Pulse – Country Music News

Miranda Lambert will host three book signings in celebration of the April 25th release of her first cookbook, Y'all Eat Yet? Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin' Kitchen. Kicking off in New York City on release day, Miranda will visit the 5th Avenue Barnes & Noble store at 12 p.m. ET before appearing at The Grove Barnes & Noble store in Los Angeles on April 28th at 11 a.m. PT, and finally, she'll return to her hometown of Lindale, Texas for a signing at her own Pink Pistol store on May 9th at 12 p.m. CT. Limited tickets priced at $38.11 plus an Eventbrite fee of $4 (which include one book each) will be available via YallEatYetBook.com at 11 a.m. local time today (Tuesday, March 21st).

Y'all Eat Yet? Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin' Kitchen includes recipes handed down from her mom and grandma including Nonny's Banana Pudding, The Loaf (aka "the meal that will get the ring"), Dutch Oven (Coffee Can) Campfire Cobbler, Stacked Enchilada Bake, Jalapeño Pimento Cheese, Roasted Root Vegetable Winter Salad, Whiskey Cupcakes and more.

Miranda continues her Velvet Rodeo residency in Las Vegas at Planet Hollywood on Friday (March 24th) and Saturday (March 25th). The residency currently runs through December.

On the heels of her upcoming already sold-out Pistol Made of Roses Tour, Megan Moroney will return to the road this fall on her headlining The Lucky Tour, kicking off at New York City's at The Bowery Ballroom on September 20th. Tickets to the 22-city run will go on sale Friday (March 24th) at 10 a.m. (local) at meganmoroney.com.

Megan shared the tour news on social media yesterday (Monday, March 20th) writing, "THE LUCKY TOUR!?!? well this is gonna be fuunnnnn"

Megan's debut album, Lucky, will be released on May 5th.

She is nominated for Breakthrough Female Video and CMT Digital-First Performance of The Year for her hit "Tennessee Orange" at next month's fan-voted CMT Music Awards.

Bailey Zimmerman will release his full-length debut album, called Religiously. The Album., on May 12th. He co-wrote 11 of the 16 tracks, including the title track, "Religiously," which was released on Friday (March 17th).

Bailey said, "The past two years of my life have been insane and the fact that I get to release my first ever album is so surreal. Thank you to everyone that has had my back through thick and thin. I will never be able to repay y'all for the love and support, this album is for you."

Bailey is a first-time 2023 CMT Music Awards nominee, earning nods for Breakthrough Male Video of the Year for his chart-topping hit, "Fall In Love," as well as Male Video of the Year for his current single, "Rock And A Hard Place." The CMT Music Awards will be held on April 2nd on CBS.

He is currently on the road with Morgan Wallen for his 2023 One Night At A Time World Tour, which kicked off over the weekend in New Zealand.

Luke Combs released a new song called "5 Leaf Clover" on Friday (March 17th). It is one of the 18 songs on his upcoming project, Gettin' Old, due out on Friday (March 24th). Luke tells us about writing the song: "5 Leaf Clover is a song I wrote at my house just about, you know, being grateful for what I get to do for a living. And I was just stuck at home over COVID and didn't really get to, didn't really get to play shows or anything like that and was just kind of look around this Clover patch I have at home and I found a four leaf clover and my buddy actually ended up finding a five leaf clover. So that's where that idea came from"

Luke co-wrote 15 of the 18 songs on Gettin' Old.

Among the songs he did not write is a cover of Tracy Chapman's 1989 hit "Fast Car."

On Friday (March 17th), Walker Hayes released a "two-pack" called being a dad and missing mine, featuring two new singles. The first, called "six string American dream," reflects on the realities in his life despite his success, and that includes missing his father, who passed away over the past year. The second is called "if father time had a daughter," where he is begging Father Time to have mercy on the fathers who have to watch their little girls grow up so fast.

Walker said, "Been waiting to get these two songs out for a long time. As I look at the body of work and the songs I'm sitting on, I think about what I want to say – and this is what I want to say to the world right now. These songs wreck me in different ways and it's my hope that everyone that listens will leave feeling real feelings."

Walker will kick off his headlining arena tour, The Duck Buck Tour, next month in Rosemont, IL.

Carly Pearce has released "Should've Known Better (Live From Music City)" the latest preview of her upcoming album 29: Written In Stone (Live From Music City), being released on Friday (March 24th). This is Carly's first live album.

29: Written In Stone (Live From Music City) is a live retelling of her 2021 album, 29. The live version was recorded during an intimate concert event at Marathon Music Works in Nashville and featured appearances from special guests Ashley McBryde ("Never Wanted To Be That Girl"), Lee Brice ("I Hope You're Happy Now"), The Isaacs ("Easy Going"), Matthew West ("Truth Be Told"), and Jenee Fleenor ("29").

Carly will perform at this year's CMT Music Awards, airing Sunday April 2nd on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ at 8 p.m. ET. She is up for two awards this year -- Female Video of the Year ("What He Didn't Do") and CMT Performance of the Year (LeAnn Rimes with Ashley McBryde & Carly Pearce – "One Way Ticket").

Carly will kick off CMT's all-new series of specials with CMT Defining: Carly Pearce airing March 30th at 10 p.m. ET.

She is currently on the road as special guest on Blake Shelton's Back To The Honky Tonk Tour. On Tuesday (March 21st), Carly returns to the Opry stage for her 99th appearance.

Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood made a surprise appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on Saturday (March 18th). After the night's scheduled performers, including Lauren Alaina, Morgan Evans, and Jameson Rodgers, the power couple took the stage. Garth performed "Callin' Baton Rouge," and Trisha joined him to perform their take on "Shallow" from the A Star Is Born soundtrack.

Cole Swindell has released a song called "Broken" across all digital platforms. It's the second release of three new songs included on his upcoming deluxe album, Stereotype Broken, due out on April 28th.

Jelly Roll will release a new album called Whitsitt Chapel on June 2nd. It is named after the Antioch, TN church he grew up attending. The project features 13 tracks, including his current single, "Need A Favor."

Earlier this week, Jelly Roll teased the announcement with images of Whitsitt Chapel's outdoor sign featuring song lyrics from current and not-yet-released tracks on the album. Additional track list information will be announced at a later date.

Jelly Roll said, "This album is about growth and gratitude happening in my life. I wanted to create a project that felt hopeful. I believe the worst feeling a person can have is feeling hopeless or worthless. This is therapeutic music. Real music for real people with real problems."

His 44-date Backroad Baptism Tour is set to kick off in July.

Kenny Chesney opened up about his personal life and why it's so important to him to keep that private during a Q&A at music industry event Country Radio Seminar in Nashville on Tuesday (March 14). During a panel discussion, Kenny said in the wake of his short-lived and highly publicized 2005 marriage to actress Renee Zellweger he developed "social anxiety." Billboard reports he said, "What is interesting is we were playing stadiums already, and after that...I didn't have social anxiety before that, (but) then you add our success and then you add that to your life and you have a little bit of social anxiety."

He added, "Dealing with the way the world is today and how social everything is, and how information is transferred — yeah, you'd have to be crazy to want to be a celebrity today." In fact, Kenny says he doesn't really enjoy being a celebrity, explaining, "I enjoy certain things about it. I shy away from the celebrity thing. I say no to a lot of things that come my way that a lot of people might say yes to — it's too celebrity-oriented in nature. I would rather be creating."

While Kenny admits that certain aspects of his life are "fair game" for the media, others are not. He said, "One of the reasons I'm so private is when my life started to change and people started caring at a different level, the only thing I could keep to myself was the intimate details of my life. Everything else is fair game . . . Can people talk about you? They make stuff up, they run with it, the media runs with it. People are really curious to know those intimate details, I get that. But the reason I'm so private is that if I don't keep those intimate details to myself, where do I go? What else do I have?"

Bailey Zimmerman is closing in on the top of the charts with his latest single, "Rock And A Hard Place." It's one of two songs that have earned him nominations at the upcoming CMT Music Awards. He is up for Male Video Of The Year for "Rock And A Hard Place," along with Breakthrough Male Video Of The Year for his hit "Fall In Love," which was released last year.

Of that song, Bailey tells us: "I would say ‘Fall In Love' is about a guy that treats a girl really good and she ends up leaving him for another guy out in South Carolina and what I'm telling her in the song is ‘You don't want to fall in love, you don't know what love is…you really love me, but you're taking the safe option out in South Carolina instead of working it out with me, and sticking it out.'"

Tune in on Sunday, April 2nd on CBS to see if Bailey takes home one or both of these trophies at the CMT Music Awards beginning at 8 p.m. ET.

Keith Urban's Las Vegas residency at Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino features some private footage from his 2006 wedding to Nicole Kidman. During his performance of "Without You," the video monitors show a few moments from their special day, something Keith told People magazine he got Nicole's permission to do.

He said, "I wanted to do it in a very organic way and find the right song. It was really more about choosing to do that song, ‘Without You,' and how that felt like the right time for that."

The recently extended Keith Urban: The Las Vegas Residency is now set to run through November 18th. He is set to take the stage there this weekend both tonight (Friday, March 17th) and on Saturday (March 18th).

Brantley Gilbert racked up some more heavy metal to add to his collection. He received plaques in recognition of "Bottoms Up" being 6X platinum, "One Hell Of An Amen" being 2X platinum and "The Weekend" being 2X platinum.

Luke Combs' current Number One hit, "Going, Going, Gone," makes chart history this week as it becomes his 15th consecutive chart-topper. This is now the longest streak of Number One hits for an artist since their debut, Country Now reports. He has also earned those 15 Number Ones in a short amount of time, lumping him in with an elite group of artists like Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and Alabama.

"Going, Going, Gone" will be included on Luke's new album, Gettin' Old, due out on March 24th.

He will release a new song called "5 Leaf Clover" on Friday (March 17th), which, of course, is St. Patrick's Day.

Miranda Lambert has parted ways with her longtime record label, Sony Music Nashville. She announced the split on social media yesterday (Wednesday, March 15th) by posting a collage of all of her album covers over the last two decades writing, "Since I was 19-years-old, Sony has been my home in Nashville. Over the last 20 years together we have released albums that allowed me to share my story with the world, and we've reached heights I never even dreamed were possible. I wouldn't be true to myself if I wasn't constantly looking for the next challenge and a new way to stretch my creativity. With that in mind, I've decided to say goodbye to my Sony family. I can't wait to see what the next adventure holds."

Miranda doesn't elaborate on her plans moving forward so we'll have to wait and see.

Her 9th studio album, Palomino, was released last April.

Sam Hunt hasn't publicly spoken about his 2019 arrest for DUI until this week when he took the stage at the Ryman Auditorium during the music industry's annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. He spoke through his music, a new song he performed acoustically called "The Night I Got Locked Up."

Taste of Country reports that Sam performed on Tuesday (March 14th) night along with other artists and debuted the song, which speaks to his wife, Hannah Lee, standing by his side throughout the ordeal. The lyrics include:

"The night I got locked up / Everything went wrong / The night I got messed up / I should've just stayed home / Picked up my phone / What can I say / Well, I thought that you'd walk away / But you stood by your man / Like Tammy Wynette / Did everything / You could've just quit / No, but you showed me love / Kept going when the going got tough / The night I got locked up."

There is no word yet on if or when Sam will release the song.

You may remember that Hannah Lee filed for divorce in February of last year, only to call off the divorce in May in time for the arrival of their first child, daughter Lucy.

Tim McGraw is always on the hunt for the best songs he can find, and that's how he came to discover his new single, "Standing Room Only." He tells us: "I'm sort of a song nut and I listen to songs all the time. I listen to new songs every day from songwriters, and when I heard this song the lyrics hit me right away. I mean, it's just so well written. There's not a wasted line anywhere in this song. And the melody of it, it was a little different. I love the perspective of ‘Standing Room Only' and what it meant. And it's more about life affirmation, just like ‘Live Like You Were Dying.' It wasn't about dying, it was about living. And to me, this song, it's about going out and living life to the fullest, you know, and trying to be the best person you can be."

"Standing Room Only" was just released last week.

It's the title track for his next album, which is scheduled for release later this year.

Epiphone has announced the release of the Chris Stapleton Frontier guitar. Only 300 guitars will be produced, and it is described as featuring "a thermally aged Sitka spruce top, figured maple back and sides, and double engraved pickguards with the classic Frontier lariat and cactus motif." The Frontier retails for $4,999.

Former Runaway June lead singer Naomi Cooke is expecting her first child. She displayed her baby bump for the first time earlier this week while performing at industry event Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. This will be the first child for Naomi and her husband, Martin Johnson, of the band Boys Like Girls.

On Monday night (3-13), Carrie Underwood surprised her audience when she welcomed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, Axl Rose to the stage. The Guns N' Roses singer joined her on the band's iconic hit, "Welcome to the Jungle."

They've joined forces a few times before and following the show, Carrie thanked him on social media.

She wrote: "I'm the luckiest girl in the world. Thanks, Axl, for showing up, once again, to make the great times even better! It'll forever feel like it was all a dream, but these dreams are my favorite ones!"

The concert in Los Angeles was part of Carrie's 43-city arena tour, The Denim & Rhinestones Tour.

Garth Brooks was the inaugural recipient of the No Fences Award at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville this week. In an interview following the event, he told us this: "I love how in this award's criteria it lists that a recipient is someone who ‘defied traditional standards', I did not know that they would give an award for someone who defied traditional standards. I really don't think we defied it. Hopefully in our music you can hear Merle Haggard, you can hear George Jones, you can hear George Strait. But also in our music you can hear Bob Seger…you can hear James Taylor…and you can hear the greatest of a lot of genres – hopefully in our stuff." :30 (OC: in our stuff)

Keith Urban has announced that his headlining Las Vegas residency has been extended. He's added eight more dates for November, with shows now running up until the week before Thanksgiving.

Before one of his concerts at his new residency at Planet Hollywood over the weekend, Keith found his own entertainment. He posted a video online, having a great time in a bulldozer, destroying an old car.

He thanked Dig This Vegas for the experience and wrote:

"A huge thank you for letting me go mad in your big ass sandbox & annihilate a poor, unsuspecting Ford Focus before the show last weekend !"

Tickets for Keith's upcoming Vegas shows at the Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino go on sale on March 18.

Thomas Rhett has been doing some extensive traveling and performing a string of international concerts. While in the UK, he surprised fans with special guests each night that included One Direction's Niall Horan as well as Lainey Wilson, and Jordan Davis. It was part of the festival, C2C: Country To Country, where he played shows in London, Glasgow, and Dublin.

Through a press release he stated: "It's always amazing to see how much country music is loved when we travel out of the country."

Now in its 10^th year, C2C is held in various cities and is one of Europe's biggest music festivals.

Blake Shelton, Lainey Wilson, Kelsea Ballerini, Carly Pearce, Keith Urban, and Cody Johnson have been added as performers for this year's CMT Music Awards. Carrie Underwood, Kane Brown, and his wife Katelyn were previously announced. The show will air live from Austin, Texas On April 2.

Morgan Evans will release his new song, "On My Own Again," this Friday, March 17^th. He recorded it the same day it was written. Describing that day, he said, "It was a difficult time in my life and writing this song helped me process a lot of what I was going through." Look for Morgan to open shows for Brett Young later this month.

The Frontmen, featuring Tim Rushlow formerly of Little Texas, Richie McDonald of Lonestar, and Larry Stewart of Restless Heart have signed a record deal with BMG/BBR Music. The country vets will release new music this year and will also re-record some of their greatest hits. Collectively The Frontmen have had 30 #1's and sold over 30 million records.

Lady A and LeeAnn Rimes are two of the artists announced to perform on an upcoming CBS special to honor one of rock and roll's most iconic bands. A Grammy Salute To The Beach Boys will air April 9 on CBS.

Jackson Dean is out on the road with Blake Shelton and Carly Pearce and lovin' every minute of playing songs for big audiences. Especially music from his new album, Greenbroke. Jackson tells us more: "It was a really big part of signing a record deal. I was like, I do not want to just throw out single after single after single. I wanna make records. I need things to play on the road because I don't wanna go out and play covers. I know a lot of people go out and play covers, and it was just somethin' I didn't want to do. I wanted to play my songs and I'm really fortunate to have a label that understands that and is very supportive of that and gets it. But to go all across this country and see people singing the words back to like, ‘Trailer Park' and ‘Fearless' and ‘Superstitions' and ‘Don't Take Much' and ‘Greenbroke' even. I've seen people singing the words to ‘Greenbroke.' It's just like, they're listening to it, which is awesome to see someone that appreciates the art and the vision that I created." :39 (OC: that I created)

Morgan Wallen's One Thing at a Time debuted at # 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with sales of over half a million equivalent album units. According to Billboard, he's had the largest streaming week ever for a country album and this is the fifth-largest streaming week ever for an album in any genre.

His single, "Last Night" is also #1 on the (all genre) Billboard Hot 100 chart. And along with the top spot, he holds positions 7-10.

He now has the record for the most songs simultaneously charted on the Billboard Hot 100, with 36 songs onto the survey. That's the entirety of his new album, One Thing at a Time. He soared past the previous high set by Drake who charted 27 and Taylor Swift at 26.

Of those 36 songs, 27 are debuts, also a new one-week record.