Music

Jim Femino, an influential singer-songwriter, producer and publisher in Nashville's country music scene, has died. Femino's son, Art Femino, confirms his father's death on Tuesday (Aug. 3) to Taste of Country. He was 69 years old.Femino died after suffering his tenth heart attack in recent years, Art Femino says. The songwriter, who devoted much of his life to a publishing and consulting business called Songstarters! Inc., had struggled with his health increasingly over the last two years. He died in the hospital while undergoing exploratory surgery to check for a...

The Weeknd has released the video for his pulsating new song, “Take My Breath.” It’s the first single from his upcoming album, which is the follow-up to his 2020 smash, After Hours. In the Cliqua-directed clip, which comes with an epilepsy warning, the singer is seen walking outside in a dawn setting and also down a hallway before he emerges in a club with pulsating strobe lights and dancing. He hooks up with a love interest as they dance and share breaths from an oxygen tank. Later his breath is...

More than 70 people who attended last month's Faster Horses Festival in Brooklyn, Mich., have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and another nine were infected by that group of primary cases.The country music festival took place at Michigan International Speedway from July 16-18. Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett and Jason Aldean headlined the three-day event, now in its eighth year. Michigan health officials report 83 total COVID-19 cases linked to the festival: 74 primary and nine secondary cases.MLive states that one of the secondary cases resulted in hospitalization, and that the median age of primary cases is 24 years old....

Paul Johnson, the Chicago producer and DJ whose ferociously melodic style of house music yielded a series of classic singles and inspired producers in Chicago and beyond, died on Wednesday at age 50, his agent confirmed to Rolling Stone. While a cause of death was not specified, Johnson had been battling Covid-19 and was put on a ventilator in the hospital, according to a series of videos he posted on Instagram. Johnson developed his fearsome skills in Chicago’s flourishing house music scene during the late 1980s. But even in a...

Victims of the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting will be honored with a permanent memorial. MGM Resorts has donated two acres of land, and a committee is now fielding community input.In the meantime, a sign indicating that a memorial is coming will soon go up on a plot of land that's in the northeast corner of the Las Vegas Village, the site of the Oct. 1, 2017 mass shooting at a country music festival. Since then, per the Las Vegas Journal Review, that land has been split into two sections: A south section to...

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Aaliyah’s eponymous album and her estate has released a statement regarding “unauthorized projects” that have appeared to pop up during the landmark moment, and to “preempt the inevitable attacks on our character by all the individuals who have emerged from the shadows to leech off of Aaliyah’s life’s work.” “Protecting Aaliyah’s legacy is, and will always be, our focus. For 20 years we have battled behind the scenes, enduring shadowy tactics of deception with unauthorized projects targeted to tarnish,” the singer’s estate wrote....

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill will together star in a new TV series, 1883. The show, which will air on Paramount+, is a prequel to the Emmy-nominated show Yellowstone.1883, per a press release, follows the Duttons — James (McGraw) and Margaret (Hill) and their family — as they head West. They'll be joined by Sam Elliott, who will portray Shea Brennan — described as "a tough-as-nails, handsome cowboy with immense sadness in his past" — and additional, to-be-announced cast members."This is truly a dream job ... The Duttons are tremendous characters, and it’s so...

Jomoro, the duo of Atoms for Peace drummer Joey Waronker and percussionist Mauro Refosco, teamed up with Sharon Van Etten for their song “Nest,” the latest single off the group’s album Blue Marble Sky. “‘Nest’ started for us as an instrumental, reflecting a style Mauro and I developed playing together over the years, especially with Atoms for Peace,” Waronker said in a statement. “It was, for us, an exercise in working with a more ambient overall sound. I kept thinking of Sharon when I listened to it and finally asked her...

Luke Bryan's music career has been filled with exuberant moments, but the singer’s story is also laced with heartbreaking loss and grief.Among those tragic, life-altering moments is the death of Bryan's older brother, Chris, in 1996. A then-19-year-old Bryan had his eyes set on Nashville, and was planning to make the move from Leesburg, Ga.; however, when Chris died at the age of 26 in a car accident, his younger brother shelved his plans to stay near his family.Bryan, of course, did eventually make it to Nashville, with the encouragement...

Gun N’ Roses performed at Boston’s Fenway Park on Tuesday, and during their set they delivered a reworking of a previously unreleased song they penned called “Silkworms.” It is now titled “Absurd.” “Some of you might have heard this under another name, but this is really kind of absurd to try this,” Axl Rose joked to a drum sting from Frank Ferrer as he introduced the propulsive song. It’s aptly renamed given the lyrics that include Rose sneeringly singing the song’s title throughout. “Listen motherfuckers to this song that should...

Garth Brooks has canceled a planned onsale date for tickets to his recently announced show in Seattle, Wash., and says he'll rethink all scheduled concerts after performing in Lincoln, Neb., on Aug. 14. The move comes as cases of COVID-19 rise nationwide once again.After Aug. 14, Brooks has shows scheduled for Cincinnati, Ohio (Sept. 18); Charlotte, N.C. (Sept. 25); Baltimore, Md. (Oct. 2); and Boston, Mass. (Oct. 9). Tickets for his Sept. 4 show in Seattle were set to go on sale on Friday (Aug. 6), but a note from his PR...

UPDATE (8/3): DaBaby has been dropped from the lineup of another festival, Music Midtown, which is set to take place in Atlanta this September. “DaBaby will no longer be performing at Midtown Music Festival,” Music Midtown tweeted. “Lineup update coming soon.” DaBaby will no longer be performing at Midtown Music Festival. Lineup update coming soon. pic.twitter.com/ZBZGwda4rw — Music Midtown (@MusicMidtown) August 3, 2021 ** DaBaby has been dropped from two more festivals, the Austin City Limits Festival and the iHeartRadio Music Festival, as the backlash continues against his homophobic statements...

Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley take the open road in the music video for their collaborative song "Freedom Was a Highway."The video opens with Allen leaving church, overcome with the sudden urge to get in his car and drive deep into the woods, where he stumbles upon a guitar hiding amongst the trees. With a strum of the magical instrument, Allen's bandmates appear in the middle of the road, the singer taking lead vocals on the mic.Soon, Paisley joins him on the back of a truck bed, and the two sing and...

Garth Hudson turns 84 on August 2nd. The Band keyboardist has always maintained a very low public profile, and he received very few songwriting credits on Band albums, but his piano, organ, sax, trumpet accordion and clavinet were crucial components of the group’s signature sound. They would have been an unimaginably different group without him. He was also the wise elder of the group, and the one that shied away from drugs and alcohol, which is probably why Bob Dylan trusted him to man the reel-to-reel recorder in the basement...