Music

Despite the polarizing crossover success of 1980's Urban Cowboy film and soundtrack, legends and old souls stood tall throughout the first year of a new decade.It's hard now to imagine the legacies of Merle Haggard, George Jones, Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton without their biggest songs of 1980. Meanwhile, Alabama, John Anderson, Emmylou Harris and Hank Williams Jr. found commercial success while honoring country music's past.As for the other end of the spectrum, Eddie Rabbitt and Johnny Lee did '80s pop-country first, and few over the coming years did it better.Read...

Fifty years ago, ace songwriter Kris Kristofferson, former rock ‘n’ roller Conway Twitty and gifted vocalists Lynn Anderson and Susan Raye joined such established stars as Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Dolly Parton, Ray Price, Charley Pride, Tammy Wynette and Porter Wagoner as the early '70s' brightest stars.The following rundown of those artists’ best work of 1970 will start to read like a celebration of Kristofferson’s earliest contributions to the great American songbook. That’s not without just cause; he was that great, and his songs were that ever-present on radio and...

The year 2020 has been an historic one, and not necessarily in good ways. The United States is still navigating life in a global pandemic, people across the country protested racial injustice with a renewed fervor throughout the summer, and we dealt with a contentious presidential election in the fall.In tumultuous times, many of us search for comfort and understanding in music. Even in these times of turmoil, country music has supplied listeners with songs that can help us keep moving forward, question the status quo and shine a light on our truths,...

For whatever reason, nostalgia for Barbara Mandrell's music seems minimal in comparison to the fame she earned as a recording artist and variety television show host. Nowadays, the common narrative on her peak commercial years (1977-1986) takes us from the celebrity appeal of Kenny Rogers to Randy Travis' role in a classic country revival. At best, Mandrell, a true country music lifer with her own pop success and old-school credibility, gets treated like a side note despite a varied, colorful and successful career.Born on Dec. 25, 1948, in Houston, Texas, Mandrell...