and country music icon Willie Nelson were recently in the studio together collaborating on an upcoming project.
Willie Nelson is one of the very last men standing in country music if there ever was one. He played in the band of Bob Wills as a teenager, performed on the Grand Ole Opry stage during the Countrypolitan era, wrote songs for Patsy Cline and Faron Young, spearheaded the Outlaw movement …
Notch yet another #1 for Willie. 84 years of age, and Billboard’s new rules that register streaming data in the album tabulations can’t keep Willie Nelson from topping the charts this week with his first record of original material in three years, God’s Problem Child. Willie also notches another Top 10 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
One day, and maybe not too far off in the distant future, you will be bragging about how you lived in the time of Willie Nelson. Whether you’re an oldtimer and remember buying his records new on vinyl, or you discovered Willie in your college years as a back catalog artist, you lived on Planet Earth at the same time as Willie Nelson.
Windy City from Alison Krauss comes in at #1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart for the week ending February 23rd, and also comes in at #1 on the Bluegrass Album Chart, #2 on the Americana chart right behind Ryan Adams’ Prisoner, and #5 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
A tribute is finally planned for The Hag, and it promises to be a star-studded event. ‘Sing Me Back Home: The Music of Merle Haggard’ will take place at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Thursday, April 6th to honor what would have been Merle Haggard’s 80th birthday, and to mark the one year anniversary of his passing.
The 83-year-old Willie Nelson certainly isn’t slowing down for anything. In fact he’s been been releasing records a a pace quicker than one per year since signing with Sony’s Legacy Recordings, but those are not always recordings of original music. That will not be the case with his newest project called ‘God’s Problem Child.’
Similar to the Gershwin Brothers, Willie Nelson transcends genre and era. Willie reprises “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and ten other Gershwin tunes on his latest release Summertime—a stylized and smooth journey back to the classical era of pop, yet still mostly defined by Willie’s signature warble and nylon string tone.
Nothing Shines Like Neon has all the liquor, beer, bar scenes, and sultry interactions with lovers you might hear on some mainstream country record, except it tells the story from the opposite perspective—the more realistic perspective. It’s where libations aren’t just flowing to party hearty, but to help douse heartbreak.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now live in a world where not even King George remains relevant on country radio. Isn’t that the sad, ever present revelation of the living—that time marches on, and no matter how important something was in the past, the present moves forward, callously at times, and the greatest of efforts are relegated to moments of fond reminiscing.