Country Music

Country Music Hits

Uncategorized

Uncategorized

DOCTORS TOLD TRACE ADKINS’ FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO COME IN AND SAY GOODBYE TO HIM. It was February 21, 1994. He was married to his second wife, Julie Curtis, his drinking had gotten bad, and that night the argument about it ended with her pointing a .38 at him. In his memoir Adkins takes the blame for what happened next. Instead of talking her down, he threatened her and reached for the gun. He has written that it was the stupidest thing he ever did in his life. The bullet went through his left lung, his heart, his right lung, and out his back. He calls it a kill shot. Emergency open-heart surgery kept him alive. Then he refused to press charges. He has said he does not believe she was trying to kill him, that she wanted him out of the house, and that both of them owned a share of that night. The marriage ended anyway. Thirty-two years on, he still goes in for regular heart checkups, and when People asked him what hurt most, he didn’t point at his chest. “It’s the broken hearts that left the deepest scars.”

No Comments

Trace Adkins, the Night That Changed Everything There are moments in life that split time into before and after. For…

Uncategorized

BRENDA LEE ASKED JUDY GARLAND FOR CAREER ADVICE. GARLAND TOLD HER TO PROTECT HER CHILDHOOD INSTEAD. Lee was eight when her father died in a construction accident, and from that day her voice paid the family’s bills. She had sung on a candy-store counter at three for pocket change and stood on a milk crate at five to reach the microphone. By 13 she had recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and critics kept calling her the next Judy Garland. So when she spotted Garland stretched out by a pool during an early Las Vegas run, she got her nerve up and walked over to ask how a girl makes it in show business. Garland had been raised inside the MGM studio system — endless hours, studio-issued pills, a girlhood that belonged to the company. She thought for a moment, Lee remembers, then looked her straight in the eye: “Don’t ever let them take your childhood.” Lee listened. She stayed in public school. She kept her friends, joined the debate squad, made cheerleader, went to the prom. She toured England with the Beatles opening her shows and came home to her classroom. Decades later she still sums up those years the same way: “I was no different from anyone else, except I sang.”

No Comments

Brenda Lee and Judy Garland: The Advice That Helped Protect a Childhood Brenda Lee was only a child when her…

Uncategorized

ON OCTOBER 13, 1975, A COUNTRY STAR OPENED AN ENVELOPE ON LIVE TELEVISION, PULLED OUT A CIGARETTE LIGHTER, AND SET THE CARD ON FIRE. THE NAME BURNING IN HIS HAND WAS JOHN DENVER’S. DENVER NEVER SAW IT HAPPEN. Charlie Rich was the reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year, on stage to hand the award to his successor. He read the nominees. He opened the envelope. Then he lit it, paused, and said the winner’s name: “My friend, Mr. John Denver.” Denver was appearing only by satellite. He gave a gracious acceptance speech with no idea what had just happened in that room. The objection was never about the singing. It was about the category. Nashville had decided the man behind “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was not country enough to hold that trophy. That same night he also took CMA Song of the Year for “Back Home Again.” In 1998, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. In 2007, Colorado made “Rocky Mountain High” an official state song. John Denver has still never been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

No Comments

The Night Charlie Rich Burned the Envelope On October 13, 1975, the Country Music Association Awards delivered one of the…

Uncategorized

IN LESS THAN 17 MONTHS, DOLLY PARTON LOST TWO 82-YEAR-OLD MEN WHO NEVER CHASED HER SPOTLIGHT. ONE PAVED ROADS. THE OTHER BUILT BRIDGES. Carl Dean died on March 3, 2025, after nearly 60 years as Dolly’s husband. While she became one of the most recognizable women in the world, Carl quietly ran an asphalt-paving business and rarely appeared beside her in public. Then, on July 23, 2026, Dolly’s older brother Coy “Denver” Parton died at the same age. Denver had grown up beside Dolly in their family of 12 children in the Smoky Mountains. But while several Partons followed music, he chose another kind of work. He operated cranes. He built bridges. He farmed his own land and lived far from the fame attached to his family name. Carl knew the woman behind the rhinestones. Denver knew the little girl before the rhinestones existed. One shared almost her entire adult life. The other shared the childhood that made her who she became. Dolly Parton has spent more than 60 years standing beneath stage lights. But within 17 months, she lost two men who belonged to the quietest parts of her life — the husband who stood behind her and the brother who remembered her before the world knew her name.

No Comments

Dolly Parton’s Quiet Losses: The Husband Who Stayed Private and the Brother Who Stayed Grounded In less than 17 months,…

Uncategorized

THEY FOUND HIM IN THE FLORIDA HOME HE HAD SHARED WITH HER. NO CROWD. NO FINAL SHOW. MARY LOU HAD BEEN GONE 20 DAYS. One No. 1 single. Three Top 10 hits from the same album. A voice so raw that Gary Stewart became known as the King of the Honky-Tonks. In 1975, “Out of Hand” gave country radio three songs it could not ignore. “Drinkin’ Thing” reached No. 10. “Out of Hand” climbed to No. 4. Then “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” went all the way to No. 1. But Mary Lou had known Gary before any of it. They married before Nashville knew his name and remained together for nearly 43 years, through the hits, the disappearing years, the addiction, the comebacks, and losses no family should have to carry. On November 26, 2003, Mary Lou died after suffering from pneumonia. Gary was supposed to perform at Billy Bob’s Texas three days later. He canceled. Twenty days after losing her, on December 16, a close friend went to check on him at his home in Fort Pierce, Florida. Gary was found dead from what police described as an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 59. This was not simply a romantic story about a man following his wife. Gary had lived for years with depression, addiction, and grief. Her death was the final loss in an already troubled life. Gary Stewart spent his career singing about men who drank because love was leaving. But the woman at the center of his real story had stayed beside him for almost 43 years. His records made heartbreak sound loud enough to fill every honky-tonk in America. His ending showed how dangerously quiet it could become.

No Comments

Gary Stewart, Mary Lou, and the Quiet Ending Behind a Loud Honky-Tonk Voice Gary Stewart built a career on songs…

Uncategorized

THE MAN WHO JUST KNOCKED ELLA LANGLEY OFF THE TOP IS ALSO SINGING ON HER CURRENT RADIO HIT. Morgan Wallen released “Been By Now” on Friday, July 24. It pulled 1.925 million American streams that day, took number one on Spotify’s US chart, and sent Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” down to number two for the first time in weeks. It went to number one on iTunes and Apple Music’s US songs chart as well. Langley’s song has now spent fourteen weeks at number one on the Hot 100, not back to back but across six separate returns to the top, tying the longest run ever for a non-holiday song credited to a woman alone. In any other year that would read like a rivalry. It isn’t one. Langley had already walked out onto Wallen’s stage eight times before the two of them announced a duet back in April, and that song, “I Can’t Love You Anymore,” is sitting in the top three at country radio right now. She is booked to close his stadium tour with him on August 1 in Philadelphia. One of them holds the record, the other has the biggest new song in America, and on Saturday night they will be standing on the same stage singing to each other.

No Comments

The Strange Kind of Music Week That Put Morgan Wallen and Ella Langley in the Same Spotlight Some weeks in…

Uncategorized

HIS BROTHER DIED THE NIGHT BEFORE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO LEAVE FOR NASHVILLE. Chris Bryan was 26 when a car accident killed him in October 1996. No one had been louder about telling his little brother to go chase it. Luke stayed in Leesburg, Georgia instead, finished college, worked for his father, and did not make that drive until 2001. His debut album came out in 2007. That same year, his sister Kelly died suddenly at 39, and no autopsy or coroner’s report ever explained it. Seven years later Ben, her husband, died too, at 46. Jordan, Kris and Til had nobody. Luke and Caroline took all three in alongside their own two young sons, and Caroline’s account of that decision runs six words: “We never thought twice about it.” Days after Ben died, Luke’s scheduled spot at CMT Artists of the Year went ahead without him. Lady Antebellum walked out with Chris Stapleton, who had co-written “Drink a Beer,” the song Luke had recorded carrying Chris and Kelly in his voice, and they sang it for the man who wasn’t there. His family watched it together on TV in Georgia. He has called that night a big healing moment.

No Comments

The Night Luke Bryan Lost a Brother, and the Years That Followed Before Luke Bryan became a familiar name in…

Uncategorized

NASCAR WAS BUILT BY MOONSHINERS OUTRUNNING THE LAW, AND BRYAN ANDREWS PUT THAT ON A PROTEST SIGN. It’s one of several he holds up in the video for “Yeehaw,” released May 8, and every sign is doing the same job. Before it was a sport with grandstands, men were racing the cars they’d used to outrun the highway patrol with liquor in the trunk. That’s his point about the word outlaw. Andrews, who is openly left-leaning, argues that Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash didn’t earn the label with a look or a flag, and that plenty of what carries it now is the costume without the position. One sign is quieter than the rest. Decades ago Waylon Jennings sat down with an Australian television show for an interview that never aired. In it he said he’d welcome a woman as president, and the reason he gave was what she wouldn’t be bringing with her: “a male ego.” In the same conversation he mentioned that the business side of his career was run by women, and that his wife, Jessi Colter, was smarter than he was. That’s the outlaw Andrews is talking about.

No Comments

The Story Behind Bryan Andrews’ Sign About NASCAR, Moonshiners, and Outlaw Country In the video for “Yeehaw,” released on May…

Uncategorized

DECADES AFTER PATSY CLINE DIED, LORETTA LYNN STILL HAD THE DRESSES PATSY BOUGHT HER HANGING IN HER CLOSET.They met in 1961, when Loretta was a coal miner’s daughter from Butcher Hollow with four children and almost no money, and Patsy was already the biggest female voice in country music. Loretta had dedicated “I Fall to Pieces” to her on a late-night radio show while Patsy lay in a hospital bed after a car wreck, and Patsy sent her husband to go get her. Nashville expected a rivalry. Patsy opened her closet instead.She bought curtains and drapes for Loretta’s house. She handed down stage clothes and gave her rhinestones Loretta mistook for real diamonds. She taught her how to hold a microphone and to demand her pay up front. When the established women in town moved to block Loretta from the Opry, Patsy drove her to the house where they were gathered, walked her through the door, and stood there. Loretta wrote that not one of them said a word. Patsy had put her stamp of approval on her, and the trouble stopped for good.On March 5, 1963, Patsy’s plane went down near Camden, Tennessee. She was thirty. Loretta later said she asked out loud what she was going to do, and called Patsy her friend, her mentor, her strength. In 1964 she named one of her twin daughters Patsy. In 1972 she became the first woman named CMA Entertainer of the Year. And in 1977 she released a whole album of Patsy’s songs, cut with Patsy’s own producer, and admitted in print what she believed the entire time: nobody could sing Patsy’s songs like Patsy.

No Comments

Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn: A Friendship That Changed Country Music When people look back at classic country music, they…

Uncategorized

HE WALKED OFF A CORPUS CHRISTI STAGE ON OCTOBER 5, 1997. NO FAREWELL TOUR ANNOUNCED. NO GOODBYE SPEECH. NOBODY IN THAT ROOM KNEW JOHN DENVER HAD SEVEN DAYS LEFT. More than 33 million records sold. Four No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1975 he won the CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year — and Charlie Rich set the envelope on fire on live television rather than read his name out loud. Denver never fought back. He answered his critics the same way every time: “Some of my songs are about very simple things in life.” Then the industry stopped asking. RCA let him go in 1986 after seventeen years on the label. He kept working smaller rooms right up to that Tuesday night in Texas. He never won a competitive Grammy while he was breathing. The only one he ever received arrived after the crash in Monterey Bay — for a children’s album about trains. Of every CMA Entertainer of the Year named between 1966 and 1998, only two have still never been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. John Denver is one of them. He never asked Nashville to claim him. Twenty-nine years later, Nashville still hasn’t decided.

No Comments

John Denver’s Last Stage Walk-Off: The Quiet Ending No One in Corpus Christi Could See Coming On October 5, 1997,…

You Missed

Uncategorized

Fifteen years after John Denver and Annie Martell’s marriage ended, Annie revealed something unexpected after his death: her favorite John Denver love song was not “Annie’s Song.” John and Annie married in 1967, when they were both young. Years later, after a difficult period in their marriage, John went skiing in Aspen. While riding a chairlift, the words to “Annie’s Song” came to him. He returned home and wrote down one of the most famous love songs of the 1970s. Annie later said she still cried when she heard it. But their marriage did not survive. They separated in 1982 and eventually divorced. During that painful period, John wrote another song for Annie: “Perhaps Love.” John died in a plane crash on October 12, 1997. He was 53. The very next day, Annie was interviewed about him. She said her favorite song of his was “Perhaps Love.” Not the song John wrote when their love was strong. The one he wrote while they were losing each other.

Uncategorized

Kris Kristofferson bought a ticket to Nashville in November 1970. He never used all of it. He met Rita Coolidge at the gate in Los Angeles. They were on the same flight and talked the whole way, and when the plane stopped in Memphis, he got off with her. Before that night ended they had already picked a name for a child they hadn’t had yet. She called it love at first flight. They married in 1973. Their daughter Casey was born the next year. They won two Grammys singing together. Then it came apart. They divorced in 1980, and when Rita finally wrote about it, she softened nothing — the drinking, the betrayal, crying every single day. She said it was not a good way to live. She asked for nothing when she left. But around that same time, asked about Kris, she wasn’t bitter at all. She said the two of them still had a bond nobody else could follow. Asked whether they might ever sing together again, she smiled and said, “Never say never.” They never got the chance. Kris died on September 28, 2024, at his home in Maui. He was 88. By then they had been divorced forty-four years.

Uncategorized

In 1978, Willie Nelson gave Columbia the last kind of album anyone expected from the face of outlaw country: ten old pop standards, some of them written before he was born. Willie had wanted to make that record for years. The problem was finding someone who could arrange songs as sophisticated as “Stardust” and “Moonlight in Vermont” without burying the way he naturally sang. Then he met Booker T. Jones. The legendary soul musician happened to be living in the same Malibu apartment building. Willie asked him to arrange “Moonlight in Vermont.” When he heard what Booker T. had done with it, he knew he had found the man to produce the entire album. Columbia executives were far less certain. Willie later remembered that they looked “stunned” when they heard what he was making. The audience answered for them. Stardust reached No. 1 on the country album chart. “Georgia on My Mind” and “Blue Skies” both became No. 1 country singles, and the album remained on Billboard’s country album chart for a decade. Willie Nelson had built his reputation by refusing to sound like everyone else. Then Booker T. Jones helped him prove that even the oldest songs could sound completely like Willie.

Uncategorized

In 1968, Kris Kristofferson was driving from Nashville toward the Gulf of Mexico when the end of a real relationship began turning into a song. He called it “For the Good Times.” Kris wasn’t writing about anger or trying to win someone back. The relationship was over, and the song simply imagined two people spending one last tender moment together before saying goodbye. Two years later, Ray Price recorded it. Price had been one of country music’s biggest stars, but he had gone 11 years without a No. 1 country single. On March 16, 1970, he walked into Columbia Studio A in Nashville and recorded Kristofferson’s song with a full orchestra behind him. That version changed things for both men. “For the Good Times” reached No. 1 on the country chart and crossed all the way to No. 11 on the pop chart. For Price, it was his first country chart-topper in 11 years. For Kristofferson, it became his first No. 1 as a songwriter. Kris had written the song because something in his own life was ending. Ray Price sang it, and suddenly two careers were beginning a new chapter.