
1 DYLAN SCOTT My Girl *
2 THOMAS RHETT Craving You w/Maren Morris
3 RASCAL FLATTS Yours If You Want It
4 KEITH URBAN The Fighter w/Carrie Underwood
5 BLAKE SHELTON Every Time I Hear That Song
6 BILLY CURRINGTON Do I Make You Wanna
7 COLE SWINDELL Flatliner w/Dierks Bentley
8 MIDLAND Drinkin’ Problem
9 LADY ANTEBELLUM You Look Good
10 JUSTIN MOORE Somebody Else Will
11 OLD DOMINION No Such Thing As a Broken Heart
12 DUSTIN LYNCH Small Town Boy
13 BROTHERS OSBORNE It Ain’t My Fault
14 JON PARDI Heartache On The Dance Floor
15 KIP MOORE More Girls Like You
16 CHRIS LANE For Her
17 ZAC BROWN BAND My Old Man
18 JASON ALDEAN They Don’t Know
19 CARLY PEARCE Every Little Thing
20 BRETT ELDREDGE Something I’m Good At
COUNTRY MUSIC NEWS!
Joe Nichols Commits to Traditional Country
Talks New Album Never Gets Old and Honky-Tonk Version of Sir Mix A Lot’s “Baby Got Back”
Through the years of country music trends, one thing that will never
go out of style is Joe Nichols’ voice and the traditional country he
sings.
On his latest 12-track album Never Gets Old, he mostly sings
about love — making it (“Hostage” and “Breathless”), falling for it to
the sounds of live music (“Girl in the Song”) and investing in it
(“Diamonds Make Babies”).
But on the striking “We All Carry Something,” co-written by Westin
Davis and Justin Weaver, Nichols sings about the imperfections that make
people human. The verses sing of a woman who inherited alcoholism from
her mother, a Chicago cop who cries over witnessing a world of crime on
the job and a Purple Heart war veteran who lives with memories of his
time in the service and shrapnel in his arm.
“We all kind of carry our junk from our past and so the being alone
part doesn’t have to be part of the problem,” Nichols said during our
CMT.com interview. “There’s a redeeming factor in the song that doesn’t
make it such a sad song about pain. It’s sad song about everybody having
pain and it’s alright. We’re all in it together. It’s a very powerful
song that’s unique in the fact that it grips you from the very
beginning, and it punches you at the very end.”
For our Q&A, Nichols kicked back on a couch at the Music Row
headquarters of his home label Red Bow Records, an imprint of Broken Bow
Music Group (Jason Aldean, Dustin Lynch, Chase Rice and others). The
13-minute conversation was mostly about Never Get Old,
including his updated honky-tonk version of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s hit “Baby
Got Back.” Nichols remembers there was no escaping the 1992 hit 25 years
ago. It was everywhere.
“I always listened to country even when country wasn’t cool,” Nichols
said. “But there are certain songs you can’t get away from. I remember
it being huge when I was 15 or 16, and we did a lot of cruising back
then. We’d just drive down the main strip in town and ride around in
circles. That song was in every car about every night. You see four or
five girls in the car, rapping ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie.'”
CMT.com: That still happens whenever that song comes on.
Nichols: I met Sir Mix-a-Lot. He said it’s one of
the top most-played songs at weddings. He said he does weddings, as
well. It’s like the Chicken Dance: It gets everybody on the floor
dancing. It’s that kind of brand on its own.
What are some perennial themes in country music that never get old to you?
I always love a good love song. Not your basic “let’s hook up
tonight” love song or anything raunchy like that. But I like a good,
sweet-sentiment song like “Never Gets Old,” “Forever and Ever, Amen,” I
always think those are good. I was talking with someone yesterday about
the philosophy of old Don Williams and Merle Haggard songs like “The Way
I Am,” and state-of-mind kind songs. I’ve always thought those are
great and there aren’t enough of them. Plus, honestly the honky-tonk
songs — the old Hank Jr. style honky-tonk songs — those never get old to
me.
Is there a double meaning behind the title of the album?
Oh, yeah. It’s a perfect album title because it encapsulates the
feeling of this album and what I feel the style of music this is.
Traditional music never gets old to me. That’s something that’s always
been a constant in my heart. This album being traditional country, it
never gets old to me. And the song, it’s just one of those toe-tapping,
feel good, love songs with no crazy instruments punching you in the face
— no crazy gadgets and no big instrumentals. It’s just simple country
songs, sung simply with simple little messages.
Because you’ve stuck to singing traditional country all this
time, do you feel there’s a fan demand for the type of music you make
and are you seeing that play out when you perform live?
Absolutely. The past couple years, we haven’t had much at radio while
we were making this record, and I’ve seen the crowds grow bigger. I
think there’s a portion of the fan base in country music who are seeking
traditional country more than they have in a long time. It’s great for
me, and it’s a huge sigh of relief that we have this album at this time
when it was frustrating that it took so long to get it done. But then
again, the timing feels better right now than it would have been a year
ago.
Talk about the courage it takes to commit to your signature sound as trends change?
Talk about the courage it takes to commit to your signature sound as trends change?
I think it’s a little less scary today than it has been in several
years to have a traditional country album. I heard a great interview
with Bobby Braddock one time. He used to talk about the coming
technology and the age we’re living in. Everybody can sing. And if you
can’t sing, then you can still sing because we can tune it, we can play
it louder or we can push it wherever. But to have a distinctive sound, a
distinctive voice is more valuable than anything. That’s one thing I’m
grateful for, and I think it allows me to get away with a few things
that are a little more traditional.
Jon Pardi Reveals Initial CMT on Tour Dates
CMT On Tour with Pardi, Midland and Runaway June Starts Oct. 12
Get excited Pardi animals. The initial dates for the CMT on Tour Presents Jon Pardi‘s Lucky Tonight Tour with Midland and Runaway June were announced Monday (July 31).
The two-month fall run will hit a series of cities in the Southeast,
Northeast and Midwest beginning Oct. 12 in Birmingham, Alabama. Shows at
Billy Bob’s Texas in Ft. Worth and Chicago’s Joe’s on Weed Street are
among the stops on the schedule. The Dec. 8 show in Grand Rapids,
Michigan will just feature performances by Pardi and Runaway June.
Tickets for the initial dates go on sale Friday (Aug. 4), and additional
shows will be announced within the coming weeks.
This marks the third headlining tour for Pardi, who is quickly
becoming a household name for music lovers with his string of hits “Head
Over Boots,” “Dirt on My Boots” and his current single “Heartache on
the Dance Floor” from California Sunrise, as well as “Missin’ You
Crazy,” “Up All Night” and the title track from his 2014 debut, Write
You a Song. Pardi is the reigning ACM New Male Vocalist of the Year, and
he was nominated in the Breakthrough and the coveted Video of the Year
categories at the 2017 CMT Music Awards in June.
Since its 2002 inception, the CMT on Tour has transitioned many
rising artists into superstar acts. The program’s previous headliners
include Brett Eldredge, Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell, Trace Adkins, Jason
Aldean, Luke Bryan, Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Brad
Paisley, Rascal Flatts, Sugarland, Keith Urban, Jake Owen and Kip Moore.
Below is a complete list of tour dates for the 16th CMT on Tour. For more information as it becomes available, visit CMTonTour.CMT.com and follow #CMTonTour on social platforms.
Oct. 12: Birmingham, Alabama (Avondale Brewing Co.)
Oct. 13: Savannah, Georgia (Grayson Stadium)
Oct. 14: Charlotte, North Carolina (Coyote Joe’s)
Oct. 19: Houston (House of Blues)
Oct. 20: Austin, Texas (Stubb’s Outdoors)
Oct. 21: Fort Worth, Texas (Billy Bob’s Texas)
Oct. 13: Savannah, Georgia (Grayson Stadium)
Oct. 14: Charlotte, North Carolina (Coyote Joe’s)
Oct. 19: Houston (House of Blues)
Oct. 20: Austin, Texas (Stubb’s Outdoors)
Oct. 21: Fort Worth, Texas (Billy Bob’s Texas)
Nov. 2: Worcester, Massachusetts (The Palladium)
Nov. 3: Silver Spring, Maryland (The Fillmore Silver Spring)
Nov. 4: North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (House of Blues)
Nov. 10: St. Paul, Minnesota (Myth)
Nov. 11: Madison, Wisconsin (Orpheum Theatre)
Nov. 16: Chicago (Joe’s on Weed Street)
Nov. 17: Rosemont, Illinois (Joe’s Live)
Nov. 18: Milwaukee (The Rave)
Nov. 3: Silver Spring, Maryland (The Fillmore Silver Spring)
Nov. 4: North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (House of Blues)
Nov. 10: St. Paul, Minnesota (Myth)
Nov. 11: Madison, Wisconsin (Orpheum Theatre)
Nov. 16: Chicago (Joe’s on Weed Street)
Nov. 17: Rosemont, Illinois (Joe’s Live)
Nov. 18: Milwaukee (The Rave)
Dec. 8: Grand Rapids, Michigan (The Intersection)

The Unbroken Circle: Remembering the Bristol Sessions
Summer 2017 Marks the 90th Anniversary of the Big Bang of Modern Country Music
This summer marks the 90th anniversary of the “Big Bang” of modern
country music, and it all happened over 12 days in Bristol, Tennessee.
On July 25, 1927, New York-based producer Ralph Peer from the Victor
Talking Machine Company started country music’s most famous recording
sessions on the third floor of the town’s Taylor-Christian Hat and Glove
Company in an effort to discover music that would appeal to an untapped
market — rural music by rural people who couldn’t afford the
electricity to power a radio set.
In the roaring ’20s, America had fallen in love with radio, and the
sales of phonograph records were declining. Radio barn dances like the
Grand Ole Opry on Nashville’s high-powered WSM broadcasted live country
entertainment across the nation. Americans seemed to prefer to sit and
listen to an entire program of music without having to change records
every few minutes. In 1925, the same year of the first Grand Ole Opry
broadcast, Victor introduced a new music player that was powered
acoustically and played music that was recorded electronically, bringing
a new form of entertainment to households nationwide.
Bristol was just one of the cities on Peer’s recording tour of the
American south. Other cities on the schedule were Atlanta, Savannah and
Memphis, and all of them were chosen because they were easily accessible
by train. With him, Peer brought two engineers, a new invention called
the orthophonic microphone and a new electronic recording system
developed by Western Electric. Before orthophonic recording, performers
were recorded using a big horn that would capture all the sounds in the
room in which they played.
Peer stopped in Bristol at the suggestion of musician Ernest
Stoneman, who was from the area and had previously recorded for Peer in
New York. In the days leading up the recording sessions, Peer attracted
local talent by taking out newspaper ads that read, “Do not deny
yourself the sheer joy of orthophonic music,” with information about how
to connect with Peer and his new recording machine.
Stoneman was one of the most recorded acts in the first days of the
Bristol sessions, but not many artists showed up at first. Peer needed
more variety, new songs and original material. So he convinced the
editor of the Bristol News Bulletin to do a story on the sessions and
Stoneman, who told the paper that he was paid $100 for his time and his
sidemen received $25 each. Stoneman added that he made approximately
$3,000 off a year’s worth of royalties.
With that news, the talent came running (that was big money in those
days). Peer ended up recording 76 songs by 19 acts in Bristol. Two of
them became the genre’s most influential performers and both of them
were recorded within days of each other, the Carter Family, the first
family of country music, and Jimmie Rodgers, the father of country
music. The two iconic acts wouldn’t meet until years later.
The Carter Family, A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and Sara’s first cousin
Maybelle (who married A.P.’s brother, Ezra), were from Scott County,
Virginia, which is a 40-minute drive from Bristol today. But back then,
it took the Carters all day to drive to Bristol. The summer rainy season
had turned the surrounding Appalachian dirt roads into gullies and the
family act had to stop frequently to make sure their tires were good for
their return trip home. Maybelle was also nine months pregnant at the
time, and with every little bump in the road, she believed her baby
would arrive.
When the Carter’s finally pulled up to the Taylor-Christian Hat and
Glove Company, they entered through the back because they were too
embarrassed to be seen in the hillbilly clothes they had worn all day.
But they sang and played beautifully. Maybelle’s famous Carter scratch
guitar-picking accompanied their harmonies as they laid down their first
song “Bury Me Beneath the Weeping Willow.”
The next day, Maybelle and Sara recorded “Married Girl, Single Girl,” a
song Sara hated, but it went on to become one of their first major hits.
A.P. had taken their car to the mechanic to get a tire fixed that
morning and so Peer recorded the two women by themselves. The family
made it back to Virginia safe and sound and thought nothing of the
sessions until the royalty checks started arriving by mail. They went on
to record more than 300 songs for Victor and other labels such as the
American Record Company and Decca. But the band broke up for good in
1943, even though A. P., Sara and Maybelle were at the peak of their
performing careers. Maybelle continued the Carter legacy with her
daughters, Helen, June and Anita.
Jimmie Rodgers, originally from Meridian, Mississippi, gave up his gig
as a railroad man to dedicate his life to music in 1924 after he had
developed tuberculosis. At the time, his music encompassed all the
styles he was raised on in the delta — traditional folk music, early
jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of railroad crews and
African-American blues. In summer 1927, he had found work performing on
the radio in Asheville, North Carolina with the Tenneva Ramblers and
then again at a resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He had heard about
Peer’s recording sessions in Bristol, and they loaded up a car to go
audition for him. But before they even got to record, the group had a
dispute over billing and broke up. Deserted by the band, Rodgers
persuaded Peer to let him record alone, accompanied only by his own
guitar.
Based on the strong public response to Peer’s recordings of Rodgers’
“Sleep, Baby, Sleep” and “The Soldier’s Sweetheart,” Rodgers was then
invited to Victor’s home studios in New Jersey where he recorded “Blue
Yodel (T for Texas),” which became his first big hit. Within months, he
was on his way to national stardom with regular radio gigs in
Washington, D.C., and a vaudeville tour that hit all the major Southern
cities. Eventually, he recorded 110 songs including “Waiting for a
Train,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” “T.B. Blues” and “Miss the Mississippi
and You.”
Rodgers reached the pinnacle of his career between 1928 and 1932. He
even starred in 15-minute 1929 movie, “The Singing Brakeman.” But the
Depression had taken its toll on record sales and theater attendance.
His failing health made it near impossible for his career to continue.
On May 26, 1933, after fulfilling his contract with RCA Victor with an
12 recordings, he collapsed on a New York City street and died a few
hours later of a massive hemorrhage in his room at the Hotel Taft.
While the Carter Family and Rodgers will forever be known as the
first family and father of country music, other visionaries were
recorded during the Bristol Sessions. They were Ernest Phipps and His
Holiness Quartet, Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers, Johnson Brothers with the
Tennessee Wildcats, the Johnson Brothers, Blind Alfred Reed, El Watson,
B.F. Shelton, Alfred Karnes, J.P. Nester, Bull Mountain Moonshiners,
Alcoa Quartet, Henry Whitter, the trio Fred H. Greever, John B. Kelly
and J.V. Snavely, the Shelor Family, Dad Blackbird’s Mountaineers, Mr.
and Mrs. J.W. Baker, Red Snodgrass’ Alabamians, the Tenneva Ramblers,
the West Virginia Coon Hunters and the Tennessee Mountaineers.
It’s important to point out that there are no pictures of the Bristol
Sessions, and the performers never saw the famous electronic machine
that recorded them. It was kept hidden from view behind a large curtain
like the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. The only
people who got to see the machine were Peer, the engineers who operated
it and record label staffers. The reason it was kept so secret is
because it was considered as valuable as the recipe for Coca-Cola. No
one involved wanted the machine to be replicated by a competitor.
On July 15, Bristol’s Birthplace of Country Music Museum kicked off a
series of events celebrating the 90th anniversary of the 1927 Bristol
Sessions. The first event featured panel discussions by Nashville-based
journalist and author Barry Mazur, Dr. Ted Olson from East Tennessee
State University’s department of Appalachian Studies, screenings of PBS’
American Epic, a Q&A with the series’ producers Bernard
MacMahon and Allison McGourty and a keynote address by Ralph Peer II,
CEO of peermusic, with his wife Liz Peer.
It was also a day-long musical family reunion that hosted
approximately 30 descendants of those who participated in the famous
recording sessions. Country music’s Big Bang is their family legacies,
and the impact of the sessions resonates throughout popular music today.
While today’s mainstream country music sounds nothing like the sounds
made during the Bristol Sessions, record labels everywhere remain in a
constant search for the next big thing that will ensure the success of
the genre for generations to follow.
But what will ultimately carry country music through the constant
changes in popular music will be what Peer initially set out to do with
his field recordings — find country talent for country people. Or as
Kenny Rogers said in our 2016 CMT.com interview, “Country music is what country people will buy.”
Celebrations for the 90th anniversary of the Bristol Sessions continue in the Tennessee town and Scott County, Virginia. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum will host special film screenings and concert series through August. The three-day Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion
starts Sept. 15 and will feature performances by Dwight Yoakam, Judah
& the Lion, Jerry Douglas Presents Earls of Leicester, Son Volt,
Rodney Crowell, Amanda Shires and more.
The Carter Fold
in Hiltons, Virginia, will host a special Carter Festival on Nov. 4 to
celebrate the anniversary of the first Carter Family ’78 being released
in Nov. 4, 1927.
Funeral Services Held for Cajun Music Legend D.L. Menard
Grammy Nominee Best Known for 1962 Hit, “The Back Door”
Funeral services were held Monday (July 31) in Lafayette, Louisiana,
for D.L. Menard, a singer-songwriter widely known as the “Cajun Hank
Williams.”
Menard, who died Thursday at his home in Scott, Louisiana, at age 85,
achieved acclaim with his 1962 recording of “La Porte en Arriere.” Sung
in French, the song is also known as “The Back Door.” The upbeat song is about a man who gets so drunk he sneaks home through the back door.
For Cajun music enthusiasts, “The Back Door” rivaled the traditional “Jolie Blon” as the unofficial Cajun national anthem
“‘Jolie Blon’ is a song about a girl who went to Texas,” folklorist
Barry Jean Ancelet noted in July during a celebration of the 55th
anniversary of Menard’s hit. “‘La Porte’ is about a guy who slips back
in at home through the back door. Now, I ask you: Which one best
describes us Cajuns?”
Menard gained a national fan base following an appearance at the 1973
National Folk Festival near Washington, D.C. He also performed on
several U.S. State Department tours promoting the American culture.
During his career, he performed in 38 nations and received two Grammy
nominations.
In 1994, the National Endowment for the Arts named him to a National Heritage Fellowship, the highest award in traditional arts.
Lillie Mae Debuts Confessional “Wash Me Clean” Video
Bluegrass-Infused Song Featured on New Album Produced by Jack White
Lillie Mae has always been a little ahead of her time, but it seems her time has finally come.
The folk-rock singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is
stepping out of her role as a side woman and stepping center stage,
thanks to the support of rock icon and Third Man Records founder and
head Jack White.
Her journey began in her family band Jypsi, where she honed her chops
on the bluegrass circuit before eventually she and her siblings’
avant-garde, hippie and often punk style began to alienate them from the
musical community that shaped them, she revealed in a recent interview with NPR.
But that’s OK, because she landed right where she was supposed to be:
in the presence of White, who saw a solo artist with raw talent and
wanted to see that artistry grow. The first step was her role as a
musician in White’s band.
Lilllie Mae’s debut album, Forever and Then Some, is a
perfectly executed blend of country, bluegrass, folk-rock with sonic and
vocal nods to everyone from Dolly Parton and Lucinda Williams to
old-timey mountain music to moments even reminiscent of Natalie Maines
and early Dixie Chicks — done in an original way, of course.
And those sibling harmonies truly give it wings. You can’t fake that kind of chemistry.
See Lillie Mae on the road this summer and early fall as she embarks
on a steady streams of dates from Kentucky to Montana to California and
everywhere in between before heading back to Nashville to play
AmericanaFest kicking off Sept. 12.
Forever and Then Some is available now.
How Miranda Lambert Is All of Us
Hot Beer, No Ubers and Miles of Walking
The brand new Billboard cover story
on Miranda Lambert is very long, very thorough and very up to date. But
it’s her honesty about a stadium show she recently attended that says
so much about who she is.
It’s when she was lamenting a recent trip to Louisville, Kentucky, to
see U2 and endured all the same struggles fans face when they go to
massive concerts like that.
“Stadium shows are hard,” Lambert told Billboard. “I’m like,
‘Shit, man. I just walked a million miles, I couldn’t get an Uber, and
my beer’s hot,’ but I left there feeling uplifted, exhausted and
stimulated all at the same time.
“I grew up singing country music and haven’t gone to many rock shows.
I didn’t realize just how powerful four dudes up there on this giant
stage could be. I couldn’t even see Bono, but I felt every single word
of every song.”
I’m guessing her fans feel the exact same way about some of her
biggest shows. On Saturday (July 22), Lambert played for more than
40,000 fans at the Faster Horses Festival in Brooklyn, Michigan, and
they probably had hot beers and had to walk for miles, but once she
started playing, they likely felt every word of every song.
Even fans in the way, way back.
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