Music

Twenty-three years ago today (March 7, 1998) was a life-changing day for Sara Evans. It was on that date that the singer made her debut at the Grand Ole Opry.Evans was working on her sophomore album, No Place That Far, when she made her first Opry appearance. The then-27-year-old sang the Hank Williams classic "Your Cheatin' Heart" for her first performance on the historic stage.Evans first visited the Grand Ole Opry when she was only 11 years old, after hearing her grandfather tell stories of the stars who graced the hallowed...

Beyoncé paid tribute to a young fan who lost her battle with cancer with a video Friday featuring an a cappella medley dedicated to the late Lyric “Yhung” Chanel. The 13-year-old Chanel died Friday following a two-year battle with brain cancer and anaplastic ependymoma; Chanel’s fight against the disease and her positivity in the face of the diagnosis made her an Instagram sensation and garnered support from artists like Beyoncé (who sent Chanel flowers in September 2020) and Cardi B, Billboard reports. In Beyoncé’s tribute to Chanel, videos from the...

Twenty-two years ago today (March 6, 1999) was a big day for Sara Evans. It was on that date that the Missouri native scored her first No. 1 hit with "No Place That Far," the title track from her sophomore album."No Place That Far" was helped along by country music icon Vince Gill, who sings harmony on the song and also appears in its accompanying music video. Evans co-wrote the track with hit songwriters Tony Martin and Tom Shapiro and earned her first CMA Awards nomination -- for Vocal Event of the...

R.E.M. embraced the music video form like few other bands in rock history. Over the course of three decades, the band released over 70 clips, ranging from arty short films to blockbuster videos that went into heavy rotation on MTV. Michael Stipe, a former art school student and avid photographer, was heavily involved in the band’s visual representation and mainly relied on a stable of filmmakers including Peter Care, Jem Cohen, Jim McKay and James Herbert, his former art professor at the University of Georgia. This collection of videos highlights...

Fifteen years ago today (March 6, 2006) was a day to remember for Miranda Lambert. It was on that date that the singer earned her first gold single, signifying sales of 500,000 units, with "Kerosene.""Kerosene" is the title track of and third single from Lambert's debut album, released in 2005. The artist wrote the song by herself but gave co-writing credit to Steve Earle, as the tune is similar in melody and structure to his 1996 song "I Feel Alright.""I didn’t purposefully plagiarize his song — but unconsciously I copied it almost exactly," Lambert later explained (quote...

SZA has paired her hit single “Good Days” with a psychedelic new music video directed by the singer. In the visual, a dreaming SZA envisions she is a magic mushroom growing in the forest, dancing among the other fungi and spraying spores; that footage is juxtaposed with SZA pole-dancing in a library stacked high with books. “: I’m a plant living growing and dying .. also on shrooms,” SZA tweeted of the video. The still-sleeping SZA eventually moves on from her trip and winds up at a gas station where...

Evan Paul is the host of Taste of Country Nights, a syndicated radio show heard on more than 100 country radio stations nationwide. Producer Amber co-hosts the show with him every night from 7PM to midnight. Together they play the best new country music and interview today's top stars, like Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Brantley Gilbert, Lady A, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert + more! ​​​​​​​​​​​There have been some great country album releases so far in 2021. I think with everyone being cooped up in 2020, there was an explosion of...

In honor of this month’s Bandcamp Friday, Dawn Landes has released a stripped-down duet with the late Justin Townes Earle. Recorded roughly a decade ago, it’s a plainspoken, finger-picked version of Dolly Parton’s “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind.” Earle and Landes recorded the song at Landes’ Brooklyn studio while the two singer-songwriters were on tour circa 2010-2011. Proceeds for the song will go to Earle’s family, wife Jenn Marie and daughter Etta St. James Earle. The song was originally released as a free download 10 years ago, and the...

Brett Kissel believes we've just started a new era of country music, one that will be well-documented by historians in the decades to come. Concert anthems that call for waving a lighter in the air, or the kind of communal dancing we were once used to are on timeout. Hits like Luke Bryan's "Country Girl" or Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise" just won't get written and recorded in 2021.“Without question, we’re going to hear a different era," the CCMA and Juno Award-winning singer says."Worldwide history during the pandemic has forced the creators like me,...

Mary Wilson’s 1979 self-titled debut solo album is coming back out as an expanded edition containing bonus tracks, remixes, and four tracks she recorded in 1980 with Elton John producer Gus Dudgeon for a follow-up project that never materialized. There’s also “Why Can’t Get All Get Along,” a song she cut with producer Richard Davis in recent years that is being made available here for the first time. The original album hit two years after the final Supremes lineup of Wilson, Scherrie Payne, and Susaye Greene said goodbye with a...

Country music fans first got a look at Miranda Lambert's fiery tunes and feisty personality during the premiere episode of the TV singing competition Nashville Star in 2003. Though her performance made clear that the Lindale, Texas native was a force to be reckoned with, fans watching little knew what a major player she would come to be in country music.It was early in her life, around the time of her stint on Nashville Star (and another talent contest that was at the time known as the True Value Country Showdown) that Lambert stepped foot in a...

The inspiration for Brooke Eden’s new song “Sunroof” actually came to her in a perfectly unlikely place: the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant. While she waited for her girlfriend to pick up their takeout order, Eden felt the sun beaming in through the windows and cracked the sunroof for the first time all year. “It was just the promise of spring and summer again after a really cold winter that year. I thought this feeling — this free feeling — reminds me of what it felt like to fall...

Vince Gill is one of the most important country musicians of his generation, but his career outlook wasn't always so rosy. In a 2020 interview, the country music icon and current member of the Eagles shared a hilarious story about an incredibly tough early gig when his local bluegrass band opened for Kiss.Gill was living in Oklahoma City, Okla., at the time, and playing in a band called Mountain Smoke that had gained some local notoriety and performed regularly. Kiss' support act for a March 4, 1974, concert had canceled...