Music

Billie Eilish and Finneas shared an acoustic live rendition of her Happier Than Ever single “Your Power” Sunday. Like the version the duo played virtually in the desert for The Late Show, this powerful “official live” performance — filmed in one shot, with the camera dollying back and forth down a long curtained hallway — features Eilish and Finneas accompanied only by an acoustic guitar. Speaking to Rolling Stone for our recent cover story about the impact of “Your Power,” about a relationship between a young girl and an older...

Ricky Skaggs songs are some of the most beloved and most awarded in country music history.The singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has earned an astounding 14 Grammy Awards over the course of his career, which encompasses an early stint with bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley as well as appearances on a number of key albums from other artists before he struck out on his own as a commercial country solo artist with a decidedly traditional slant.Skaggs' uncanny sense for picking songs with popular appeal, coupled with his vocal and instrumental prowess and that...

Q-Tip, Missy Elliott, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea and Bootsy Collins were among the many artists to pay tribute to Biz Markie on social media following the “Just a Friend” rapper’s death Friday at the age of 57. “All of my love to the one of a kind bringer of love and joy, the great Biz Markie,” Flea tweeted. “I will bang his records til the day I die and my heart will rejoice. I love you Biz.” Missy Elliott wrote of the “Clown Prince of Hip-Hop,” “I can remember...

Fifteen years ago today (July 18, 2006) was a significant day for Eric Church: It was on that date that Church's freshman album, Sinners Like Me, was released on Capitol Nashville.Church co-wrote all 12 songs on his debut record, which spawned three Top 20 hits: "How 'Bout You," "Two Pink Lines" and "Guys Like Me." According to Church, he had no interest in being an artist if he couldn't write his own songs.Capitol Nashville"I came to be a songwriter; I never really came to town to be an artist. I didn't know...

Tedeschi Trucks Band marked the release of their live album Layla Revisited (Live at Lockn’) by performing three Derek and the Dominos songs for CBS This Morning’s Saturday Sessions. Performing from a New Haven, Connecticut’s Westville Music Bowl, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks and company covered “Bell Bottom Blues,” “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?” and (in front of an audience) “Key to the Highway” from Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs; Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Layla Revisited is a full-album live performance of that classic LP — featuring Eric...

1"The Father, My Son and the Holy Ghost"From: 'God, Family, Country' (2020)There's simply no other track that could sit in this top spot. Morgan's pain and grief are palpable in "The Father, My Son and the Holy Ghost," the exceptionally personal song he wrote and produced solo after the death of his 19-year-old son Jerry in 2016."I know my boy ain't here, but he ain't gone," sings Morgan, laying his emotions out for listeners and explaining how his faith has gotten him through the hardest event of his life. "I won't completely heal...

Beastie Boys and Biz Markie were both New York hip-hop pioneers, so it’s natural their paths crossed often. The two artists shared a stage several times, including a 1988 Madison Square Garden show where Biz performed his inimitable version of Elton John’s “Bennie and The Jets.” (The song later ended up on the Beasties’ Sounds of Science anthology.) As Rob Sheffield notes in his tribute to the rapper, who died Friday night at age 57, “Biz became a regular with the Beastie Boys, joining up for sure shots like ‘Do...

Fifteen years ago today, on July 17, 2006, Kellie Pickler had one good reason to celebrate: It was on that date that the North Carolina native signed her first record deal, with BNA Records, only a few months after her elimination from American Idol.Pickler first stole America's hearts while appearing on Season 5 of Idol. The country star sang before the show's three original judges, Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson, performing songs from multiple genres, such as Bonnie Raitt's "Something to Talk About," Stevie Wonder's "Blame It on the Sun"...

Grimes, Alanis Morissette, and Will.i.am will serve as judges on the upcoming reality singing series Alter Ego, Fox announced Friday. A spin on The Masked Singer concept — where celebrities perform wearing ostentatious costumes to hide their identity — Alter Ego will feature unknown singers performing as their “dream avatar” thanks to motion capture and visual effects technology, the Hollywood Reporter writes. Nick Lachey will also be on the series’ judging panel, with Rosci Diaz set to host when Alter Ego premieres this fall in a Wednesday programming block alongside...

It's been four years and a few months since Charlie Worsham last released new music, but he's been anywhere but gone.You can find him on Eric Church's Heart & Soul collection, which arrived in April; on Carrie Underwood's My Savior gospel album, an Easter 2021 release; and on Okie, the 2019 record from Vince Gill, with whom Worsham also toured for a time. He's a former temporary member of Old Crow Medicine Show, too, having stepped in after guitarist Chance McCoy left the band in 2019."I sort of got this cosmic pat on the back...

James Blunt will release a greatest hits album, The Stars Beneath My Feet (2004- 2021), on November 19th via Atlantic Records. The 30-song collection spans the musician’s 17-year career, including hits like “You’re Beautiful” and “Cold.” The album will feature four new songs, “Love Under Pressure,” “Unstoppable,” “Adrenaline” and “I Came For Love,” as well as four exclusive live performances from around the world, including at Glastonbury Festival. “Amazingly, I’m releasing my greatest hits,” Blunt said in a statement. “I wanted to call it Greatest Hit (& Songs I Wish...

Few narratives covering the classic country hits of the 1950s — or women challenging the role of a “Girl in a Country Song” — skip over the moment when Kitty Wells' “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels” served as an answer song to Hank Thompson's “The Wild Side of Life.”Thompson’s song, written by Arlie Carter and William Warren, spent 15 weeks atop the Billboard country charts in 1952. At the time, divorce rates had reached record numbers in the United States; that increased social taboo and other threats to...

No one is more aware of what people think about John Mayer than John Mayer himself. The title of his eighth studio album acknowledges past accusations of sad-boy mopery. The muted pastels of the throwback cover art, complete with a simulation of the “Nice Price” sticker that Columbia Records used to slap on its bargain LPs, dares you to call him a purveyor of slick, dated studio-rock.  Is this self-deprecating? A jab at critics? Either way, the self-consciousness of the packaging is notably absent from Mayer’s music itself. He may...

Miranda Lambert's husband Brendan McLoughlin has the itch! After singing "Summer Nights" with her in May, the former NYPD officer is willing to join his wife onstage more often.Could this become a thing? Like, when Lambert is on tour this summer, could McLoughlin make a cameo? The "Settling Down" singer says probably not. Talking to The Bobby Bones Show host Bobby Bones, Lambert playfully shot the idea down."He would. Should he? I don't think so," she jokes.Fans who follow the (professional) country singer on Instagram have seen plenty of McLoughlin, in more ways than...