Month: February 2022

This week, Russell Dickerson dropped a performance video for his new single, “She Likes It.” The video features Jake Scott, who also lends his voice to the track.

Some of fan-favorite The Voice contestants from Team Blake will convene at Blake Shelton's Ole Red Nashville location on March 14 as part of the venue's month-long Spring Blake festivities. Emily Ann Roberts, Joy Reunion and Ian Flanigan are headlining the free show.

Jon Langston's new single, “Back Words,” is out now.

Rising singer-songwriter Ernest has announced a new album, Flower Shops (The Album), due out March 11. The title track, a duet with Morgan Wallen, came out early last month.

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Brad Paisley returns to Wynn Las Vegas' Encore Theater next month for a pair of acoustic shows, a continuation of the Acoustic Storyteller concert series that he debuted in 2021.

The engagement is more of a mini-residency, Brad explains to People, noting that he might get tired out by the end of the kind of dazzling, multi-date series of performances  that country stars like Luke Bryan and Carrie Underwood are currently mounting in Vegas.

Brad says the first two acoustic concerts he played in Vegas last year they were “the most special shows that I've done in at least a decade,” because the intimate, stripped-down atmosphere allowed him to truly interact with the audience.

“This isn't something that I phone in,” the star adds. “These shows are sort of rare.”

The experience of Brad playing in concert solo with just him and an acoustic guitar, he explains, is “something that you can't see otherwise.”

“Usually, we're touring everywhere, and people go see me play with my band,” he points out. “This is something that's kind of a real special thing because I really interact with the audience.”

Brad returns to Vegas on March 11 and 12. Tickets are available now.

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As one of country music's fastest-rising newcomers, Breland has gotten his fair share of attention from listeners on the Internet — including some negative comments.

“There are people on the Internet who like to troll and I definitely have gotten some pretty hateful messages from people that don't feel like my brand in country music is authentic,” the singer tells E! Online.

Hailing from New Jersey and pulling influence from gospel standards to Justin Bieber-era pop and more, Breland does indeed have his own distinct sound, which he's dubbed “cross country.”

But he's far from the only country artist to make the genre their own. His duet partner on his remixed version of “My Truck,” Sam Hunt, is just one example of someone who's pushed the boundaries of country music and been hugely successful in the process.

Breland’s message to his haters? “Okay, well, you don't have to love it. Music is interpretative,” he reflects. “Just because you don't think that this is country enough doesn't mean that it isn't.”

Most recently, Breland joined forces with Dierks Bentley and Hardy for Dierks' hit single, “Beers on Me.”

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Lainey Wilson knows that “Never Say Never” — her new duet with Cole Swindell — couldn't be more different than her debut release to country radio, the chart-topping ballad “Things a Man Oughta Know.”

But when she first heard it, after Cole texted it to her while she was “drinking a piña colada on a beach in Mexico,” Lainey says she instantly gravitated toward “Never Say Never.”

“I immediately knew this song was special,” the rising star tells Nashville’s Tennesseean. “Even though it was completely different than Things a Man Oughta Know,' the song — and no, not the piña colada — made me feel something, so we recorded it.”

That intuition has served her well. Lainey was one of the genre's biggest breakout stories in 2021, with a hit debut single and an opening slot on tour with Jason Aldean.

“It's like I was being pulled behind a speedboat on a kneeboard,” she describes, thinking about her ascent to stardom.

There's more ahead for Lainey, who's a three-time nominee at this year's ACM Awards — a turn of events that “blows my mind,” she says.

“I've been practicing my dang award-winning ACM speech since I was a little girl, and now that I might have to use it, I don't know what I'm gonna say,” she adds.

As for “Never Say Never,” Lainey's gut feeling seems to paying off there, too: The song is quickly cruising towards country radio's top-fifteen.

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Just days after dropping his new single, “Last Night Lonely,” Jon Pardi has announced a summer tour.

Jon’s Ain't Always the Cowboy Tour begins in July, he revealed via American Songwriter this week.

The string of dates both opens and closes with a hometown connection. Jon's first stop, in late July, is in Sacramento, California — the same state in which he grew up. He'll end the tour with a performance at Ascend Amphitheater in his adopted home city of Nashville.

Joining Pardi on tour will be up-and-coming acts Lainey Wilson and Hailey Whitters. Lainey's one of Nashville's fastest-rising stars, who earned her first number-one in 2021 with “Things a Man Oughta Know.” Meanwhile, Hailey just announced a new album, Raised, which is due out in March.

With “Last Night Lonely” already out in the world, Jon's gearing up for a new album cycle himself, though he doesn't have an exact release date to share just yet. Per American Songwriter, he's hoping for a fall 2022 release date.

For dates and details about all the stops on Jon's next tour, visit his website.

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Ashley McBryde is cooking up something in the studio.

The singer shared a post on socials this week looking back on what a tumultuous couple of months 2022 has brought so far — and how it all led to new music. In early January, she explained, she and her band were dealing with some confusion on exactly what lay ahead.

“At the top of the year, we didn't know what was going to happen,” Ashley wrote. “One of us was hurt. One of us was sick. We just didn't know what was going to happen.”

But fortunately, all those question marks have since turned into arrows pointing towards her next album. “But of Feb 1st I knew exactly what was going to happen…record three,” she continued.

Ashley shared some sneak peeks into the music-making process, posting photos of herself in the studio, as well as a shot of guitars and what appear to be lyrics sheets strewn over a coach.

She also confirmed to CMT that her new album is done, saying “It's scary to say finished, but we just finished our third record.”

The singer's next project, when it does arrive, will be the follow-up to her 2020 sophomore album, Never Will. That album was a landmark release for Ashley, producing the single “One Night Standards,” her first-ever top-ten country radio hit.

Last September, Ashley also shared that she was hitting the studio to make new music, and she debuted a new song called “Whiskey and Country Music” at the Grand Ole Opry that month.

In the meantime, Ashley's nominated for Female Artist of the Year at the upcoming ACM Awards. “Never Wanted to Be That Girl,” her duet with ?Carly Pearce?, also scored two nominations.

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