The heat gave Nashville a break Thursday evening (June 9), making for the perfect breezy summer evening for the first Nissan Stadium show of CMA Fest 2022.

With headlining sets from Shenandoah, Darius Rucker, Zac Brown Band, Jason Aldean and Keith Urban, fans were treated to an evening of hits on night one.

Rising star Brittney Spencer got the music started with a hair-raising rendition of the National Anthem. Crook & Chase‘s Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase were delightful hosts for show attendees, while Dierks Bentley and Elle King made a few appearances while performing their hosting duties for the TV special, airing in August.

Shenandoah was the first act to take the main stage. Marty Raybon and the band sounded awesome, and pleased fans with some ’80s country gold. Concert goers clapped and sang along to “Next to You, Next to Me,” “I Wanna Be Loved Like That,” and “Two Dozen Roses.” After closing with a rousing rendition of “The Church on Cumberland Road,” Raybon closed the set with a spirited, “Long live country music!”

Rucker’s set was full of laid-back, feel-good vibes. He sang country hit after country hit, such as “Alright,” “Come Back Song,” “Homegrown Honey,” “This,” and “Beers And Sunshine.” He also thrilled fans by grooving along with some Hootie & The Blowfish hits like “Hold My Hand” and “I Only Wanna Be With You.”

“Who loves country music, huh?” Rucker said before going into his massive, 9x-Platinum “Wagon Wheel.” If you’ve ever been to a Darius Rucker show, you know that the people love “Wagon Wheel.” Fans from the floor of Nissan Stadium to the top of the 300 section were on their feet dancing with the singer to the 2013 hit.

The hits kept coming when Zac Brown Band took the stage. The talented band performed their beloved “Toes,” “Knee Deep,” “Homegrown,” and “Colder Weather,” as well as some newer songs such as “Out in the Middle” and “Same Boat.”

Brown invited a few special guests to join him during his stage, starting with King Calaway, to promo their brand new single “When I Get Home.” Brown co-wrote and produced the track.

He also invited the very talented Marcus King up to perform a song the two co-wrote, “Stubborn Pride.” Brown was giddy watching King get a standing ovation after his incredible guitar solo.

Like Rucker, the Zac Brown Band has a larger than life crowd favorite: “Chicken Fried.” The stadium was thigh-slapping and two-stepping along to the country hit from its opening licks to the moment Brown left the stage.

Next up was Aldean. If fans were getting tired by the time the country rocker took the stage, the energy he brought was enough to wake them up.

Aldean kicked up the volume for his long string of hits, such as “Crazy Town,” “Lights Come On,” “Take A Little Ride,” “Tattoos On This Town,” and “Dirt Road Anthem.” He also played some new tunes, such as the current No. 1 song in the country, “Trouble With A Heartbreak,” and his next single, “What Tequila Does.”

“It’s good to see you guys, back,” the country star said. “This is what June in Nashville is supposed to look like.”

When it came time to sing his monster hit with Carrie Underwood, “If I Didn’t Love You,” Aldean sat at the piano and Underwood appeared on a screen singing her part. The energy never wavered throughout Aldean’s set, and he closed with a one-two punch: “My Kinda Party” and “Hick Town.”

Urban took the stage at about a quarter ’til midnight. He carried on Aldean’s high-energy, running all over the stage and connecting with the crowd.

“I have a feeling you guys might have missed this thing as much as we did,” Urban said to the excited crowd.

The beloved entertainer performed his “Days Go By,” “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” “Somebody Like You” and “You’ll Think of Me.” For his duet with P!nk, “One Too Many,” Urban also made use of a pre-recorded video for the pop singer’s part.

Urban’s newest hit, “Wild Hearts,” sounded perfect in the stadium. The anthemic tune had fans reaching towards the sky and singing their hearts out.

More performers made use a few other stages throughout the night. Dustin Lynch and MacKenzie Porter performed their smash duet, “Thinking ‘Bout You,” in the middle of the stage.

On the new Platform Stage, Kat & Alex sang their “How Many Times” and “I Want It All,” complete with Spanish versions honoring their heritage. The band mates and spouses exchanged grins at each other, beaming with pride at their Nissan performance.

Priscilla Block also performed on the Platform Stage. “I think I’m about to pee my pants. This is the coolest thing ever done in my whole life,” she said through tears. The smiling and sparkly singer performed her fun “My Bar” and breakout hit, “Just About Over You.”

Taking the Nissan Stadium stage tonight (June 10) will be Kelsea Ballerini, Gabby Barrett, Kane Brown, Deana Carter, Carly Pearce, Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell and Lainey Wilson.

 

Callista Clark is giving fans a sneak preview of her upcoming debut full-length album Real To Me: The Way I Feel, with the release of a brand new track, “Sad,” out today.

Penned by the rising vocalist with Sarah Buxton and Jimmy Robbins, the young woman in “Sad” is not at all broken up about her recent breakup. “‘Sad’ is one of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written,” explains Clark. “It’s super lighthearted and perfect for summer. I wanted the lyrics of this song to be fun and sarcastic–the exact opposite of how I was feeling while going through a heartbreak. Manifesting not being sad.”

Due out Oct. 14 via Big Machine Records, the new album expands her previously-released Real To Me collection to 10 tracks. Produced by Nathan Chapman, Clark’s debut features songs co-written by Clark with Emily Shackelton, Jonathan Singleton, Chris DeStefano, Liz Rose, and more.

“I couldn’t be more excited to share that my first album ever is coming out Oct. 14! I have been waiting so long and trying my best to get all the new songs as perfect as I can. The Real to Me era is not over yet! Can’t wait for y’all to hear it,” she adds.

Clark continues to make strides as one of country’s hottest newcomers. Billboard has featured her two years in a row on their annual “21 Under 21” list, and she was the youngest member ever named to CMT’s Next Women of Country in the 2022 class.

Real To Me: The Way I Feel Track List:
1. “It’s ‘Cause I Am” | Callista Clark, Cameron Jaymes, Laura Veltz
2. “Gave It Back Broken” | Callista Clark, Emily Shackelton
3. “Change My Mind” | Callista Clark, Dan Isbell, Jonathan Singleton
4. “Worst Guy Ever” | Callista Clark, Jordan Reynolds, Emily Weisband
5. “Brave Girl” | Callista Clark, Ben Johnson, Emily Landis
6. “Wish You Wouldn’t” | Callista Clark, Emily Falvey, Lalo Guzman
7. “Heartbreak Song” | Callista Clark, Chris DeStefano, Liz Rose, Emily Shackelton
8. “Don’t Need It Anymore” | Callista Clark, Cameron Jaymes, Melissa Peirce
9. “Sad” | Callista Clark, Sarah Buxton, Jimmy Robbins
10. “Real To Me” | Callista Clark, Casey Robert Brown, Laura Veltz

Whiskey Myers Makes Red Rocks Debut With A Wave Of New RIAA Certifications

Whiskey Myers made their Red Rocks debut earlier this week (June 6) with a sold-out crowd of 9,525.

Delivering 19 genre-bending songs over two hours of music, the six-piece was also surprised pre-show with plaques celebrating four brand-new RIAA certifications. “Stone,” “Ballad of a Southern Man” and “Broken Window Serenade” earned Platinum distinction while “Virginia” was certified Gold.

The band takes their show to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival next weekend (June 17), while continuing to make stops on their cross-country “Tornillo Tour.”

AIMP Nashville Chapter Hosts “The Evolution Of Writer Management In Nashville” Event

The AIMP Nashville Chapter recently hosted its in-person “The Evolution of Writer Management in Nashville” event on June 1 at SESAC’s Nashville offices.

The event brought together writer managers Nate Lowery (Cornman Music), LeAnn Phelan (LP Creative Management), and Shelby Yoder (Milk & Honey South and Top 5 Music Publishing) to discuss the intricacies of the ever-growing world of writer/producer management.

BMI Hosts Industry Mixer For Equal Access Participants

Clay Bradley and Shannan Sanders of BMI hosted a mixer at the BMI offices for participants of mtheory’s Equal Access program.

In addition to mtheory and BMI staff, attendees included those from CMT, Universal Music, Universal Publishing, Symphonic, Nashville Music Equality, The Change Agency, plus several notable songwriters and producers. The mixers serve to give the Equal Access manager and artist participants a chance to meet and work with leaders in the country music industry who want to see it evolve into a more inclusive space.

More of these events with industry partners will take place in the coming months.

Templeton Thompson & Sam Gay Sign With ORiGiN Music Publishing In Australia

Templeton Thompson and Sam Gay have inked a sub-publishing agreement with ORiGiN Music Publishing in Sydney Australia. This agreement includes their Connected at the Hit Songs and BoatPony Music catalogs.

The signing news comes on the heels of their 11 singles on the Australian country radio charts with 10 No. 1s on the iTunes Australia Country chart.

In addition to their hits in Australia, Thompson’s and Gay’s songs have been recorded by the likes of Reba McEntire, Little Texas, Montgomery Gentry, Ricky Van Shelton, and Jo Dee Messina, among others. Individually and collectively, their songs have been used in films such as Dr. Dolittle 3 and the Lifetime Christmas movie Every Other Holiday. Gay also wrote and produced the soundtrack for the film Dogs On The Inside.

“We couldn’t be more excited about this collaboration with the team at ORiGiN!” says Gay. “We’re so grateful to legendary Australian producer Rod McCormack, Aussie country icon Gina Jeffreys, Vixens of Fall and Courtney Keil for doing such an amazing job with the songs we’ve all written! The only missing piece has been a relationship with an Australian publisher. ORiGiN Music is a perfect fit to oversee our catalogs and open the door to even more creative opportunities in that part of the world.”

“We’re so blessed to be working with the wonderful folks at ORiGiN and can’t wait to see what the future holds!” Thompson adds.

iHeartMedia has unveiled the lineup for the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival set for Sept. 23-24 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.

This year’s star-studded two-day main stage lineup will feature performances by Luke Combs, Maren Morris, Morgan Wallen, Avril Lavigne, Black Eyed Peas, Halsey, Lionel Richie, LL Cool J feat. DJ Z-Trip, Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, Sam Smith, The Black Keys, and more.

Chase Rice, Carly Pearce, Ryan Hurd, and plenty more are among the lineup for the Daytime Stage on Saturday (Sept. 24) at the new immersive event and entertainment district, AREA15 in Las Vegas. Other artists performing on the Daytime Stage include Maggie Rogers, 5 Seconds of Summer, Big Time Rush, Girl in Red, Lauv, Chlöe, Willow, Latto, Gayle and Lauren Spencer-Smith, with more to be announced.

The Daytime Stage will also include fan zones and interactive experiences by iHeartRadio’s brand partners.

“We’re thrilled to once again return to Las Vegas for a weekend full of great live music with this year’s Festival,” says Tom Poleman, Chief Programming Officer for iHeartMedia. “What makes this festival one of a kind is that we have the best artists from every genre of music that we play on our 860 iHeart stations all on one stage. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see so many legends performing together.”

Each night, the festival will broadcast live for fans via iHeartMedia radio stations throughout the country across more than 150 markets, and the CW Network will broadcast a two-night TV special this October. In addition, The CW will exclusively livestream both nights of the festival via The CW app and CWTV.com.

“This is the one music festival that celebrates the best in class in all genres of music,” adds John Sykes, President of Entertainment Enterprises for iHeartMedia. “Fans love this weekend because they discover new artists and the artists leave with new fans.”

Tickets are available to the general public on AXS.com beginning June 17.

Jillian Jacqueline first rolled into Nashville 14 years ago with the dream of putting out her own album.

However, the format at the time wasn’t as conducive to longer-form projects from new artists, forcing Jacqueline to release a string of singles and EPs that have garnered her moderate success and over 100 million streams, including “Reasons,” “God Bless This Mess” which she co-wrote with Lori McKenna, and “If I Were You” featuring Keith Urban.

But this Friday (June 10), the budding singer-songwriter will finally release her debut, full-length project through Virgin Music. Aptly titled Honestly, the 11-track record finds Jacqueline at her most raw and innocent, giving listeners a peek behind the curtain into her thoughts about love and life which she’s yet to explore musically.

“I was actually talking to a friend about [the level of honesty in this album] because we shot one of the music videos for the song on the record called ‘Iconic,’ and it ended up being this visual love letter to my husband. It scared the shit out of me because I was like, ‘Can I show people all these images of our lives?’ They said, ‘That’s what your album is. You’re finally telling people your real story,'” Jacqueline explains to MusicRow. “[Honestly] feels very innocent, in a way, like the way that I sing about love, which I’ve never really done before. It feels like a very faithful, wide-eyed, hopeful version of myself that I don’t always let people see.”

Originally born in the summer of 2019, Honestly is a project nearly three years in the making, which went through a few different lives before arriving at its final form. Within those three years, Jacqueline lost her first label deal with Big Loud Records, married her husband and producer Bryan Brown, and had their first child.

“[When I first started making Honestly] it was more of a panic move. It was kind of like, ‘I have to start making music because I need to prove to myself that I’m supposed to be here and this is what I’m supposed to be doing.’ A lot of insecurity went into the first batch,” Jacqueline shares. “If you look at the original track list, so many songs that we were [so excited about] actually died off. We tried iterations of them over and over again, but they just never felt right.”

In a similar sentiment from many artists during the COVID lockdown, Jacqueline credits the pandemic with the new wave of music that changed the landscape of Honestly. In March of 2020, Jacqueline and her producers—Bryan and his brother Tofer Brown, a longtime collaborator of Jacqueline’s—went back to the drawing board.

Come July, she signed a new publishing deal with Kobalt which spawned a collection of new songs, including “Honeymoon” and “Better With A Broken Heart,” both of which ended up on Honestly‘s revisited track list with its entirely new sound.

“There were a lot of come to Jesus moments with me, Bryan, and Tofer where we were all navigating our different work styles. Tofer and I have worked together for many years. He’s done all my music with me and he’s my best friend. We decided to bring Bryan in on production because he’s just an incredible guitar player and he works differently than us,” Jacqueline says. “During the whole process of making the record, we were navigating a lot of these new processes with Bryan that Tofer and I weren’t used to. We’re more like throwing spaghetti at the wall people. We’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that stuck. That feels good. Let’s move on.’ Bryan’s like, ‘No, I think we should throw five more noodles,’” she jokes. “That drove us crazy at first and then we started to realize that his vision for the songs was even cooler, braver, wilder, and more interesting than we had even anticipated.”

With writing credits from some of Nashville’s heavy hitters, such as Shane McAnally, Lori McKenna, Hillary Lindsey, Daniel Tashian and Old Dominion’s Trevor Rosen, Honestly also sees a couple of stellar collaborations with Charlie Worsham (“The Ocean”) and Brothers Osborne’s TJ Osborne (“Better With A Broken Heart”).

As a long-time admirer of TJ and Brothers Osborne, Jacqueline notes the song as one of her favorites on the album.

“I really respect them and I respect him, so I went out on a limb and sent him a text saying, ‘I have this song and I can’t hear anyone else but you singing on it with me. Totally cool if you’re not into it, but I really love your voice and I would love to collaborate,’” she explains. “He was like, ‘Wow, I love the song. Let me sit with it for a while. We’ve done a lot of collaborations recently, so I don’t want to jump right in without thinking about it first.’”

After taking a few weeks of listening and playing around with melodies and harmonies that felt right to him, Osborne got on board for the project.

“He hit me up a couple weeks later, and said, ‘I love that song. When can I sing it?,’” she continues. “He went on about how he felt like the lyrics and the way it described love was something that felt very honest to him and that he could really get behind. [With this duet], we’re singing our own versions of it, but it’s not necessarily a romantic thing which is kind of unusual. Normally, if it’s a duet, they’re singing to each other, so it was cool that we both got to have our own moment in the song without necessarily singing to one another.”

Another one of Jacqueline’s favorite tunes from Honestly is the stirring, emotional track “Iconic.” Written with Tofer and Kate York on the heels of her engagement, the song serves as a beautiful ode to committing to forever with someone, as well as love being a choice.

As an added bonus, the song is laced with an extra special layer of production that hits close to Jacqueline’s heart.

“My husband did this wildly romantic thing where on the day that he knew he was going to propose to me, we were in Paris and he took his phone out and started recording a voice memo of the sounds of the city,” Jacqueline shares. “Months and months later, I wrote the song and we were starting to hash out the production. He was working on it one day in the studio and he told me about this voice memo in Paris. He put it at the beginning of the song to commemorate what the lyrics are. You can just hear the streets of Paris and then the piano starts in.”

On the cusp of the release of her debut record, Jacqueline has her eyes set on returning to the road this year, as well as dreams of a billboard in Times Square.

“I’ve always said I wanted a billboard and we got the billboard here in Nashville, which was so freaking cool. In my head, though, with the way I work now, I need to get one in Times Square,” she says with a laugh. “I have this issue with nothing ever being enough. I’m restless and I’m always wanting the next thing. As much as I am excited for all the things coming up, my biggest challenge is just to be present with where I am and be so grateful that I actually finished this record. It’s something that I truly believe in and want to share with the world.”

Jacqueline’s debut, full-length album Honestly will be available everywhere this Friday (June 10).