Ronnie Dunn, one half of Brooks & Dunn, has announced his next solo album. Called 100 Proof Neon, it'll be out July 29.
Chris Janson released a performance video for his new song “Keys to the Country” this week. The track comes off his latest studio album, All In.
Breland, Shy Carter and others will take part in a June 10 panel at the National Museum of African American Music during CMA Fest 2022. The panel will shed light on the new film For Love & Country, which features the panel participants. The movie will be screened on June 10 and 11 at the museum's Roots Theater.
Zac Brown Band founding member John Driskell Hopkins had “tough news to share” on Friday: He announced that he's been diagnosed with ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
With his ZBB bandmates by his side, John delivered his news in a video message, describing some of his symptoms and telling fans that, so far, the progression of the disease has been very gradual.
“Over the past several years, I've noticed some balance issues and some stiffness in my hands,” he said. “After careful analysis by some of the country's top neurologists, I have been diagnosed with ALS. Because my symptoms have been slow progressing from the start, we believe that they will continue to be slow progressing going forward.”
He added, “God willing, I plan to be rocking with these amazing people for many years to come.”
An additional video message that John posted solo describes ALS as a “degenerative neuromuscular disease that has no cure,” also explaining that “[t]ypically, research shows a 3-5 year lifespan after diagnosis, but the slow progression stands to reason that I will be around longer than that.”
He also shared his family's Hop on a Cure Foundation, which raises funds for research to find a cure for the disease.
Frontman Zac Brown spoke of the band's work with the foundation in their video message. “The technology and research surrounding ALS treatments has been advancing, but we still don't have a cure. Thanks so much for your prayers and support in helping us cure ALS,” he said.
The video ends with info on how to help the cause via the Hop on a Cure Foundation. To donate, text “Hop” to 345-345.
Tickets for Carrie Underwood's 2022 Denim & Rhinestones Tour go on sale Friday, May 20, and to celebrate, the singer just dropped a twangy new tune off of her upcoming Denim & Rhinestones album.
Called “She Don't Know,” the new tune revisits the vengeful, scorned-lover themes that made Carrie so popular with hits like “Before He Cheats.” This time around, Carrie's lyrics describe an encounter with her partner’s other lover at a grocery store.
But Carrie's got a secret: She's wise to the games they’ve been playing, and she’s willing to bet that they won’t be happy together for long.
“But there's a cruel world a-waitin' outside of them motel sheets / Cause he'll find himself another Jezebel and she'll end up just like me,” Carrie sings.
“She Don't Know” is the most traditional country-leaning offering yet off of Denim & Rhinestones. So far, the album has explored a wide array of genre influences, borrowing from pop and disco styles on previously released tracks like “Ghost Story” and the title track.
Denim & Rhinestones is due out next month. Carrie's tour starts in October.
Lainey Wilson returns Friday, May 20, with “Heart Like a Truck,” her next single and the first new music since her breakout debut album, Sayin' What I'm Thinkin', came out in early 2021.
Her new song is a road-weary but still hopeful anthem for anyone who's gotten back up after heartbreak and disappointment. Lainey says the song also takes cues from her experience of climbing up the ladder to country music success.
“These past few months have been such a whirlwind, but man, it was quite the journey to get here,” Lainey says. Her last two singles have both topped the country charts, but she's no overnight success: Early on, she worked as a Hannah Montana impersonator to pay the bills.
“Miley wasn't playing when she said, It's about the climb,' because it really is what builds character and teaches you the most about yourself,” Lainey says, nodding to her early days playing Miley Cyrus' famous Disney Channel character.
“Heart Like a Truck' is all about self-discovery, growth and embracing scars as badges of honor,” she adds. “After all, a truck that has hit a few bumps and earned some scratches has proved itself and its tenacity — the shiny one on the lot can't say that.”
To go along with her new single, Lainey released a music video that showcases her horsemanship. While Lainey's been riding horses since she was a kid, she says that playing a character in a music video was a new step for her and made her a little nervous.
“It ended up being such a creatively fulfilling and thrilling experience,” she adds.
After teasing a new solo chapter for several weeks, Tyler Hubbard finally introduced fans to his first single as a solo artist Friday. Called “5 Foot 9,” it's a mid-tempo, earthy celebration of all of life's simple joys.
In the first verse of the song, Tyler rattles off all the things he's grateful for — good music, good whiskey and country roads to ride along — and all the people responsible for creating them.
But the very best part of life is having a partner to share it with, he continues, and the only one that could have made a love story so perfect is God himself.
“God makes 5 foot 9, brown eyes and a sundress / Loves Tim McGraw and a small town accent,” he sings in the chorus. “Ain't no way that me and this truck made her fall in love / Jack makes good whiskey, but God makes the good stuff.”
In a statement, Tyler — who co-wrote the song with The Cadillac Three's Jaren Johnston and Chase McGill — says that he wrote “5 Foot 9” as a reminder about the importance of perspective.
“As much as the song talks about real-life stuff like whiskey, country music, dirt roads and rain, I want listeners to be reminded that God really does make the good stuff,” he notes. “For me, over the last couple of years, I've really been reminded of that.”
“5 Foot 9” is the first new song off Tyler's upcoming solo album.
Luke Combs is one of many artists from all music genres signing on to participate in Here to Help, a charity initiative that benefits mental health initiatives, such as the Recording Academy's MusiCares and the Mental Wealth Alliance.
Fans can donate to the cause for a chance to meet Luke at a stop on his upcoming Middle of Somewhere Tour. And that's just one of several incentive prizes available for those who choose to donate to the initiative. Also on offer is a chance to meet KISS at the Louder Than Life Festival in September; a virtual studio hang with benny blanco; and an all-expense-paid trip to London with a VIP experience at Corey Taylor's sold-out October 2022 London Palladium show.
The initiative comes during Mental Health Awareness Month, and for Luke, the cause is personal. He's been open about his experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder, explaining in an early 2021 installment of The Big Interview With Dan Rather that he struggles with ruminating thoughts and health anxiety.
Luke's also looking ahead to an exciting musical chapter, as his third studio album, Growin' Up, is set to arrive next month.
The U.S. House on Thursday passed a bill to prevent gasoline price gouging with a vote of 217-207; no Republican voted in favor of the bill.
Sponsored by Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., and Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., the bill would make it illegal to sell gas at an excessive price during an energy emergency. Schrier said in a statement: “At a time when people in my district and across the country are feeling the pain of high prices at the gas pump, Congress needs to be doing all we can to bring down costs.” She added that the FTC needs to have the power to investigate and crack down when there’s evidence of real gouging.
House Republican Whip Steve Scalise wrote to Republican members that the bill was an “attempt by the Majority to distract and shift blame” for high gas prices, saying that there was no evidence of gas price gouging.
The Consumer Price Gouging Prevention Act of 2022 would give the president the power to issue an emergency declaration that would make it unlawful to hike gasoline and home energy prices “in an excessive or exploitative manner.” It would also give the FTC more tools to crack down on price gouging, allowing the FTC to prioritize enforcement action on big oil and gas companies. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, was one of four Democrats who voted against the bill, saying: “The Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act would not fix high gasoline prices at the pump, and has the potential to exacerbate the supply shortage our country is facing, leading to even worse outcome. For these reasons, I voted no on this legislation today.”
The national average gas price by Thursday afternoon was $4.58 cents per gallon for regular; the price for diesel was $5.57 per gallon. Market analysts have said Russia’s Ukraine invasion and the pandemic recovery are the primary drivers of higher gas prices.
Editorial credit: Laura Gangi Pond / Shutterstock.com
The white teenager accused of killing 10 black people at a Buffalo, New York supermarket appeared briefly in court on Thursday, after a grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge. Assistant district attorney Gary Hackbush said the indictment of the suspect, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, was handed up Wednesday. At his initial court appearance last week, the suspect’s court-appointed lawyer entered a plea of “not guilty” on his behalf.
Gendron, wearing orange clothing and mask, was silent throughout the proceeding and sent back to jail. In New York, prosecutors can charge a defendant with first-degree murder only under special circumstances, which includes multiple people being killed in one single incident. Thirteen people were shot Saturday at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Authorities are continuing to investigate the possibility of hate crime and terrorism charges.
Gendron live-streamed the attack from a helmet camera before surrendering to police outside the grocery store. Prior to the deadly attack, he had posted hundreds of pages of writings to online discussion groups where he detailed his plans for the assault and his racist motivation. Investigators have been examining those documents, which included a private diary he kept on the chat platform Discord. The accused gunman’s online writings said he planned the assault after becoming infatuated with white supremacist ideology he encountered online. Discord confirmed Wednesday that an invitation to access his private writings was sent to a small group of people about 30 minutes before the assault began, but it remains unclear how many read what he had written or logged on to view the assault live. It also unclear whether anyone tried to alert law enforcement.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has authorized the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, to investigate social media platforms used by the suspect to determine if they were liable for “providing a platform to plan and promote violence.”
Ever since they put out their romantic “Take My Name,” Parmalee have found a new hobby: crashing weddings to surprise the bride and groom with a performance. It's a habit they picked up around Valentine's Day, and they're still at it this summer.
But there's some logistical difficulties that go along with being frequent wedding crashers.
“It's interesting because you never know what you're getting into when you go on these things, and it's their special day,” says the band's Matt Thomas.
“The last one we did was fun,” adds Josh McSwain. “We didn't know these people at all. We just walked right in on their reception and started singing and playing.”
That experience was memorable for another reason, too: They had a surprising encounter with fans while they were on their way from the show they'd just played to the wedding. “It's 30 miles away, and we notice there's a car behind us,” Barry Knox says.
“And then it pulls up to us on the two-lane, you know, and they're waving. We're like, OK, well, that's some fans from the show. OK, cool.' We wave, and then we figure we just mosey on,” he says, explaining that it turned out things weren't going to be that simple.
“For 30 miles, they were right beside us,” Barry says.
“We were trying to shake them before we got there because it was gonna be awkward,” Josh says. After all, they were already showing up unannounced to somebody's wedding. “It's weird enough, us going in there — and then you have people following you. We did lose them before we got there.”
When they're not crashing weddings, Parmalee is gearing up for tour: They're hitting the road with Walker Hayes this fall.
Reba McEntire has landed a role as a series regular on Season 3 of ABC’s Big Sky. Big Sky is based on “The Highway” book series by C.J. Box and stars Katheryn Winnick and Kylie Bunbury. The show follows a pair of private detectives (Winnick and Bunbury) as they investigate local crimes involving missing women, stolen drugs and money and more. McEntire will portray the role of character Sunny Brick, described as a “successful backcountry outfitter with a secret history of missing customers.”
This is not Reba’s first time on the small screen. She starred in her own sitcom, Reba, for six seasons and later appeared in Malibu Country, Baby Daddy, Last Man Standing, and Young Sheldon. McEntire has also appeared in movies such as Tremors and The Little Rascals and voiced characters for Charlotte’s Web, The Land Before Time XIV, PJ Masks, and more.
McEntire’s casting in Big Sky comes after Jensen Ackles was added to the show as a series regular, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler was confirmed to return for Season 3.
Editorial credit: Ga Fullner / Shutterstock.com
Are you still listening?
51770933
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
