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Merle Haggard On Kennedy Center Honors / Willie’s Arrest
Tonight the Poet of the Common Man, Merle Haggard will be honored with a Kennedy Center Honors award for his contributions to American music. Well, actually he received the award on December 5th, but...
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Release of Controversial Unfinished Hank Williams Songs
The Rolling Stone has just reported that a long-rumored project pairing Bob Dylan and Jack White together to oversee the recording of an album of Hank Williams songs that were found without music in a...
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Sheryl Crow’s Rendition of Hank Williams’“Angel Mine”
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember Hank Williams ever recording any drunken sea shantys. I can't remember any Ol' Hank songs featuring trumpets, or classically-styled lilting mandolin parts...
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Album Review – Willie Nelson’s “Heroes”
This album is good both because it is Willie, and because it is good. After years of navigating through a gray area in his career and having to dabble with some record labels probably less able to do a...
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Hank Williams Legacy Recordings Field Guide
For years, the principals of the Hank Williams estate (Hank Jr. and Jett) were warring back and forth, and this kept the treasure trove of Hank Williams' legacy recordings relegated to bootlegs and...
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Sheryl Crow’s Country Move a Trojan Horse for Toilet Paper Stance
Sources close to the Sheryl Crow camp have confided in Saving Country Music that part of Sheryl's country move is politically motivated. Sheryl is a staunch environmentalist, and has championed...
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How Hip-Hop Stole Country Music: The Arrival of the Mono-Genre
All of a sudden hip-hop influences are dominating the top of the country music charts, asserting just as much influence, if not more than indigenous country influences, with a bevy of new country rap...
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Most Embarrassing Moments in Country Music History
When looking at the historical timeline of country music, many times it is big events that set the wheels of change in motion, for the good and the bad. Whether it is intrusion of pop or rap into...
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Sheryl Crow: “Country Is More Pop Than Pop Was When I Came Up”
"The country format is more pop than pop was when I came up two decades ago," Sheryl explained to Reuters late last week when being interviewed about her new album, illustrating the degree of country's...
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Vince Gill & Alan Jackson Show How To Grow Old Gracefully in Country
With 34 CMA Awards, over 20 Grammys, and and some 80 million records sold between the two, they both have seen their share of overwhelming commercial success, public notoriety, and peer recognition....
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Sheryl Crow’s “Feels Like Home” Only Country By Name
It's not that there aren't some token homages to mark her move into the country format, but overall, except for one song that we will get to in due course, there is very, very little contrast between...
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Season of Discontent: A Timeline of Country’s Recent Artist Criticism
Country music in the second half of 2013 is going through some of the most historic changes the format has ever seen. The ever-present erosion of what the term "country" defines has never been greater,...
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There’s Bigger Problems Than Justin Timberlake “Going Country”
Last week pop and R&B superstar Justin Timberlake helped stir the music pot by proposing that he might make a country record. Timberlake told Sirius XM's "The Highway" show: "I just did an...
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Move Over Bro-Country, The “Bra-Country” Revolution Has Begun
In hopes of aligning themselves as the antithesis to the whole "bro-country" phenomenon gripping popular country music with its laundry list, truck and beer, mud-splashed and moonshine-soaked...
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Martina McBride Does What She Wants with “Everlasting”
With Martina McBride at the crossroads that every big country music superstar knows they must ultimately face at some point in their career, where their radio relevancy is slipping through their...
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Bro-Country Is Just The Symptom. Here Are The Causes
Yeah, yeah, bro-country sucks. As satisfying as it is to finally see the rest of the American media waking up to a problem that had actually been gripping country music for half a decade before...
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Strait’s “Cowboy Rides Away” Album Butchered By Auto-Tune
Nobody could have anticipated that a George Strait album would be the vehicle for the most excessive, and most blatantly obvious use of the pitch correction software known as Auto-Tune that I have...
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Album Review – Allison Moorer’s “Down to Believing”
Down to Believing nestles right down in that classic alt-country approach of building up from a country foundation, but then striking out with a decidedly rock and roll sound. It's a bold, full...
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Clay Walker is “Pissed Off” About Rock Artists Playing Country
"I can’t stand to see outdated rock-and-rollers coming in to play country music. That really pissed me off,” Clay Walker told The Modesto Bee recently. “We have great singers, great country musicians....
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Texas Country’s Prodigal Son Pat Green Returns “Home”
Without anyone left to please but himself, Pat Green is free to exorcise his demons, get some stuff off his chest, make the album he wants to, and hopefully reconnect with those grassroots in Texas...
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Album Review –“Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin”
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...
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Inaugural Outlaw Music Festival Announced
Scranton, Pennsylvania will be the host of the inaugural Outlaw Music Festival to be held at the Pavilion on Montage Mountain on Sunday, September 18th, with headliners Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and...
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2017 Outlaw Festival Plans Series of Events
The 2017 Outlaw Music Festival will actually be a series of events, or a tour if you will, consisting of six total stops throughout July hitting up New Orleans, Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee, Syracuse,...
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Lineup Announced for Willie Nelson’s 2017 4th of July Picnic
A traditional like few others will transpire once again this summer when Willie Nelson celebrates the 4th of July by gathering together friends and family for his annual 4th of July Picnic. For the...
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The Curious Curation of Country Music’s Recent Tribute Concerts
To put it bluntly, the ability of Blackbird Presents to curate talent for events is pretty terrible, and appears to be done without any true understanding of the layout of the current country music...
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Huge Willie Nelson Tribute Takes Shape
Blackbird Presents is at it again planning another huge tribute for a country legend, and this one might be the biggest of them all. Often working with Willie Nelson via tributes to others, as well as...
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UPDATED: ‘Highwomen’ Supergroup with Brandi Carlile & Amanda Shires On The Way
A new country music supergroup is on the way that will combine the talents of Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, and Margo Price. Called the Highwomen, it will take inspiration from legendary country music...
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Kris Kristofferson Side Steps CMA Lifetime Presentation for Iowa Show
That's right. The 83-year-old is blowing off the 2019 CMA's and won't be in attendance to receive is CMA Lifetime Achievement trophy. Instead of walking out on the stage at the Bridgestone Arena, Kris...
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Chris Stapleton Announces Initial 2020 Tour Dates & Openers
Chris Stapleton has just announced a slew of new tour dates on the 2020 leg of his ongoing All-American Road Show Tour, along with the openers for each date. Though this isn't the big dump of dates...
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Chris Stapleton Announces Extensive 2020 Tour & Openers
Chris Stapleton has just dumped a bunch of new tour dates for his 2020 All-American Roadshow Tour to go along with some previously-announced appearances and events, and they include an extensive list...
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Merle Haggard Tribute Concert to Finally Be Released
Unless you were there in person, you missed it. But now we'll all get the opportunity to see the tribute concert that transpired on April 6th, 2017, when a hefty list of musical talent all assembled at...
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Landmark Willie Nelson Tribute Concert to Finally Be Released
A once-in-a-lifetime event happened on January 12th, 2019 when a wide-ranging assemblage of talent from country music and beyond came together at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville to pay tribute to...
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Chris Stapleton Adds New Dates, Cool Openers to Tour
Hot off of winning the ACM Album of the Year for his most recent release Starting Over, Chris Stapleton has added dates to his upcoming "All-American Roadshow" tour. Joining Chris Stapleton as always...
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Willie Nelson’s 90th Birthday Will Be One for the Ages
Not all of us will end up making it to 90. But we're all the beneficiaries of the fact that Willie Nelson (almost) has. On April 29th, Willie will officially turn 90 years old, and on that day and the...
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2024 Buckeye Country Superfest Offers Once-in-a-Lifetime Lineup
So much damn country music talent will be assembled all in one place, it very well my cause a rip in the country music space-time continuum, and Merle Haggard himself might waltz on out and sing "Mama...
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Big Names Coming Together for Keith Gattis Tribute Show
Over his 40 years in the trenches as a songwriter, player, and producer, Keith Gattis became a superstar in country music, if not to fans at large, then to his fellow performers, singers, songwriters,...
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Willie Nelson’s 90th Birthday Becomes Worthy Television Special (Review)
Many Willie songs were sung, some legendary collaborations ensued, Miranda Lambert's fringe was longer than Snoop Dogg's spliff, and pound for pound, it was more entertaining than any country music...
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