Music

The cast of NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live dedicated their most recent cold open to celebrating Mother’s Day on Saturday night (May 8), with cast members such as Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant appearing alongside their moms at the top of the show. Those clips were backed by an emotional performance from musical guest Miley Cyrus,

The Associated Press’ wire story for Keith Whitley‘s May 9, 1989, death includes a telling quote about his creative process. “The whole deal with my music has been the emotional quality,” Whitley said in 1988. “Songs I do have to strike an emotional chord the first time I sing them. It’s not so uncommon for

Alan Jackson stays country with “I Can Be That Something,” his new song. The country legend offers the type of classic country heartbreak song that one would hear pouring out of an old fashioned jukebox in a honky-tonk. The song finds Jackson setting himself up as a shoulder to cry on for a heartbroken woman whose lover left

Cassadee Pope draws on her pop-punk roots in the guitar-driven new song “What the Stars See,” a collaboration with Lindsay Ell and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild. It is Pope’s first new release since the 2020 EP Rise and Shine. Penned by Pope with Jake Rose and Lindsey Rimes, “What the Stars See” comes with

Dierks Bentley has much bigger touring plans in store for 2021 than a handful of dive bar dates in May. The 2021 Beers on Me Tour will begin on Aug. 13 and take the “Gone” singer through early fall. Parker McCollum and Riley Green will join Bentley on tour, with Mitchell Tenpenny filling in a few times during a 22-show

Country music legend Eddy Arnold suited the industry’s desired image during two phases of a career that spanned seven decades. Born Ray Edward “Eddy” Arnold on May 15, 1918, in Henderson, Tenn., he went from a young fan of Georgia’s Pete Cassell and other “hillbilly” crooners to a radio star in his own right at age

Walker Hayes and Jake Owen get into “Country Stuff” in Hayes’ new single. The track finds the singers raising a glass to all the “country stuff” they love: old blue jeans, mud on their tires, guitars and dirt roads. “You know, country stuff,” they chant at the end of the chorus. The melody leans into Hayes’

Gary Allan will release his first album in eight years with Ruthless, a collection of 13 songs due June 25th. It’s the follow-up to 2013’s Set You Free and follows a string of one-off singles he has released beginning in 2015. The album news arrives with the record’s lead-off track, “Temptation.” Written by Nicolle Galyon,

A new country music drama is coming to Fox. The network announced on Friday (May 7) that it had placed a series order for a new show called Monarch — and one of Nashville’s top music talent managers is involved. According to a press release, Jason Owen will join Gail Berman and Hend Baghdady as executive producers

Singer-songwriter Harper Grae and her wife Dawn Gates are expecting their first child together this summer — a joyous moment for the couple, though also a bittersweet milestone for Grae, who suffered a late-term miscarriage nearly a decade ago. Her new “Still Your Mother” music video, premiering exclusively on Taste of Country, is for anyone

Adam Sanders hopes his new song “Do What We Do” will become an anthem. The singer and songwriter took an unconventional approach to writing this track from his upcoming album. A new music video — premiering exclusively on Taste of Country — shows what he’s after. Veteran songwriter Brice Long (Randy Houser, Gary Allan, Jon Pardi)

Jon Randall had been going to Marfa, Texas, and nearby Terlingua since the early 2000s, and he was quickly becoming an evangelist. “It was one of those places that just filled my heart,” the Texas-born songwriter and producer says. “Especially if you’re very creative and ever have an introspective part of you, it’s that place

Miranda Lambert is literally closing the door on a very turbulent chapter of her life. The singer reveals that she has moved off the farm she bought for $3.4 million in 2016 and is currently building a new home with her husband of two years, Brendan McLoughlin. Her old house was a three-bedroom farmhouse with multiple guest cabins

Craig Gerdes tells his own love story in his new song “I Could Get Used to This.” The single, due out on Friday (May 7), is premiering exclusively on The Boot. “From the opening lyric, this song is entirely true,” Gerdes tells The Boot. As the song details, the singer and songwriter married his high

Riley Downing loves to go record hunting. You’re likely to find the singer-songwriter and Deslondes co-founder digging through crates at antique malls — a “good pastime, cheap hobby,” he tells The Boot — in his free time. Fellow vinyl collectors will find themselves in Downing’s latest release, “Start It Over.” The title track of his first-ever

Brandy Clark has announced rescheduled dates for a headlining tour later in 2021. The Who You Thought I Was Tour, named for a song on Clark’s Grammy-nominated album Your Life Is a Record, will officially launch October 25th in Portland, Oregon. Originally set to kick off in March 2021, the 16-date trek will be packed

Carrie Underwood and the Swon Brothers are now well-known in the country music scene, but their relationship goes way back to their college days. Underwood and Zach Swon both attended Northeastern State University. They were in a show together, and they also both took a country music theater class. “The class was so small,” Swon

On July 8, 1968, Tammy Wynette released her third studio album, D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Known for its title track — which was then in the middle of a three-week run at No. 1 atop the country charts — the record became Wynette’s first No. 1 album, and highlighted the hot streak the Mississippi native was on at the

Luke Combs turned footage from his actual wedding into a music video for a song inspired by his wife, Nicole. The new “Forever After All” clip finds Combs at his most vulnerable and jubilant. Particularly notable is how the “Better Together” singer breaks down when he sees his bride walking toward him, dressed in an

Parker Millsap has earned a reputation as a spiritually minded, if not outright spiritual, songwriter. The Oklahoma native described his last record as “gospel sex music” and riffed on yogi Ram Dass’s influential book Be Here Now for the title of his new album: Be Here Instead. “Stop looking ahead/be here instead/this is the prayer,”

Jordan Davis is gearing up to release his next project, an eight-song EP called Buy Dirt that finds the singer getting back in touch with his songwriter roots. Each of the tracks was co-written by Davis, with the exception of the first track, “Blow Up Your TV.” That song is spin on legendary singer-songwriter John Prine‘s “Spanish Pipedream,” which

Some of Brad Paisley‘s best-loved songs aren’t the ones that cut deep to the heart or mine through a lot of emotion. Rather, he’s known for a category of songs that only he can pull off: funny songs. Arguably one of the only country stars that can sing hilarious songs while still being well-respected in

“After all the booze and tears and patience / I’m an overnight sensation / Thirteen years in the making,” sings Lily Rose in her newly released song “Overnight Sensation.” It’s an introspective, mid-tempo look into how just one song can change a singer-songwriter’s career on a dime — and that’s something Rose knows firsthand. This time

Hayes Carll was in the middle of a performance last week when he managed to sum up what many musicians and fans have been feeling for months. “I tell people for the first four years of my career and for the last 16 months of my career, I’d finish a song and nobody clapped,” the

Faith Hill was country music’s most recognizable female star for nearly a decade and is still one-half of country music’s most famous couple today. The singer, mother, model and actress has kept a low profile in recent years, meaning the next generation of country fans may not appreciate her legacy. Indeed, it’s been more than 15 years

Country music’s most successful songs will be celebrated in late May of 2021, and a few singers that have parked themselves at the top of this Top 40 list will be on hand to party. Gabby Barrett is nominated in more Billboard Music Awards categories (May 23) than any female artist, and she’s No. 1 here

Sturgill Simpson brings the same bluegrass sensibilities of his two recent Cuttin’ Grass albums to a new cover of John Prine‘s classic song “Paradise.” The early-career cut reflects on the devastating effects of coal mining in Paradise, Ky., in Prine’s family’s home area of Muhlenberg County. Prine wrote “Paradise” — originally from his debut album, 1971’s John Prine

When Ashley Monroe wakes in the morning, she often heads straight to her closet. “I hear melodies in here,” says the singer-songwriter, calling from inside the cramped space during a recent interview. In the quiet early morning hours of 2018 and 2019, Monroe heard much more than melodies in her closet. Fully fleshed-out arrangements —