Cole Swindell remains at the top of the Billboard country airplay chart this week with "She Had Me At Heads Carolina" for a second week, making this the third consecutive multi-week Number One single from his fourth album, Stereotype. On Friday (September 23rd), Cole launches his headlining Back Down To The Bar Tour with Ashley Cooke and Dylan Marlowe in Helotes, TX.
Darius Rucker has enlisted America's Got Talent trio Chapel Hart to join him on a song for his upcoming album called "Ol' Church Hymn" which he will release on Friday, September 30th. The recording comes on the heels of another collaboration from Darius and the trio, who joined forces for a performance of Bonnie Raitt's "Something to Talk About" during last week's AGT season finale on NBC.
Darius said, "Like so many people, I was blown away when I saw Chapel Hart's original response to ‘Jolene.' I was recording ‘Ol' Church Hymn' at the time and instantly had this vision of it becoming a duet once I heard their voices. I'm so thankful they said yes to singing on it with me, and I can't wait to see the huge career they're going to have."
Chapel Hart's Devynn Hart recently said, "He really took a chance on us . . . He saw some of our stuff online and he was like ‘I love what you ladies are doing. I have an idea and I want to hear you guys on this song.'"
Darius co-wrote "Ol' Church Hymn," which will be featured on his first solo project since 2017's When Was the Last Time album.
Fans can also see Darius perform live as he brings the inaugural Riverfront Revival festival to his hometown of Charleston, S.C. on October 8th and 9th with Brothers Osborne, SUSTO, Jimmie Allen, Charley Crockett and more joining him on the lineup. Limited tickets remain available for purchase at RiverfrontRevival.com.
Tim McGraw took a tumble off the stage during his set at Boots In The Park in Tempe, AZ on Saturday (September 17th). He knelt down and motioned to his guitar player who was in the midst of a solo, but when Tim went to stand back up, he lost his balance and fell off the stage. Fan video of the mishap has now gone viral.
Rather than reaching out for help to get back on stage, Tim decided to walk around the floor inside the barricades and greeted his fans.
Dustin Lynch has added three more dates to his headlining Party Mode Tour. Now running through November, tickets for Sanford Center (Bemidji, MN), Mayo Clinic Health System (Mankato, MN), and Horizon Events Center (Clive, IA) go on sale to the public on Friday (September 23rd) at 10 a.m. local at DustinLynchMusic.com. King Calaway will support all three new dates.
Dustin's extended Party Mode Tour has marked several sell-outs plus well over 45,000 tickets sold this past spring.
He is closing in on the Top 15 with "Party Mode," which is included on Dustin's lastest album, Blue In The Sky.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of America will present Kane Brown with the Champion of Youth Award at the 75th National Youth of the Year Ceremony. The gala will be held on October 13th in Los Angeles.
Kane is being honored for his contributions to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in the last year, which includes a donation to renovate the gym at The Boys & Girls Clubs facility in Cleveland, Ohio, and partnering with Lowe's Home Improvement in his hometown of Chattanooga, TN, to improve the organization's local facilities with a donation to build a computer lab and a lounge for teenagers, according to Taste of Country.
Over the summer, Kane spent time with kids from the Boys & Girls Club at Nashville's Superspeedway at the Ally 400 race.
Tonight (Tuesday, September 20th), Kane is performing in Sydney, Australia.
Little Big Town's brand new album, Mr. Sun, was written and recorded in the midst of Covid, a time that turned everyone's life upside down, including the band's members Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Phillip Sweet, and Jimi Westbrook. Despite the tense times, LBT recorded 16 songs for this project, their career 10th and the followup to 2020's Nightfall.
Karen tells us: "This record was made during the pandemic, and kinda the time where we were coming in and out of the pandemic, so it was challenging. It was challenging to be away from each other as a band for almost five months. It was challenging to be writing songs by ourselves, writing songs on Zoom, and then finally getting the courage to get back in the studio and, that was a great joy just to be back together with our band guys and our engineers, very emotional that day."
LBT released Mr. Sun on Friday (September 16th) and that morning performed live at New York City's Rockefeller Plaza in front of hundreds of fans for the 2022 Citi Concert Series on NBC's Today show.
Physical copies of Mr. Sun are available as CDs and a baby blue vinyl; a sky blue vinyl is available exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
Scotty McCreery will release the deluxe edition of his Same Truck album on November 18th on vinyl, CD and digital formats. The project will feature the original dozen songs, including his latest Number One hit, "Damn Strait," along with six new songs.
Scotty said, "We had more songs I loved ready for the original release of Same Truck than we could put on that album, so I am pumped that Triple Tigers asked me to do a Deluxe Edition where I could add six more songs. We've also had a lot of requests for a vinyl version of Same Truck over the last year, so I'm excited we can offer that option as well."
Scotty and his wife, Gabi, are expecting their first child, a boy, in early November.
Eric Church, Miranda Lambert and Parker McCollum will appear in an upcoming six-part documentary series titled They Called Us Outlaws: Cosmic Cowboys, Honky Tonk Heroes And the Rise of Renegade Troubadours, due out sometime next year. The project is being produced by Jessi Colter, Ray Benson, and Jack Ingram, who also narrates the series.
The documentary will explore Country music's "rebel" period and the origins of "outlaw Country," according to a release. In addition to Eric, Miranda and Parker, the series features interviews with Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, to name a few.
Reba McEntire will release a holiday album called Reba: The Ultimate Christmas Collection, on Friday, October 14th. The project will include favorites from her previous Christmas releases along with the track "I Needed Christmas," which was featured in the 2021 Lifetime movie, Reba McEntire's Christmas In Tune.
She said, "I'm excited to share this newly packaged collection of my all-time favorite Christmas songs. It was so hard to narrow down to just twelve songs, but I hope my fans enjoy this journey through time!"
Fans can find limited edition holiday merch, including a sweatshirt, ornament, mug and lithograph, as well as the album as a limited white vinyl, for pre-order now at reba.com. The vinyl album will be released on November 4th.
Reba's fall arena tour, Reba: Live in Concert, kicks off on October 13th in Lafayette, LA with special guest Terri Clark.
Toby Keith bowed out of his scheduled appearance at a cancer benefit over the weekend in Paso Robles, NM as he continues to battle cancer himself. He was to receive the Second Annual Lifetime Achievement Award at the SabesWings "Strike Out" benefit. A spokesman for SabesWings said, "He is still going through recovery and it is a tough week."
In June, Toby revealed that he he was diagnosed with stomach cancer last fall. He has since been undergoing treatment, including "chemo, radiation and surgery," Toby shared on social media at the time.
All of concerts for this year have been canceled.
Shania Twain will be a special guest on this week's episode of the new FOX drama Monarch, starring Susan Sarandon and Trace Adkins. The show airs on Tuesday (September 20th) at 9 p.m. ET. Arista Records/Monument Records has released the latest EP featuring music from the show's upcoming second episode.
Zac Brown Band has collaborated with label-mate Ingrid Andress for a brand new version of "Any Day Now." which is out now. The track will be featured on The Comeback (Deluxe), due out on September 30th.
Kip Moore has shared a new version of his recently released track "If I Was Your Lover" with vocals from new artist Morgan Wade. She initially co-starred in the music video for the track alongside Kip and recently added her vocals to the track after a flood of fan requests for her to do so.
Mitchell Tenpenny's new album, This Is The Heavy, is available today (Friday, September 16th). Mitchell co-wrote all the songs on the 20-track project including his Number One hit, "Truth About You."
He tells us about the album's title track. "So 'This Is The Heavy' is actually the intro track to the song. I've just, all these records I grew up listening to, a lot of these emo hardcore bands, they always had intro tracks. I thought it'd be a lot of fun to do that. Don't normally hear them in country music, and it just kind of brings me back to you know what I grew up listening to and loving. It kind of sets off the pace for what the record is going to be."
Mitchell has upcoming shows at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on September 20th and 21st. He continues on Luke Bryan's Raised Up Right Tour on September 29th in Estero, FL.
Newcomer Bailey Zimmerman will release his debut EP, Leave The Light On, on October 14th. It will include his current Top 15 hit "Fall In Love," as well as a song called "Never Leave," the latter of which was a rough, unfinished demo that Bailey completed at the request of fans after he shared it on social media. He released the finished version yesterday (Thursday, September 15th).
Of the song, Bailey said, "I was in a pretty weird part of a relationship at the time, and just wanted to write something that expressed how I felt about the situation."
Miranda Lambert is already in Las Vegas putting the final touches on her first residency there at Zappos Theater inside Planet Hollywood. She headed out West a couple days ago with her husband, Brendan McLoughlin, and three of their rescue dogs. Miranda tweeted a picture of the pups aboard a plane writing, "Vegas here we come."
Her Velvet Rodeo residency opens on September 23rd. Miranda will play several shows throughout the end of the year and into April of 2023.
She is climbing the charts with her latest single, "Strange."
Miranda is nominated for Entertainer, Female Vocalist and Album for Palomino at the upcoming CMA Awards. The winners will be announced on November 9th in Nashville.
Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley with Hot Country Knights, Tracy Lawrence, Ashley Campbell, Melinda Doolittle, Lindsay Ell, Charles Esten, and Chrissy Metz are among the artists who signed on to perform at the Dance Party To End ALZ, taking place at Nashville's Wildhorse Saloon on Sunday, November 13th. This is the fifth year for the event, which is hosted by siblings Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Ashley Williams, and Jay Williams, whose mother suffered from Alzheimers.
Kimberly said, "For the past five years, Dance Party to End ALZ has been bringing people together to dress up, dance and experience great live music as some of the biggest names in country music sing cover songs from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Most importantly, though, my siblings Ashley, Jay and I throw this event to help drive awareness and funds for a cause that affects millions of American families, including our own. To date, we've raised more than $1.3 million for the Alzheimer's Association, helping fund research that is going to one day help lead us to a cure for this devastating disease."
VIP table packages and general admission tickets are available now at alz.org.
Garth Brooks says that he has lost 50 pounds to reach the same weight he was when he was 35. He is now 60. Garth told members of the media prior to his recent Croke Park run in Dublin, Ireland, "What happened was, weirdly, at the 25th anniversary of Croke Park and Central Park, and I was sitting there looking at it thinking everyone looks the same… what is wrong with your fat ass, here we go."
After 16 years of being a "soccer dad" and out of the spotlight while his daughters were growing up, Garth admitted it took "awhile to get back to the artist feel," like eight years, according to the superstar.
He now says he feels comfortable adding, "And I'm the same weight I was when we played here in 97, that's what I want."
Garth has two more shows in the set of five to play -- Friday (September 16th) and Saturday (September 17th).
All of the Croke Park concerts are being filmed for an upcoming project. Garth said, "This film is going to come. I lost 50lbs and the film is going to add that right back."
Much like Zac Brown Band's latest hit, "Out In The Middle," lead singer Zac Brown prefers to reside in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nature in his home state of Georgia. He tells us: "Where I live in Georgia, I don't want to live anywhere where I have to lock my doors or where I can't leave keys in my car at my house and you know be able to have those simple things. To be able to wake up in the morning and go pee outside and not have anyone, any neighbors around and things like that, so we're blessed in so many ways where we are."
The Zac Brown Band was recently received a CMA Awards nomination for Vocal Group Of The Year. The 56th Annual CMA Awards will be held in Nashville on November 9th.
The deluxe edition of Zac Brown Band's album, The Comeback, will be released on September 30th. The new project features collaborations with Blake Shelton, Cody Johnson, Ingrid Andress, James Taylor and more.
Ashley McBryde spent a long weekend in a rural cabin out of Nashville with some of her favorite songwriters and it resulted in an unexpected new project called Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville, which will be released on September 30th.
McBryde explained, "A few years ago, Aaron Raitiere, Nicolette Hayford and I were on a write. We wrote this song called ‘Blackout Betty,' and I realized we had written previous songs called ‘Shut Up Sheila' on Never Will and ‘Livin' Next to Leroy' on Girl Going Nowhere. Aaron had a song called ‘Jesus, Jenny,' and I thought, ‘We should keep these characters together and give them a place to live!'
She continued, "Not long after that, I thought, ‘What if we call it Lindeville?' in honor of Dennis Linde (who wrote "Goodbye Earl," "Burning Love," "Bubba Shot the Jukebox"). I want to lock six writers in a house and just spend six- or seven-days writing. We stayed in Tennessee in this little house close to a lake. It was eight bottles of tequila, two cartons of cigarettes, one kitchen table and six individuals out of their minds."
Those six individuals included McBryde, Raitiere, Hayford, Connie Harrington, Brandy Clark and Benjy Davis. Brothers Osborne's John Osborne produced the album which features performances from McBryde, Brothers Osborne, Clark, Raitiere, Pillbox Patti (Hayford), Caylee Hammack and Davis, forming a cast of characters that appear across the 13-track collection.
John Michael Montgomery's son, singer Walker Montgomery, gave fans an update on his dad, who is recovering after suffering some injuries after his tour bus was involved in an accident on September 9th. While John Michael will still need several weeks to heal, Walker tweeted, "Appreciate all who have reached out and checked in with my family regarding my Dad's bus crash. Someone up there was watching over him! He's doing well and happy the cats won. We are a lucky family!"
John Michael and his band were en route to a concert in North Carolina when the bus veered off of the road and overturned after hitting an embankment near the Tennessee/Kentucky state line.
John Michael suffered a few broken ribs and various cuts.
He is still scheduled to perform next on September 23rd in Ohio.
Darius Rucker will be a special guest on tonight's (Wednesday, September 14th) season 17 finale of NBC's America's Got Talent as he joins finalists Chapel Hart for a special performance. The show airs at 8 p.m. ET.
He said, "Like so many people, I was blown away when I saw Chapel Hart's original response to ‘Jolene' during their audition. Their energy on that stage has been contagious to watch and I'm honored they asked me to be part of their finale experience – especially to perform one of my favorite songs of all time!"
Darius is wrapping up work on his upcoming album, the followup to 2017's When Was The Last Time.
Jordan Davis' latest Number One hit, "Buy Dirt," featuring Luke Bryan, recently earned two CMA Awards nominations for Single of the Year as well as Song of the Year. Jordan co-wrote the song with his brother, Jacob Davis, along with Matt and Josh Jenkins, so it all takes on a greater significance.
Jordan tells us: "It just means a lot more. I wrote it with my brother and two my best friends in town and just the content of it. It comes from a really, really honest place, so when you have songs that mean that much and you get to see them have success like ‘Buy Dirt' is having, it's a little bit more special."
The CMA Awards will take place in Nashville on November 9th and air live on ABC beginning at 8 p.m. ET. Luke and Peyton Manning will co-host the show for the first time.
Jordan is currently climbing the country charts with "What My World Spins Around." The song will be included on an upcoming project.
Chris Lane and his wife, Lauren Bushnell, will be welcoming a baby boy next month. Chris shared a video of the gender reveal on social media on Monday (September 12th) where he swings a bat at a ball that explodes into blue powder. He captioned the clip, "Dutty's gonna have a little brother."
Chris and Lauren are already parents to one-year-old son Dutton.
Matt Stell will kick off his headlining Man Made Tour on September 30th in Tuscaloosa, AL, playing seventeen dates through early December. Tickets are on sale beginning this Friday (September 16th) at MattStell.com. Matt will be joined by special guests George Birge and Kyle Clark.
Matt's current single, "Man Made" is the follow-up to his Number One hits "Prayed For You" and "Everywhere But On." The song is the lead track from an upcoming new project, due later this year.
Chris Young will be the special guest at this year's Christmas 4 Kids (C4K) 40th Anniversary Concert, set for Monday, November 21st at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. This year's show will also feature performances by returning show host Phil Vassar, The Frontmen (Richie McDonald, formerly of Lonestar; Tim Rushlow, formerly of Little Texas; Larry Stewart of Restless Heart), and Essex County. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning Friday (September 16th) at 10 a.m. CT via ryman.com. All proceeds will go to the Christmas 4 Kids organization.
The Grand Ole Opry will celebrate its 97th birthday with six nights of shows October 4 – 9. The shows will feature performances by such special guests as Opry NextStage artist Breland, Deana Carter, and Jon Pardi plus Opry members Bill Anderson, Terri Clark, The Isaacs, Jamey Johnson, Craig Morgan, Carly Pearce, Steve Wariner, Chris Young and more.
7 p.m.-12 a.m.
