It’s no April Fools Joke. Country music legend Loretta Lynn is gearing up to celebrate her 87th birthday this April 14th, and on April 1st, many of country music’s finest will be coming together to show tribute to the Coal Miners Daughter in a massive concert and birthday party at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
Leave it to Garth to do the most Garth-y thing when it comes to the 2018 CMA Awards. Instead of just accepting a performance slot from the CMAs and performing a relevant song like everyone else is expected to do, he once again has used his celebrity status to strong arm an organization to get his way.
Everything you need to know about the 2018 CMA Awards, including the performers, collaborations, songs, tributes, presenters, nominees with predictions, early winners, and what to watch for. All the information about the 52nd Annual CMA Awards in one place.
I have taken the past two days to find the words I’d like to share in regards to the concert at Notre Dame. I am a seasoned Garth fan, having seen him 17 previous times at various locations (Chicago, Denver, Wynn) over the past 30 years. Garth is my coming of age music. He began the tour scene as I got my drivers license.
One of the reasons scalpers and resellers have secured the upper hand when it comes to purchasing tickets for your favorite live act is because demand is outpacing supply. Artists love to show up to one market and play a massive sold out show, with some floor tickets exceeding $600 or more on the secondary market…
“That pissed me off,” Church says patently. “To me, lip-syncing is and always will be a red line. It’s fabricated. I don’t want young artists thinking it’s OK, because it’s not … So the winner of the biggest category of the night lip-synced in the biggest moment on the show? Fuck that! And I didn’t like his excuse at all.”
Are you tired of reading about Garth Brooks? Well tough, because all of a sudden he’s making major moves that could have a big impact on country music, and in a positive manner. Garth’s most country-sounding song in 2 decades was the most added song on country radio in the last 3 years.
The promise and hope ahead of Garth’s return from retirement was one of revitalizing country music by hearkening back to the early 90’s, which compared to today’s sounds, were super twangy and most certainly country. For the first time since his un-retirement, Garth has shown a little bit of country music backbone.
Garth Brooks has a new single on the way called “All Day Long” that will be debuting on radio stations on Tuesday, June 19th, as well as a new song called “The Road I’m On” that will also be made available to fans who pre-order his next album. The latter was written by Randall King, and will be the song Garth will open his upcoming tour with.
Granted, you’re making a perilous decision pinning your hopes on someone like Garth Brooks to help turn the needle to the positive in popular country. But a big honky tonk song from him could give the emerging movement a big boost. We’ll just have to see.
For contestant Kyla Jade who was part of Blake Shelton’s team, the original song selected was a tune called “The Last Tear.” The reason “The Last Tear” cannot be passed off as an original song is because it’s actually a song originally recorded by Garth Brooks called “Leave A Light On.”
Don’t worry, there will be plenty of country artists from the early and late 90’s who we won’t retrospectively be praising as we get older and the music of today gets worse. But you’re short changing yourself as a country fan if you write off many of the big songs and early albums of Brooks & Dunn as forgettable fluff.
With the same deft accuracy and studious understanding other country artists have evoked certain eras in the modern context, Randall King comes out swinging and fleetly re-imagines 90’s country with one sharp song after another. He also just received praise from one of country music’s biggest names.
The original Outlaw and Country Music Hall of Famer Bobby Bare will be the next member of the Grand Ole Opry, again. This is the news coming out of Nashville Saturday night (4-7) after Bare was invited to join country music’s most historic institution. He was officially invited by Garth Brooks, who shocked the Opry crowd when he took the stage.
Whether you love or hate the music of Garth Brooks, everyone must bow down and give the Prince of Garthness incredible credit as the most cunning music marketer to ever suck air on planet Earth, and it isn’t even close. Garth could sell ice to Eskimos, or the same song to the same music fans ten times.
When it comes to country music albums, it is Chris Stapleton, and everyone else. And it’s not even close. After the release of Stapleton’s latest record, ‘From A Room: Vol. 2,’ Chris Stapleton holds three of the top four spots on the country albums charts. ‘From A Room: Vol. 2’ easily comes in at #1 in country, as well as #2 all genre.
You can love Garth Brooks, and still be against him lip syncing at the CMA Awards. You can hate Miranda Lambert, and still agree with her that lip syncing is “bullshit.” You can also appreciate that Garth Brooks immediately fessed up to lip syncing at the 2017 CMA Awards. But what we can’t do is somehow make lip syncing socially acceptable.
Well well, it’s starting to get a little chippy out there after reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year Garth Brooks admitted mere moments after his CMA Awards performance Wednesday night (11-8) that he’d lip synced his song “Ask Me How I Know.”
What an embarrassing moment for the CMAs, country music, and Garth, since he was so very clearly lip syncing his performance Wednesday night (11-8). Social media exploded, especially after a moment where Garth was clearly facing away from the mic, but the lyrics kept rolling.
for years, Broadway was one of the very few personalities in mainstream country radio willing to ask tough questions of artists, willing to broach subjects otherwise thought of as taboo in the mainstream, and overall just show guts and independent thinking in an otherwise stuffy, closed-off world. And he did it all with class and respect.
Garth Brooks, take your free tickets to the Auditorium Shores stage and your Frito bags with your damn brand on them, and go back to Oklahoma and roll around naked in your massive, massive piles of money. You don’t belong at South By Southwest.
An all-star cast will come together to celebrate the life and music of country music icon and Hall of Famer Don Williams in a new tribute album with the proceeds going to a good cause. ‘Gentle Giants: The Songs of Don Williams’ will be released on May 26th via Slate Creek Records.
Deep breaths everybody, deep breaths. You can put your pitchforks away. Yes, The Randy Rogers Band will be playing in Washington D.C. for a function that runs parallel with the Presidential inauguration in February, but it is a long-running event that’s been held since 1953 by the Texas State Society.
If Garth’s comeback is going to be broad based and lasting, he’s got to impact beyond being a vessel for nostalgia. He needs a “Kokomo,” or at least something that impacts radio even slightly so he’s not just re-singing “Friends In Low Places” forever. And that’s what you get with “Baby, Let’s Lay Down and Dance.”