For the first minute and 45 seconds of his new, self-titled album, Zach Bryan lays out his vision for a life well-lived. There are no pickup trucks, no girls in bikinis or short shorts, no football games, or fishing boats. There is only the vastness of the land, from the Pacific Coast Highway to the Empire State Building, and the simple meaning of our own actions.
“I’ve learned that every waking moment is enough,” he intones in the album-opening poem, “and excess never leads to better things.”
It’s a...
“I’ve learned that every waking moment is enough,” he intones in the album-opening poem, “and excess never leads to better things.”
It’s a...
- 9/6/2023
- by Jeff Gage
- Rollingstone.com
Willie Nelson will reinterpret some of his classic songs with a group of world-class pickers on his new album Bluegrass. The project, which marks the 90-year-old country legend’s 151st (or so) album release, arrives Sept. 15 and is introduced with a new rendition of “You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago.”
The original version of “You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago,” from Nelson’s 1972 album The Willie Way, was a full-band production that was steeped in piano and pedal steel, belying its relatively quick tempo. This new version featuring only acoustic instruments,...
The original version of “You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago,” from Nelson’s 1972 album The Willie Way, was a full-band production that was steeped in piano and pedal steel, belying its relatively quick tempo. This new version featuring only acoustic instruments,...
- 6/22/2023
- by Jon Freeman
- Rollingstone.com
The prolific Willie Nelson, whose 2022 album A Beautiful Time was named one of Rolling Stone’s best country albums of the year, will release yet another new album: I Don’t Know a Thing About Love arrives March 3 via Legacy Recordings.
I Don’t Know a Thing About Love doubles as a tribute album to the songwriter Harlan Howard, the Country Music Hall of Fame member who once described country music as “three chords and the truth.” Nelson previews the LP with his version of “Busted,” out now. With longtime...
I Don’t Know a Thing About Love doubles as a tribute album to the songwriter Harlan Howard, the Country Music Hall of Fame member who once described country music as “three chords and the truth.” Nelson previews the LP with his version of “Busted,” out now. With longtime...
- 1/17/2023
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
When it came time for Joshua Hedley to begin work on his second album, the polished Nineties country homage Neon Blue, the neo-traditionalist had only one guiding principle: make a record to be played on a pontoon boat.
“After these last couple years we’ve had, I felt like I didn’t want to hang my sad-sack, typical brand on people,” Hedley says. ‘I wanted to make a record that people could party to.”
Part of this was an artist’s desire to avoid self-repetition. Hedley’s 2018 debut, Mr. Jukebox,...
“After these last couple years we’ve had, I felt like I didn’t want to hang my sad-sack, typical brand on people,” Hedley says. ‘I wanted to make a record that people could party to.”
Part of this was an artist’s desire to avoid self-repetition. Hedley’s 2018 debut, Mr. Jukebox,...
- 4/23/2022
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
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Country music is just “three chords and the truth,” according to songwriter Harlan Howard. While music has become more complex in the decades since his claim, today’s hits still provide a snapshot of real life. Perhaps that’s why country music has remained popular for...
We may receive payment from affiliate links included within this content. Our affiliate partners do not influence our editorial opinions or analysis.
Country music is just “three chords and the truth,” according to songwriter Harlan Howard. While music has become more complex in the decades since his claim, today’s hits still provide a snapshot of real life. Perhaps that’s why country music has remained popular for...
- 5/20/2021
- by Becky Pokora
- Rollingstone.com
Billy Joe Shaver, the outlaw-country music pioneer who wrote some of the genre’s greatest songs, died Wednesday in Waco, Texas, after suffering a stroke. He was 81. Connie Nelson, a friend of Shaver’s, confirmed his death to Rolling Stone.
Shaver’s hard-lived career classics included “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “Georgia on a Fast Train,” “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” and “Live Forever.” He wrote nine out of the 10 songs on Waylon Jennings’ 1973 outlaw-country breakthrough Honky Tonk Heroes; Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley all recorded his songs; and...
Shaver’s hard-lived career classics included “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “Georgia on a Fast Train,” “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” and “Live Forever.” He wrote nine out of the 10 songs on Waylon Jennings’ 1973 outlaw-country breakthrough Honky Tonk Heroes; Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley all recorded his songs; and...
- 10/28/2020
- by Patrick Doyle and Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
The Mavericks find a unique, eye-popping way to appear together in a music video during quarantine — the animated clip for “Blame It on Your Heart” casts the band members as interstellar explorers traveling through space, time, and under the sea.
The band covered the Harlan Howard and Kostas composition, made famous by Patty Loveless in 1993, for their latest album Play the Hits, a collection of cover songs like John Anderson’s “Swingin’,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart,” and Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel.” In the video, Mavericks singer...
The band covered the Harlan Howard and Kostas composition, made famous by Patty Loveless in 1993, for their latest album Play the Hits, a collection of cover songs like John Anderson’s “Swingin’,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart,” and Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel.” In the video, Mavericks singer...
- 4/30/2020
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
Just ahead of the forthcoming Me & Patsy Kickin’ Up Dust, Loretta Lynn’s memoir of her friendship with fellow country-music icon Patsy Cline, Lynn releases a new version of one of Cline’s most indelible hit songs, “I Fall to Pieces.”
Backed by the familiar 4:4 shuffle beat and stinging steel guitar, this updated take on the Hank Cochran-Harlan Howard classic finds 87-year-old Loretta injecting the nearly 60-year-old tune with all the honky-tonk heartache her still-emotional voice can muster.
Heartbroken when Cline perished in a March 1963 plane crash,...
Backed by the familiar 4:4 shuffle beat and stinging steel guitar, this updated take on the Hank Cochran-Harlan Howard classic finds 87-year-old Loretta injecting the nearly 60-year-old tune with all the honky-tonk heartache her still-emotional voice can muster.
Heartbroken when Cline perished in a March 1963 plane crash,...
- 4/3/2020
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
Jan Howard, a 49-year member of the Grand Ole Opry and a chart-topping country singer, died Saturday in Gallatin, Tennessee, according to a statement from the Opry. She was 91.
Born Lula Grace Johnson in West Plains, Missouri, in 1930, she was the eighth of 11 children, two of whom died before reaching the age of two. After dropping out of high school, Howard married at 16 but soon divorced and moved to Los Angeles. There, she would meet Wynn Stewart, one of the architects of the Bakersfield Sound. She would also meet her second husband,...
Born Lula Grace Johnson in West Plains, Missouri, in 1930, she was the eighth of 11 children, two of whom died before reaching the age of two. After dropping out of high school, Howard married at 16 but soon divorced and moved to Los Angeles. There, she would meet Wynn Stewart, one of the architects of the Bakersfield Sound. She would also meet her second husband,...
- 3/29/2020
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
Iconic songwriter and Country Music Hall of Fame member Bobby Bare turns 85 on April 7th and will follow that milestone 10 days later with a brand-new album, Great American Saturday Night. The collection of songs, penned by Bare’s late friend, songwriter and author Shel Silverstein, first formed the basis of a concept album recorded in 1978 but never released.
The first song off of the LP, premiering today, is “Livin’ Legend,” the poignant recollections of an aging folk singer who survived the folk boom of the early Sixties, only to find...
The first song off of the LP, premiering today, is “Livin’ Legend,” the poignant recollections of an aging folk singer who survived the folk boom of the early Sixties, only to find...
- 2/27/2020
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
By the second half of the 20th century, country music was big business. Radio, records, television and movies all played a part in its popularity, but its artists and its songs were still at the forefront, even as profits soared or slumped. The second half of Ken Burns’ Country Music begins in 1964 and runs through the mid-Nineties, exploring everything from the rise of the Bakersfield Sound to the pop-country explosion of the Seventies, right up to Garth Brooks’ unprecedented approach to superstardom. Rolling Stone Country looks at 10 key moments from...
- 9/22/2019
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
From the Forties through the mid-Seventies Nashville was staking its claim as Music City, developing the hybrid of country and pop known as the Nashville Sound. At the same time, on the West Coast, the thriving California honky-tonks gave birth to what would be termed the Bakersfield Sound, so named for the town in the southern San Joaquin Valley that would gift country music with two of its most iconic artists: Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. On August 9th, the music that melded honky-tonk twang with rock & roll instrumentation will...
- 7/3/2019
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
A fiery Glaswegian singer and single mother dreams of Nashville glory in this gritty feelgood feature
The celebrated songwriter Harlan Howard famously defined country music as “three chords and the truth”, a phrase that would subsequently be adopted by the likes of Billy Bragg to define skiffle, punk and all points in between. Screenwriter Nicole Taylor (who wrote the BBC miniseries Three Girls) takes this punchy mantra and tattoos it on the arm of her heroine, an ex-con single mum, living in Glasgow but dreaming of Nashville. “I should have been born in America,” insists the indomitable Rose-Lynn, as she cuts an unruly swath through pubs, clubs and prison bars, reminding us that “Johnny Cash was a convicted criminal”. But beyond such bravado, it’s the power of music to pierce the heart that is the focus of this uplifting, bittersweet film, painting a picture of hardscrabble lives lent lyrical...
The celebrated songwriter Harlan Howard famously defined country music as “three chords and the truth”, a phrase that would subsequently be adopted by the likes of Billy Bragg to define skiffle, punk and all points in between. Screenwriter Nicole Taylor (who wrote the BBC miniseries Three Girls) takes this punchy mantra and tattoos it on the arm of her heroine, an ex-con single mum, living in Glasgow but dreaming of Nashville. “I should have been born in America,” insists the indomitable Rose-Lynn, as she cuts an unruly swath through pubs, clubs and prison bars, reminding us that “Johnny Cash was a convicted criminal”. But beyond such bravado, it’s the power of music to pierce the heart that is the focus of this uplifting, bittersweet film, painting a picture of hardscrabble lives lent lyrical...
- 4/14/2019
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
She’s been dubbed “the sweet lady with the nasty voice,” and anyone who has met her and had seen her perform live can appreciate the dichotomy of that statement. Wanda Jackson, the undisputed Queen of Rockabilly Music, bridged nascent rock & roll with traditional country in the Fifties, then proceeded to blow up that bridge with a one-of-a-kind voice like spring-loaded dynamite wrapped in sandpaper.
The 81-year-old Jackson, who recently announced her retirement from performing after more than 60 years, has had an ardent following not only in the U.S.
The 81-year-old Jackson, who recently announced her retirement from performing after more than 60 years, has had an ardent following not only in the U.S.
- 3/30/2019
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
Rhett Miller was a folkie of sorts before co-launching country-punk-pop heroes Old ‘97s, and befitting a Texan raised in country music’s cradle, he’s got a knack for perfectly-turned lines. “Did I lose you at ‘I love you’?,” he sings on his latest solo set, as immaculately plainspoken as a Harlan Howard or pre-lsd Beatles song. Yet Miller can also be a surly man of his times: “Permanent Damage” is a fuck-you to a tedious storyteller that declares “Nobody wants to hear about your stupid dream,” and sneeringly rhymes...
- 11/9/2018
- by Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
Mellow-voiced singer and prolific songwriter Freddie Hart, whose self-penned single “Easy Loving” was one of the biggest crossover hits of the early Seventies, died Saturday in Burbank, California. He was 91.
In addition to winning the Acm award for Song of the Year in 1971, “Easy Loving” was a Top 20 hit on the pop chart, a million-seller and earned Hart two Grammy nominations and the first of two consecutive Cma Song of the Year honors in 1971. Over the next two years, he would reach Number One on the country chart five additional times,...
In addition to winning the Acm award for Song of the Year in 1971, “Easy Loving” was a Top 20 hit on the pop chart, a million-seller and earned Hart two Grammy nominations and the first of two consecutive Cma Song of the Year honors in 1971. Over the next two years, he would reach Number One on the country chart five additional times,...
- 10/29/2018
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
Eric Church’s soulful “Heart Like a Wheel,” Jillian Jacqueline’s riveting duet with Keith Urban and Aaron Watson’s uplifting “Higher Ground” are among the 10 country and Americana tracks you must hear this week.
Eric Church, “Heart Like a Wheel”
For all its talk about wheels, Eric Church’s newest release from Desperate Man rolls forward at a deliberately relaxed pace. The song’s cruising speed is set by its drumbeat, whose casual swing is reminiscent of old Stax Records. Gospel harmonies, church organ and a cyclical, soul-inspired melody only strengthen those comparisons,...
Eric Church, “Heart Like a Wheel”
For all its talk about wheels, Eric Church’s newest release from Desperate Man rolls forward at a deliberately relaxed pace. The song’s cruising speed is set by its drumbeat, whose casual swing is reminiscent of old Stax Records. Gospel harmonies, church organ and a cyclical, soul-inspired melody only strengthen those comparisons,...
- 8/24/2018
- by Robert Crawford
- Rollingstone.com
For the record, Lee Ann Womack does not smoke, despite the fact that the artist is holding a lit cigarette on the cover of her new album. And yes, she says, she knows “it’s not cool to smoke.”
But then if Womack had cared about what is and isn’t cool, she probably wouldn’t have made The Lonely, the Lonesome, and the Gone – one of the year’s most fearless and soulful albums to come out of Nashville this side of Chris Stapleton.
“I have something that has been in me since I was a little girl – a...
But then if Womack had cared about what is and isn’t cool, she probably wouldn’t have made The Lonely, the Lonesome, and the Gone – one of the year’s most fearless and soulful albums to come out of Nashville this side of Chris Stapleton.
“I have something that has been in me since I was a little girl – a...
- 10/27/2017
- by Nancy Kruh
- PEOPLE.com
So what took Garth Brooks so long? What took arguably the most popular country singer of all time to play Ryman Auditorium, the Mother Church of Country Music? Brooks, 54, offers just three words to explain: "Scared to death." It's safe to say, after Thursday night's long-anticipated Nashville performance, that Brooks has conquered his fear. In a 110-minute concert before a worshipful crowd, Brooks clearly made himself at home in country music's most hallowed house. "I've never been here before," he declared around the halfway point. "But they're gonna have to get rid of me now! It's so sweet to be...
- 9/9/2016
- by Nancy Kruh
- PEOPLE.com
The Songwriter. The Bluegrass Musician. The Piano Man. In the rotunda of the Country Music Hall of Fame, surrounded by 121 bronze plaques representing current members, Kix Brooks emceed a press conference announcing Hank Cochran, Mac Wiseman and Ronnie Milsap as the organization's 2014 inductees. Singer Bobby Bare, inducted last year, paid tribute to his friend Cochran, who passed away in 2010, referring to him as The Legend, and noting to laughter that "he called himself a legend long before he was." Among Cochran's masterpieces are "I Fall to Pieces" (co-written with Harlan Howard), "The Chair," "Ocean Front Property" and "Make the World Go Away.
- 4/22/2014
- by Kay West
- PEOPLE.com
One of rock music’s most legendary quotations is by one Harlan Howard, a songwriter who wrote many hits for country singers like Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, among many others. He said, “All you need to write a country song is three chords and the truth.” And very often, qualities to great songwriting have often been paraphrased as ‘…three chords and the truth’. In fact, U2 fans will recall, on the album Rattle And Hum, when Bono does a live version of Bob Dylan’s All along the watchtower..., one of the lines he sings on it are, “All ...
- 1/30/2010
- Hindustan Times - Cinema
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