Month: July 2020

Greg NoireFor his new album, Sunday Drive, hitmaker Brett Eldredge literally needed to take a detour.

“I felt in a place where there is so much more I could give,” he explains. “And there’s so much more that I have as an artist that I haven’t shown vocally and musically… So I had to really shake up the process.”

For that, he enlisted the team behind Kacey Musgraves‘ Grammy-winning Golden Hour.

“I loaded up my bus and I got [producers] Ian [Fitchuk] and Daniel [Tashian]… and we rode to my little [home]town of Paris, Illinois,” Brett recalls. “And I showed ’em those Midwest values that I grew up in, and still carry in my life.”

“I wanted ’em to feel that and see that,” he adds, “so… it shows up in the music.”

Instead of returning to Tennessee to make his fifth studio record, Brett set out for the Windy City.

“We… went up to Chicago…  lived in Chicago for weeks at a time,” he reveals. “I could’ve done the record in Nashville… but I needed to get a different lens on what I was doing as an artist and as a person.”

“I wanted to walk those streets in my favorite city,” he continues, “and step into the studio and create some, and then when I needed to think a little bit, I’d step out.”

In the end, Brett’s happy with the journey his Sunday Drive took.

“It ties together a lot of my inspirations,” he reflects, “and… pushes the boundaries in a way that I think [people] can relate to… It’s just heavy in nostalgia, it’s heavy in the people that I grew up listening to, but also things of today… It was scary to do, and also very empowering.”

Sunday Drive comes out on Friday.

By Stephen Hubbard
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Burke/Triolo Productions/ThinkstockRuston Kelly has released the music video for his song “Radio Cloud,” describing it as “an ode to late 90s pop punk/emo music videos.” “Radio Cloud” is featured on his sophomore album Shape & Destroy that will be released on August 28. 

Danielle Bradbery takes to the stairwell to sing an a cappella rendition of her song “Never Have I Ever” for her Stairwell Sessions series. 

Hailey Whitters has released the colorful video for her song “Janice at the Hotel Bar.” It’s featured on her new album The Dream. 

The full-length version of Avenue Beat‘s viral song “F2020” will be released on Friday. The trio released a video of song that offers their candid perspective on events that have transpired throughout the year on Tik Tok in June. It has since amassed more than 11 million views.

By Cillea Houghton
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Radio Disney/Image Group LAAs a lifelong country fan and a performer from a very young age, Gabby Barrett not only grew up watching awards shows — she also grew up dreaming of the day when she’d be among the nominees.

Now, that dream has come true. Gabby is up for the title of New Female Artist of the Year at the 2020 ACM Awards, and in a new interview with ABC’s Live With Kelly and Ryan, the singer recalls the “surreal” moment when she got the big news.

“Oh my gosh, it was insane. I was actually in New York,” Gabby remembers. “I was getting my hair and makeup done for some press days, and I looked down at my phone, and my manager and everybody’s just blowing me up, like, ‘Congratulations!’”

While she can’t wait for the ACMs to take place this September, the singer knows that this year’s ceremony will be far from a typical show. The ACM Awards were originally planned to take place in April in Las Vegas, but in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event had to be rescheduled.

Now, the ACMs are set to take place in September, and are headed to Nashville for the first time in the event’s 55-year history. The ACM Awards are set to air on CBS on September 16th at 8PM ET.

By Carena Liptak
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

ABC/Image Group LAOver six decades into her musical career, Dolly Parton is still achieving firsts. The country superstar gained her first Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot Christian Songs and Christian Airplay charts this week, thanks to her duet with Christian rock artist Zach Williams.

The pair’s collaborative single, “There Was Jesus,” slid into the Top 10 on both charts for the week dated July 11, hitting No. 7 on Hot Christian Songs and No. 8 on Christian Airplay. In addition to success at radio, the song netted 1.1 million U.S. streams and 3,000 downloads this week.

Though it’s the first time she’s made it this far up either chart, it’s not quite the first time Dolly has had a song on the Christian Airplay charts. Her duet version of For King & Country’s “God Only Knows” broke the Top 50 last year.

Of course, while Christian radio is relatively new territory for Dolly, she’s no stranger to radio hits overall. Over the course of her impressive country career, she has scored 55 Top 10s and 25 chart-topping singles on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.

By Carena Liptak
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

ABC/Image Group LACarly Pearce says she is “getting better” following her divorce from Michael Ray. 

“I am grateful for quarantine,” Carly said during an appearance on friend Lindsay Ell‘s weekly online series Living wELL on Tuesday, saying it provided her with much-needed clarity. 

Carly explained that the whirlwind of life as an artist can sometimes be a distraction for how you’re truly feeling, and that being in isolation brought important revelations to light. 

“Quarantine was good to me. It showed me a lot,” she said. “I had to make some really big decisions for my own life and I feel like this is another time in my life where maybe I thought I had it all figured out and it very abruptly switched on me and I’m left going ‘well, what does this mean now, why did this happen to me?'” 

Carly also shared that she’s getting back in touch with the person she was before her breakthrough single, “Every Little Thing,” catapulted her to the top of the charts in 2017. 

“‘You knew what you had to do, you did it, and now you’re left going ‘what is coming?'” she reflected on her internal conversations. “In my life, it has proven to me when I do what I know I need to do and I don’t give up and I love myself more, I see why. I am hopeful and excited for what the next chapter holds for me.”

Carly and Michael wed in Nashville in October 2019. Carly filed for divorce in June.

By Cillea Houghton
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.