Charlie Daniels. Photo: Erick Anderson
Charlie Daniels, one of American music’s most eclectic artists and colorful personalities, died on Monday morning (July 6) at age 83.
He was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. One of the mainstays of Southern rock music, he was also adept at bluegrass, gospel, honky-tonk and folk styles. He was a sideman for Bob Dylan, a songwriter for Elvis Presley, a top bandleader and a noted philanthropist. During his career, he sold more than 13 million albums, wrote giant hit songs and collected Grammy, Dove, CMA, BMI and ACM awards.
His “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was a smash on both pop and country hit parades in 1979. He has also charted more than 35 other titles. Since 1974, he has hosted a series of world-famous, multi-act, multi-genre Volunteer Jam concert marathons in Nashville.
For many, Charlie Daniels personified the South. He was a lifelong iconoclast who marched to nobody’s drummer. He was a rugged individualist who never followed trends. He carved his own way through the music business, beholding to no one and embracing rock, country and blues in equal measure.
Born in 1936, he is the only child of a North Carolina lumberman. Raised on a diet of Pentecostal gospel music, he began playing guitar and writing songs at age 14. By the time he hit high school, he’d picked up mandolin and fiddle and formed his first band, the bluegrass ensemble The Misty Mountain Boys.
Charlie Daniels poses at “The 50th Annual CMA Awards” in 2016, the same year he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Photo Credit: Joseph Llanes
But in addition to hearing the Flatt & Scruggs bluegrass radio show on WPFT in Raleigh, he listened to the nighttime blues broadcasts of Nashville’s WLAC radio. At one fiddle convention, he and his band played Lavern Baker’s 1955 r&b hit “Tweedlee Dee” and drove the crowd wild.
Daniels graduated from high school later that year. Nine months later, Elvis Presley turned the music world upside down. Charlie Daniels caught rock & roll fever and bought an electric guitar and an amplifier. That summer, he and his band The Rockets began entertaining in the beer joints that serviced the Camp Lejeune marine base. They played the tunes of Elvis, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and rock’s other founding fathers.
The group graduated to the clubs of Washington, D.C. and landed a guest spot at the Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond, VA. In 1959, Daniels and his band recorded an instrumental called “Jaguar” that was nationally distributed by Epic Records. Now billed as The Jaguars, the group toured as far afield as Texas and California.
After The Jaguars were kaput, Daniels migrated to El Paso, TX and worked in a group called The Jesters. Meanwhile, one of his marine friends named Bob Johnson had settled in Nashville. Charlie Daniels visited him in Music City in 1962, and the two co-wrote a few tunes together. The Daniels/Johnson song “It Hurts Me” was recorded by Elvis in 1964 and became a top-30 hit.
By now a record producer, Johnson summoned Daniels back to Nashville in 1967 and began using him as a guitarist on recording sessions by Marty Robbins, Claude King, Johnny Cash and other country stars. At the time, Nashville was rapidly diversifying, so Daniels also worked on records by Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen, Al Kooper and Ringo Starr. Most famously, he played on Bob Dylan’s Nashville LPs Nashville Skyline, New Morning and Self Portrait in 1969-70.
Charlie Daniels. Photo: Matt Barnes
Daniels became a record producer, himself, starting with The Youngbloods 1969-70 LPs Elephant Mountain and Ride the Wind. He staged his own album debut with a self-titled collection issued by Capitol Records in 1970. The record went nowhere.
He formed the Charlie Daniels Band and signed with Kama Sutra Records. In 1973, the group scored a top-10 pop hit with the “talking blues” hippie number “Uneasy Rider.” Two years later, the band returned with its Southern-rock anthems “The South’s Gonna Do It” and “Long Haired Country Boy,” the latter noted for its “outlaw” defiance and references to pot smoking.
Those two songs were cornerstones of Fire on the Mountain, the first album to truly express his artistic spirit. In order to capture the band’s sizzling, extended “jamming” style for that album, Daniels booked Municipal Auditorium for a live recording session. The Allman Brothers happened to be in town. That group and The Marshall Tucker Band joined him, and the first Volunteer Jam was born.
“Texas,” a track from the LP Nightrider, became a surprise top-40 country hit in 1976. It helped to identify Daniels with the “outlaw” movement surging in Nashville in the mid-1970s.
But Daniels still identified with rock more than country. He was signed as a pop act by Epic Records in 1976. His reported $3 million contract made history for a Nashville act at the time. At least part of the reason for that was the band’s reputation as a concert attraction. The CDB was playing more than 200 dates a year by then, developing a reputation for two-and-a-half hour performances that drove audiences into a frenzy. Taz DiGregorio’s keyboards, Charlie Hayward’s bass, Tommy Crain’s guitar and the double drumming by Fred Edwards and Don Murray completed Charlie Daniels’ blistering sonic attack as the band rampaged relentlessly across America.
Pictured: Vern Gosdin, Charlie Daniels, and Carl Perkins. Photo: Beth Gwinn
Producer John Boylan joined the band on the road and became convinced that his task was to capture that energy in the studio. In 1978, he convened the CDB at Woodland Sound in East Nashville. Everything came together on the resulting LP Million Mile Reflections and its massive pop and country hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Both the song and the band were featured in the movie blockbuster Urban Cowboy. The CDB LP Full Moon, released in 1980, spawned “In America” as the group’s second major crossover hit. “The Legend of Wooly Swamp” (1980), “Carolina” (1981) and the CDB version of “Sweet Home Alabama” (1981) straddled both rock and country playlists. In 1982, “Still in Saigon” became the band’s final big pop hit.
Meanwhile, the Volunteer Jam had become an annual event that attracted jazz musicians, R&B stars, pop headliners, classical musicians, country kings and queens, gospel performers and rockers. Charlie Daniels is unique as a person who has collaborated at these musical marathons with Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Garth Brooks, Pat Boone, Roy Acuff, Little Richard, Ted Nugent, James Brown, Emmylou Harris, Woody Herman, Billy Joel, Amy Grant, Don Henley, Duane Eddy, The Oak Ridge Boys, Leon Russell, Tanya Tucker, Eugene Fodor, Solomon Burke, The Judds, Bill Monroe, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Vince Gill, Steppenwolf, Kris Kristofferson, Black Oak Arkansas, George Thorogood and Tammy Wynette.
The event has been broadcast worldwide on radio, been viewed as a national TV special, served as a T.J. Martel cancer benefit, become a series of record albums and been part of the Jerry Lewis Telethon.
Daniels took up a long residence on the country charts in the mid-1980s. His biggest country hits included “American Farmer” (1985), “Still Hurtin’ Me” (1986), “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye” (1986), “Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues” (1988), “Simple Man” (1989), “Mister DJ” (1990), “(What This World Needs Is) A Few More Rednecks” (1990), “All Night Long” (with Montgomery Gentry, 2000) and “This Ain’t No Rag It’s the Flag” (2001).
Charlie Daniels (right) and Brad Paisley (left) perform at LP Field in downtown Nashville on June 9, 2013 during CMA Fest. Photo Credit: John Russell/CMA
Along the way, Charlie Daniels became an American music icon. His huge bulk, 6’4” frame and wide-brimmed cowboy hat formed an indelible image for millions. The public has also been attracted by his plain-spoken honesty, just-folks humility, no-bull attitude and open-hearted kindness, not to mention that indefinable something known as charisma.
To date, he has earned nine Gold, Platinum or multi-Platinum albums. His album Super Hits went double Platinum, Million Mile Reflection earned triple Platinum status, and A Decade of Hits reached quadruple Platinum.
“The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” earned him a string of honors. The song was named CMA Single of the Year in 1979 and earned the Charlie Daniels Band a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Daniels was also named CMA Instrumentalist of the Year in 1979, while the Charlie Daniels Band won CMA Instrumental Group of the Year Awards in 1979 and 1980.
Daniels was heavily involved in charity work to benefit cancer research, muscular dystrophy research and work to aid farmers as well as those with physical and mental challenges. For more than 20 years, he also led the annual Christmas 4 Kids charity to help provide children in the Middle Tennessee area with toys and gifts for Christmas.
He was a strong supporter of the military and offered his time and talent to causes including The Journey Home Project, which he founded in 2014 with his manager David Corlew, to help veterans of the United States Armed Forces.
2016 Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Fred Foster, Charlie Daniels and Randy Travis. Photo: John Russell/CMA
Daniels was named a BMI Icon in 2005. He received the Spirit of America Free Speech Award from the Americana Music Association in 2006. He joined the Grand Ole Opry cast in 2008 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.He passed away at Summit Medical Center in Hermitage, Tennessee. Doctors determined the cause of death was a hemorrhagic stroke.
Charlie Daniels is survived by his wife Hazel and his son, Charlie Daniels Jr. Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days.
Charlie Daniels takes a picture with a fan at an autograph session during the 23rd Annual Fan Fair 1994, The World’s Biggest Country Music Festival in downtown Nashville. Photo Credit: Steven Goldstein/CMA
John Prine Named Honorary Poet Laureate For Illinois
/by Lorie HollabaughJohn Prine has received an honor from his home state. Prine has been posthumously named an Honorary Poet Laureate for the state of Illinois, and is the first person from the state to receive the honorary designation celebrating him as a writer and artist. Prine passed away on April 7 at the age of 73 due to complications from COVID-19.
Prine was a native of Maywood, IL and initially rose to fame in the state as the “singing mailman” in Chicago. Before his death he had been working on a new album, and the final song he ever recorded, “I Remember Everything,” was released on his label Oh Boy Records. Co-written with longtime collaborator Pat McLaughlin and produced by Dave Cobb, the song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Digital Rock Songs Sales chart.
“John Prine leaves behind an unparalleled musical legacy and was beloved by family and millions of fans who hope that in Heaven he finds Paradise waitin’ just as he longed for,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said in a statement that referenced some well-known Prine songs in his proclamation.
“John had a great respect for writers of all kinds. He regarded Poets as being among those whose work carried weight, relevance and elevated craft,” Prine’s widow Fiona Whelan Prine said in a statement. “It is such an honor for me, our sons, and the entire Prine family to acknowledge that our beloved John will be named an Honorary Poet Laureate of the State of Illinois. Thank you, Gov. Pritzker, for this wonderful recognition.”
Country Music Hall of Fame Member Charlie Daniels Passes
/by Robert K OermannCharlie Daniels. Photo: Erick Anderson
Charlie Daniels, one of American music’s most eclectic artists and colorful personalities, died on Monday morning (July 6) at age 83.
He was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. One of the mainstays of Southern rock music, he was also adept at bluegrass, gospel, honky-tonk and folk styles. He was a sideman for Bob Dylan, a songwriter for Elvis Presley, a top bandleader and a noted philanthropist. During his career, he sold more than 13 million albums, wrote giant hit songs and collected Grammy, Dove, CMA, BMI and ACM awards.
His “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was a smash on both pop and country hit parades in 1979. He has also charted more than 35 other titles. Since 1974, he has hosted a series of world-famous, multi-act, multi-genre Volunteer Jam concert marathons in Nashville.
For many, Charlie Daniels personified the South. He was a lifelong iconoclast who marched to nobody’s drummer. He was a rugged individualist who never followed trends. He carved his own way through the music business, beholding to no one and embracing rock, country and blues in equal measure.
Born in 1936, he is the only child of a North Carolina lumberman. Raised on a diet of Pentecostal gospel music, he began playing guitar and writing songs at age 14. By the time he hit high school, he’d picked up mandolin and fiddle and formed his first band, the bluegrass ensemble The Misty Mountain Boys.
Charlie Daniels poses at “The 50th Annual CMA Awards” in 2016, the same year he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Photo Credit: Joseph Llanes
But in addition to hearing the Flatt & Scruggs bluegrass radio show on WPFT in Raleigh, he listened to the nighttime blues broadcasts of Nashville’s WLAC radio. At one fiddle convention, he and his band played Lavern Baker’s 1955 r&b hit “Tweedlee Dee” and drove the crowd wild.
Daniels graduated from high school later that year. Nine months later, Elvis Presley turned the music world upside down. Charlie Daniels caught rock & roll fever and bought an electric guitar and an amplifier. That summer, he and his band The Rockets began entertaining in the beer joints that serviced the Camp Lejeune marine base. They played the tunes of Elvis, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and rock’s other founding fathers.
The group graduated to the clubs of Washington, D.C. and landed a guest spot at the Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond, VA. In 1959, Daniels and his band recorded an instrumental called “Jaguar” that was nationally distributed by Epic Records. Now billed as The Jaguars, the group toured as far afield as Texas and California.
After The Jaguars were kaput, Daniels migrated to El Paso, TX and worked in a group called The Jesters. Meanwhile, one of his marine friends named Bob Johnson had settled in Nashville. Charlie Daniels visited him in Music City in 1962, and the two co-wrote a few tunes together. The Daniels/Johnson song “It Hurts Me” was recorded by Elvis in 1964 and became a top-30 hit.
By now a record producer, Johnson summoned Daniels back to Nashville in 1967 and began using him as a guitarist on recording sessions by Marty Robbins, Claude King, Johnny Cash and other country stars. At the time, Nashville was rapidly diversifying, so Daniels also worked on records by Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen, Al Kooper and Ringo Starr. Most famously, he played on Bob Dylan’s Nashville LPs Nashville Skyline, New Morning and Self Portrait in 1969-70.
Charlie Daniels. Photo: Matt Barnes
Daniels became a record producer, himself, starting with The Youngbloods 1969-70 LPs Elephant Mountain and Ride the Wind. He staged his own album debut with a self-titled collection issued by Capitol Records in 1970. The record went nowhere.
He formed the Charlie Daniels Band and signed with Kama Sutra Records. In 1973, the group scored a top-10 pop hit with the “talking blues” hippie number “Uneasy Rider.” Two years later, the band returned with its Southern-rock anthems “The South’s Gonna Do It” and “Long Haired Country Boy,” the latter noted for its “outlaw” defiance and references to pot smoking.
Those two songs were cornerstones of Fire on the Mountain, the first album to truly express his artistic spirit. In order to capture the band’s sizzling, extended “jamming” style for that album, Daniels booked Municipal Auditorium for a live recording session. The Allman Brothers happened to be in town. That group and The Marshall Tucker Band joined him, and the first Volunteer Jam was born.
“Texas,” a track from the LP Nightrider, became a surprise top-40 country hit in 1976. It helped to identify Daniels with the “outlaw” movement surging in Nashville in the mid-1970s.
But Daniels still identified with rock more than country. He was signed as a pop act by Epic Records in 1976. His reported $3 million contract made history for a Nashville act at the time. At least part of the reason for that was the band’s reputation as a concert attraction. The CDB was playing more than 200 dates a year by then, developing a reputation for two-and-a-half hour performances that drove audiences into a frenzy. Taz DiGregorio’s keyboards, Charlie Hayward’s bass, Tommy Crain’s guitar and the double drumming by Fred Edwards and Don Murray completed Charlie Daniels’ blistering sonic attack as the band rampaged relentlessly across America.
Pictured: Vern Gosdin, Charlie Daniels, and Carl Perkins. Photo: Beth Gwinn
Producer John Boylan joined the band on the road and became convinced that his task was to capture that energy in the studio. In 1978, he convened the CDB at Woodland Sound in East Nashville. Everything came together on the resulting LP Million Mile Reflections and its massive pop and country hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Both the song and the band were featured in the movie blockbuster Urban Cowboy. The CDB LP Full Moon, released in 1980, spawned “In America” as the group’s second major crossover hit. “The Legend of Wooly Swamp” (1980), “Carolina” (1981) and the CDB version of “Sweet Home Alabama” (1981) straddled both rock and country playlists. In 1982, “Still in Saigon” became the band’s final big pop hit.
Meanwhile, the Volunteer Jam had become an annual event that attracted jazz musicians, R&B stars, pop headliners, classical musicians, country kings and queens, gospel performers and rockers. Charlie Daniels is unique as a person who has collaborated at these musical marathons with Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Garth Brooks, Pat Boone, Roy Acuff, Little Richard, Ted Nugent, James Brown, Emmylou Harris, Woody Herman, Billy Joel, Amy Grant, Don Henley, Duane Eddy, The Oak Ridge Boys, Leon Russell, Tanya Tucker, Eugene Fodor, Solomon Burke, The Judds, Bill Monroe, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Vince Gill, Steppenwolf, Kris Kristofferson, Black Oak Arkansas, George Thorogood and Tammy Wynette.
The event has been broadcast worldwide on radio, been viewed as a national TV special, served as a T.J. Martel cancer benefit, become a series of record albums and been part of the Jerry Lewis Telethon.
Daniels took up a long residence on the country charts in the mid-1980s. His biggest country hits included “American Farmer” (1985), “Still Hurtin’ Me” (1986), “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye” (1986), “Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues” (1988), “Simple Man” (1989), “Mister DJ” (1990), “(What This World Needs Is) A Few More Rednecks” (1990), “All Night Long” (with Montgomery Gentry, 2000) and “This Ain’t No Rag It’s the Flag” (2001).
Charlie Daniels (right) and Brad Paisley (left) perform at LP Field in downtown Nashville on June 9, 2013 during CMA Fest. Photo Credit: John Russell/CMA
Along the way, Charlie Daniels became an American music icon. His huge bulk, 6’4” frame and wide-brimmed cowboy hat formed an indelible image for millions. The public has also been attracted by his plain-spoken honesty, just-folks humility, no-bull attitude and open-hearted kindness, not to mention that indefinable something known as charisma.
To date, he has earned nine Gold, Platinum or multi-Platinum albums. His album Super Hits went double Platinum, Million Mile Reflection earned triple Platinum status, and A Decade of Hits reached quadruple Platinum.
“The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” earned him a string of honors. The song was named CMA Single of the Year in 1979 and earned the Charlie Daniels Band a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Daniels was also named CMA Instrumentalist of the Year in 1979, while the Charlie Daniels Band won CMA Instrumental Group of the Year Awards in 1979 and 1980.
Daniels was heavily involved in charity work to benefit cancer research, muscular dystrophy research and work to aid farmers as well as those with physical and mental challenges. For more than 20 years, he also led the annual Christmas 4 Kids charity to help provide children in the Middle Tennessee area with toys and gifts for Christmas.
He was a strong supporter of the military and offered his time and talent to causes including The Journey Home Project, which he founded in 2014 with his manager David Corlew, to help veterans of the United States Armed Forces.
2016 Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Fred Foster, Charlie Daniels and Randy Travis. Photo: John Russell/CMA
Daniels was named a BMI Icon in 2005. He received the Spirit of America Free Speech Award from the Americana Music Association in 2006. He joined the Grand Ole Opry cast in 2008 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.He passed away at Summit Medical Center in Hermitage, Tennessee. Doctors determined the cause of death was a hemorrhagic stroke.
Charlie Daniels is survived by his wife Hazel and his son, Charlie Daniels Jr. Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days.
Charlie Daniels takes a picture with a fan at an autograph session during the 23rd Annual Fan Fair 1994, The World’s Biggest Country Music Festival in downtown Nashville. Photo Credit: Steven Goldstein/CMA
George Jones’ Classic "He Stopped Loving Her Today" Celebrates 40th Anniversary
/by Lorie Hollabaugh“He Stopped Loving Her Today,” written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman, has been preserved by the Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry since 2008. After Jones’ death in 2013, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” entered the Billboard Hot Country Charts once again at No. 21.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been 40 years since George topped the charts with “He Stopped Loving Her Today. It’s amazing to me how many artists and people were affected by George’s music,” said Nancy Jones. “Everyday I hear new stories about George and I love hearing them because I know his legacy continues to live on. I am even more excited to soon announce some things that will keep George’s memory alive forever in our hearts and our lives.”
Throughout his career Jones recorded more than 100 albums and notched 60 Top 10 singles, including chart-toppers “White Lightning,” “She Thinks I Still Care,” “The Grand Tour,” “I Always Get Lucky With You,” and more.
HARDY Leaps To Top Three On MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart
/by LB CantrellMichael Hardy—or HARDY—jumps to No. 3 this week on the MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart with co-writer credit on five charting songs: “More Than My Hometown” (Morgan Wallen), “One Big Country Song” (LOCASH), “Single Saturday Night” (Cole Swindell), “Some Girls” (Jameson Rodgers), and “One Beer” (HARDY feat. Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson).
Hit songwriter Craig Wiseman spends his 11th week atop the Top Songwriter Chart, while Josh Thompson maintains the No. 2 position.
The weekly MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart uses algorithms based upon song activity according to airplay, digital downloaded track sales and streams. This unique and exclusive addition to the MusicRow portfolio is the only songwriter chart of its kind.
Click here to view the full MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart.
Josh Mirenda Signs With Average Joes Entertainment
/by Jessica NicholsonPictured (L-R): Forrest Latta, Average Joes/A&R; Colt Ford; Josh Mirenda; Chris Alderman/Deluge Music; Megan Bocklage/Deluge Music
Josh Mirenda has signed a recording contract with Average Joes Entertainment.
Mirenda, who was honored with ASCAP’s Song of the Year award in 2017 for his role in writing Dierks Bentley’s No. 1 hit “Somewhere on a Beach,” has also penned two chart-topping tracks for Jason Aldean—”They Don’t Know” and “Girl Like You.” In 2018, Mirenda earned a hit song of his own with “I Got You,” which earned more than 22 million streams.
“We’re excited to have Josh join our roster,” remarked Forrest Latta, Average Joes’ A&R representative. “An already established hit songwriter and now solo entertainer, he’s poised to take it to the next level musically and we can’t wait to be a part of what’s to come.”
Prior to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic which has halted numerous tours, Mirenda had been opening shows for artists including Chris Young, Dylan Scott, Easton Corbin and Rodney Atkins. Mirenda is also writing and recording music for his project slated to release later this year.
In 2019, Mirenda became the first songwriter signed to Reservoir’s Nashville office. He is also managed by Deluge Music.
Bob Reeves Joins Riser House As Sr. VP, Promotion
/by Jessica Nicholson“Bob’s enthusiasm for our roster of artist creators is unmatched,” said Riser House President/CEO Jennifer Johnson. “We share the same vision to help them rise above the noise and build their brands on a global level. With the heart of a teacher and a wealth of experience, Bob is a leader and will be a great addition to our energetic team.”
Reeves previously served in the same capacity at Reviver Entertainment. His career has also included stops at Warner Music Nashville, Blaster Records, and Sony Music.
Reeves can be reached at bob@riserhouse.com.
Weekly Radio Report (7/2/20)
/by Alex ParryClick here or above to access MusicRow’s weekly CountryBreakout Radio Report.
DISClaimer: Kenny Chesney, Trisha Yearwood, Lauren Alaina, The Chicks, And More
/by Robert K OermannThis DISClaimer has it all.
From Music Row’s revered songwriting community come Brett James and Waylon Payne with power-packed performances.
Our top stars are here, too: Kenny Chesney, Chris Young, The Chicks and Tanya Tucker, to sample just a few.
We have Black country artists Willie Jones and IMAJ. We have Hispanic contributors The Texicana Mamas. Women are well represented this week, contributing six of our entries, including Disc of the Day awardees Lauren Alaina & Trisha Yearwood.
Check out the YouTube video by Willie Jones and you’ll see why he’s this week’s DisCovery Award winner.
STONEY LARUE & TANYA TUCKER/Meet in the Middle
Writers: Gary Nicholson/Stoney LaRue; Producer: none listed; Publisher: none listed; Smith Music
-It’s a simply produced two-step with a bluesy tune and a crisp tempo. There’s a Texas thang going on here.
KENNY CHESNEY/Happy Does
Writers: Brad Clawson/Greylan Egan James/Jamie Paulin/Robert Brock Berryhill; Producer: none listed; Publisher: Warner Chappell/Universal; Warner Music Nashville/Blue Chair Records
-Like a summertime daydream in a swaying hammock. This is so gently relaxing and breezy that you cannot help feeling good. Classic Chesney.
IMAJ/8min 46sec (I Can’t Breathe)
Writers: none listed; Producer: none listed; Publisher: none listed; Thomas Triomph
-She’s the daughter of ’80s TV icon Philip Michael Thomas (Miami Vice). The track consists of her playing acoustic guitar and repeating the words “I can’t breathe” (occasionally augmented by “Don’t kill me” and “Mama”) for eight minutes and 46 seconds. It’s more like a piece of post-modern performance art than it is a country single. She also has a more conventionally structured country-political song called “Colorblind.”
CHRISSY METZ/Actress
Writers: Chrissy Metz/Nicolette Hayford/Matt McGuinn/Nathan Spicer; Producer: none listed; Publisher: none listed; EMI
-Cool song. She pretends to be casual when her heart is breaking inside. The ballad begins with a stately simplicity and builds to pounding anthemic power. The single is still “Talking to God,” but this reveals that she has a lot more up her sleeve.
WAYLON PAYNE/Sins of the Father
Writers: Waylon Payne; Producer: none listed; Publisher: Carnival
-I’m a big fan of this man’s songwriting. His craftsmanship and vocal charisma are so strong that this needs nothing more than his acoustic guitar accompaniment to make it as compelling, dynamic and listenable as a fully-produced studio recording. It also weaves a helluva yarn about addiction and recovery. I absolutely cannot wait for his album.
BRETT JAMES/Tell The People
Writers: Brett James; Producer: none listed; Publisher: none listed; BJ
-Speaking of contributions from our songwriting community. Brett James has a new album ready to go, and this soulful advance track leaves you hungry for more. Over a gospel-ish track, he urges us give each other love before it’s too late. Blue-eyed soul distilled to purity.
LAUREN ALAINA & TRISHA YEARWOOD/Getting Good
Writers: Emily Weisband; Producer: none listed; Publisher: Warner Chappell; Mercury
-Awesome. Two great voices. One great song. I hung on every line and bopped with every beat.
THE TEXICANA MAMAS/Cocina de Amor (Kitchen of Love)
Writers: Tish Hinojosa/Stephanie Urbina Jones/Patricia Vonne; Producer: none listed; Publisher: none listed
-Latina country divas Tish Hinojosa, Stephanie Urbina Jones and Patricia Vonne have joined their voices in this new trio. All three are accomplished singer-songwriters. It shows on this enchanting, feel-good, sing-along, happy and ridiculously catchy bi-lingual single. Hey, anything that rhymes “tequila,” “sangria” and “familia” is fine with me.
THE CHICKS/March March
Writers: Ross Golan/Natalie Maines/Martie Maguire/Jack Antonoff/Ian Kirkpatrick/Emily Strayer/Dan Wilson; Producer: Jack Antonoff/ The Chicks; Publisher: none listed; Columbia
-They continue to speak up and speak out. More power to them. I’m glad that they didn’t “shut up and sing.” This pop-leaning outing has very cool multi rhythms going on, as well as fiddle and banjo licks. Listenable in the extreme, with a message to boot. Definitely a song for our times. I’m a fan for life.
WILLIE JONES/Back Porch
Writers: none listed; Producer: Publisher: Audiam/Anthem Entertainment; 4 Sound/Empire
-He’s a handsome charmer with a ditty that should have Kenny Chesney looking over his shoulder. This is a summer, good-time sound if I’ve ever heard one. Play it.
CHRIS YOUNG/If That Ain’t God
Writers: Chris Young/Matt Roy/Mitchell Oglesby/Graylan James; Producer: Chris Young/Chris DeStefano; RCA
-He’s such a superstar. As usual, he sings his country fanny off. The pithy lyric will warm your spirit. Uplifting and hearty. A smash.
Austin City Limits Festival Canceled For 2020
/by Lorie HollabaughThe ACL festival website states: “We would have loved to put on another memorable show this year, however, with the uncertainty surrounding the current situation in Texas, this decision is the only responsible solution. The health and safety of our fans, artists, partners, staff and the entire Austin community remains our highest priority. ”
Fans who have already purchased tickets are encouraged to hold on to them to lock in access to next year’s festival at 2019 prices. Refunds are available for fans who purchased directly through the festival and cannot attend next year’s dates. All current ticket holders will receive an email from Front Gate Tickets shortly with information on both options.
National Museum Of African American Music Adds Four Staffers
/by Lorie HollabaughMarlyncia Pierce has been named marketing communications manager at NMAAM. In her role, Pierce will manage NMAAM’s communication and marketing strategies as it gears up for its public opening. Pierce comes to NMAAM from Bounce TV, where she oversaw sponsorship implementation and commercial ad trafficking for accounts such as McDonald’s, AT&T, and Walmart. Originally from Atlanta, Pierce earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a certificate in New Media Design from the University of Georgia.
Alaya Howard has been named event sales manager at NMAAM. Howard will work to ensure that all special events will provide a truly immersive “Music City” experience. Howard comes to NMAAM from the world of corporate event planning and management. She studied mass communications at Middle Tennessee State University and is a Nashville native.
Shelly Surdoval has been named marketing assistant at NMAAM. In her new role, Surdoval will assist in NMAAM’s marketing efforts, and coordinate communications with talent and music industry stakeholders. Prior to joining NMAAM, Surdoval worked at McGhee Entertainment, where she helped with day-to-day management of Darius Rucker, CeCe Winans and others. Most recently, she worked as client services team coordinator for Tri Star Sports and Entertainment Group. The Nashville native earned her B.A. degree in psychology at University of Tennessee–Knoxville.
Russell Henley has been named IT director at NMAAM. In this role, Henley will be responsible for programming and maintaining the museum’s business systems, information security and other components. Henley brings over 25 years of expertise in IT, of which the last eight were spent in the tourism industry serving one of the largest attractions in the Southeast.
“Each of our newest staff additions brings great talent to NMAAM,” said NMAAM President and CEO Henry Beecher Hicks, III. “We are proud to attract some of the best professionals in the business, who understand the importance of having an institution like NMAAM in Nashville.”
Set to open in Fall 2020, the National Museum of African American Music will be the only museum dedicated solely to preserving African American music traditions and celebrating the central role African Americans have played in shaping American music.