Luke Bryan is once again reigning at the top of the charts, as his latest single “Waves” claims the #1 spot at country radio.
This makes a whopping 27 #1 hits for the country superstar and is the fifth consecutive chart-topper off his 2020 album Born Here Live Here Die Here, following “Knockin’ Boots,” “What She Wants Tonight,” “One Margarita” and “Down to One.”
“Woke up this morning as a writer on the number one song in the country. Thank you @LukeBryanOnline and the whole team for making it a hit!” “Waves” co-writer Ryan Hurd writes in a celebratory Twitter post.
“Waves” is featured on the deluxe edition of Born Here, which reached #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and the top five of the all-genre Billboard 200.
Luke continues on his Proud to Be Right Here Tour through October.
Kacey Musgraves is taking star-crossed on the road.
The singer will jet across the country on the headlining “star-crossed: unveiled” tour next year, stopping at several arenas in January and February.
The trek begins on January 19 at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota and concludes at the famed Staples Center in Los Angeles on February 20. In between, she’ll perform at Madison Square Garden, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, the TD Garden in Boston and more.
Pop acts King Princess and Muna join as supporting artists. Tickets go on sale to the public on September 9 at 10 a.m. local time.
This marks Kacey’s first headlining tour since the Oh: What a Word, Tour in 2018 and 2019 in support of her critically acclaimed album, Golden Hour. That tour included her first arena headlining show in Nashville at Bridgestone.
The multi-Grammy Award winner is releasing her highly anticipated new album, star-crossed, on September 10. She’s already shared the title track and lead single, “justified.” A corresponding film will premiere on the same day as the album on Paramount+.
Visit the official tour website for a full list of dates.
Carrie Underwood is offering fans a taste of her updated Sunday Night Football theme song.
On Sunday night, the superstar shared a video that finds her singing the theme song, “Waiting All Day For Sunday Night,” a cappella, belting out the signature phrase as clips of NFL games featuring the Tennessee Titans, Los Angeles Rams and Tom Brady hoisting a Vince Lombardi Trophy in the air, alongside shots of her recording the song in the studio.
“We can't WAIT for #SNF. How bout you, @CarrieUnderwood?” the official Sunday Night Football Twitter account teases. “Been waitin' all year for you to ask me that!” she replies.
Carrie returns to SNF for her ninth season. This year, the show’s opening number was filmed using state-of-the-art LED technology that casts the singer in front of a virtual tailgate.
SNF begins on September 12 when the LA Rams face off against the Chicago Bears on NBC at 8:20 p.m. ET.
Thomas Rhett admits that a picture his five-year-old daughter Willa Gray drew for him has him in tears.
Thomas shares on Instagram that Willa was instructed at school to draw a picture of a valuable lesson they learned from a friend. The result is a colorful sketch of Willa in a rainbow dress, shoes and hair to match, while her country superstar dad is portrayed in an all-black outfit with a pompadour hairstyle and wife Lauren Akins is merely a head with giant blond hair.
“I learned from my dad no fear!” Willa writes on the picture.
“Willa Gray's teacher had her draw a picture of something they learned from a friend. She chose me and I'm borderline crying,” Thomas captions the photo.
“This is the sweetest and Lauren Akins’ hair is accurate,” Cassie Kelley, wife of Lady A‘s Charles Kelley, shares in the comment section, while fellow friend Hayley Hubabrd simply writes, “Aww.’
Clearly the couple’s eldest daughter is taking after her father, as Willa also recently wrote her first song.
If she were still alive, the country legend whose biggest hit was “It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” would be turning 102 years old today. At birth, she was named Ellen Muriel Deason, but you're probably more familiar with her stage name. Do you know who she was? ANSWER: Kitty Wells.
If you’ve missed it, “Fancy” is the rap-influenced, country-flavored earworm that extols the virtues of a girl who “wanna dip me like them fries in her Frosty” at Wendy’s, and get the “Bourbon Street steak with the Oreo shake” from “Applebee’s on a date night.”
And it was all fueled by a video Walker made with his 15-year-old daughter.
“Lela and I did the dance on Sunday afternoon,” Walker explains. “She said, ‘Hey Dad, “Fancy Like” doesn’t have a dance. We need to do one.'”
“We kinda created it together,” he continues. “She made up most of the moves. I made sure most of the moves could be done, even if you weren’t a great dancer — like me.”
“We popped it off in two takes… And the rest is history,” he reveals. “We pretty much knew hours later, we had accidentally done something — odd.”
Since then, at least one of the restaurants Walker name-dropped has come calling.
“Within days, people began to predict ‘song of the summer,’ how viral it would go, things like that,” he tells ABC Audio. “I don’t necessarily say I believed ’em, but here we are.”
“There’s an Applebee’s commercial,” he points out. “The Oreo shake is back on the menu thanks to the power of a song.”
“And millions of people have done this dance,” he marvels. “And the song continues to climb all charts, all genres. It’s mind-blowing. It’s absolutely mind-blowing.”
Sure enough, “Fancy Like” has already spent six weeks atop Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs ranking, while sitting at #12 on the pop-oriented Hot 100 as well.
As the release of his next album, Same Truck, nears, Scotty McCreery has shared another new song off the project, called “Carolina to Me.”
Randy Travis shared a from-the-vault, never-before-heard song called “Ain't No Use” on Friday. The song arrives ahead of his upcoming Storms of Life (35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) album, which is available to pre-order now.
Rising artist Mackenzie Porter, who most recently collaborated with Dustin Lynch for his “Thinking Bout You” radio single, has shared an Amazon Original cover of Natalie Imbruglia's 1997 classic “Torn.”
On Friday, rapper Nelly did something he's been hoping to do for about 16 or 17 years: He released a country-flavored album.
That's his new project Heartland, a collaborations-packed collection of songs that the singer says he's been wanting to make ever since he first dabbled in the country genre, releasing his 2004 duet with Tim McGraw.
“The idea of the project has been ever since Over and Over' – so since 2004, 2005, after seeing that success,” Nelly tells Billboard. “But the only reason I even thought that I could have success with Over and Over' was because, even when we dropped Country Grammar, we were getting so much love from this community.”
Released in 2000, Country Grammar is Nelly's full-length studio debut. Though it was a hip hop album, the singer realized from the very start that his music was resonating with a country fan base, too.
But it took him a while to get around to formally venturing into country music, in part because he was “doing my homework,” Nelly explains. “To get more familiar with Nashville and everything. It became a lot easier to know how to navigate and create this project, to bring it to fruition.”
Heartland features duets with the likes of Kane Brown, Florida Georgia Line, Darius Rucker and Jimmie Allen. It's leading single is Nelly's FGL duet, “Lil Bit.“
Ashley McBryde is currently one night into her three-night headlining stand at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, and on Thursday night, she kicked those shows off with a bang, inviting none other than Eric Church to join her onstage.
To a country audience, the Heart & Soul hitmaker needs no introduction, and Ashley simply introduced him to her sold-out crowd as “Eric f***ing Church.” The two performers then jammed out on a rendition of the Allman Brothers' 1971 classic, “Midnight Rider.”
Longtime followers of Ashley's career will recognize that the special surprise appearance was a full-circle moment. Back in 2017, when Ashley was just starting to gain traction in the music business, Eric invited her onstage for a performance of her “Bible and a .44.”
“Midnight Rider” wasn't the only cover song on Ashley's set list, nor was it the only duet on her agenda. She also brought opening act Lainey Wilson back out onstage during her set, and the pair sang “When Will I Be Loved,” an Everly Brothers classic that's also been a hit for Linda Ronstadt, and Vince Gillhas covered it, too.
Ashley's three nights at the Ryman are part of her This Town Talks Tour, which is slated to run through January 2022.
Jimmie Allen is savoring the simple life in his new song, “Big in a Small Town,” a laid-back and easygoing track that arrived on Friday.
In its lyrics, the singer sings the praises of small-town life. “It's a little dream, but it's the little things / That are big in a small town,” he points out in the first verse. “My kinda living ain't made for the city / No, it don't slow down one bit / All we got is a mom and pop / Smoking ribs in the tin roof pit.”
“Big in a Small Town” is also the theme song for new Netflix reality series Titletown High, which follows the high stakes and ups and downs of a small-town varsity football team. Jimmie is an executive music producer for the show, a new title that he says marks exciting, uncharted territory for him.
“Having an executive role behind the camera has always been a dream of mine, so I'm thrilled to be the Executive Music Producer on Titletown High,” the singer notes. “I loved using music to enhance the show's already compelling nature and can't wait for viewers to hear incredible songs from many amazing artists. Having Big in a Small Town' serve as the show's theme song was the cherry on top!”
Titletown High premiered globally this week. You can watch the show on Netflix.
