Category: country music

After losing his house and wife, Elias’ mental state began to decline before being involved in a high-speed chase and spending time in jail. He also was a heavy drinker. 

Elias now spends his time putting his heart and soul into his songs, and uses them to process his breakup, trouble with the law, and other difficult situations he’s been through.

“I bonded out of jail and just started writing. Had to have a way to express myself, you know,” Elias said.

He now plays at open mic nights at places like the Sawmill Saloon and The Thirsty Llama with his girlfriend and kids and also loves seeing people react to his original songs.

According to Elias, people recognized his talent for music before he began to take it seriously and use it as an outlet.

“Everybody that ever saw me touch a guitar before and just play other people’s songs, they were just like, ‘dude, that’s you, that’s what you need to do,’” he said.

Now 10 months clean, he said he has 12 original songs he’s confident in, and has been playing 30-minute sets at open mics around Mecosta County to get his name out there.

He said he played an original song, called “Forget It All,” which is like a ballad, and someone asked him if he was playing a song by Bob Dylan.

“And I was like, ‘No, that was original,’ the whole place just went up. I about started crying,” he said.

According to his girlfriend, Teresa Hoover, Elias’ mood will shift when he’s sad at home, and starts to play guitar.

“If things are bothering him or he’s having a bad day, that’s his go-to. He picks up his guitar and he just jams and it just shifts,” she said.

Hoover also noted how comfortable and happy Elias seems to be on stage.

“I’ve seen him thrive on stage. He gets up there and he is in his moment. I don’t know how else to explain it,” she said.

Elias loves making people dance with his music, and Hoover recalled her favorite time watching this happen at The Thirsty Llama.

“He was doing a cover, and these little old ladies got out there and just started dancing. And he just lit up. Forever that will be ingrained in my head because it was just amazing to watch,” she said.

Despite music being his calling, Elias still gets nerves leading up to his performances.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s nerve-wracking. Usually the whole ride, my stomach’s in knots and I want to turn around and I’m like, no, just get up there and do it,” he said.

Elias hopes to use music to live up to his potential and live a happy life, leaving his checkered past behind.

“Stopping progression is all I’ve ever done to myself and I’m ready to progress and just move forward. Get past all this, live a happy life and use music as a tool if nothing else,” he said.

Looking forward, Elias is looking to meet other musicians, put together his album, and get his music out there more so people like him, who have been through something similar, will be able to relate to it.

Catch Elias playing at the Sawmill Saloon open mic and others around West Michigan.

© Mark Humphrey/Mark Humphrey/Invision/AP
Jo Dee Messina and Cole Swindell perform “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” during the 56th Annual CMA Awards in November at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. (Mark Humphrey/AP)

Country star Jo Dee Messina had just finished recording her debut album in the summer of 1995 when she got a phone call from songwriter Tim Nichols. “We just wrote this song,” he told her about a recent session with his fellow songwriter Mark D. Sanders, “and we would love to play it for your record.”

Messina warned him that her album was done, but he could drop off the demo if he really wanted. Nichols left a cassette tape in her mailbox and moments after Messina hit play, she just had a feeling about “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” the story of a couple that flips a coin to see where to go as they flee their sleepy small town. Messina played it for her producers, Tim McGraw and Byron Gallimore, and they had the same reaction: “Oh man — we have to cut this.”

Flash forward around 25 years, and country star Cole Swindell faced a similar predicament. His fourth studio album was due, but he and his collaborators had an idea he was determined to squeeze onto the record — an interpolation of Messina’s song, which had become a ’90s country classic. Swindell told his record label that the song was practically written — in reality, he had not yet started — and they gave him some leeway.

The track was worth the wait: Swindell’s “She Had Me At Heads Carolina,” about a guy falling for a girl who performs Messina’s hit at a karaoke bar, is one of the biggest country songs of the year, landing at No. 7 on Billboard’s year-end country chart. It’s also the second-longest-running No. 1 song on country radio in 2022 — the rare track to top the charts for five weeks — and is certified platinum, earning more than 300 million global streams.

The full-circle nature of it all remains magical and a bit mystifying to both Swindell, 39, and Messina, 52, who have formed an unexpected bond this year. The song’s enormous success launched Swindell to a new echelon of fame in his 10-year Nashville career and sent Messina, a beloved country star who had a string of hits in the 1990s and early 2000s, back into the spotlight. Here’s the story of how it all came together.

A magical country music moment

Robert James Waller’s novel “Border Music,” published a few years after his megahit “The Bridges of Madison County,” didn’t leave much impact beyond some harsh reviews, but it did provide Nichols the inspiration for Messina’s breakout hit.

“The main character’s name was Texas Jack Carmine,” he said. “The name alone should have tipped me off that book wasn’t going to be great.”

Suffering through the “bad audiobook,” Nichols listened as Texas Jack, who needed to get out of town, flipped a coin to decide whether he should go to California or Mexico. That concept stuck in Nichols’s head as he arrived at his weekly writing session with Sanders.

“I was trying to channel Bruce Springsteen and Jack Kerouac,” Sanders said. “And I was thinking about my wife’s hometown of Brewton, Alabama, which has a big paper mill.”

Thus, the opening lines were born: “We should have known it the day they shut that paper mill down / There’d be no future for us, no more in our little town / I’ve got people in Austin, ain’t your daddy still in Des Moines? / We can pack up tomorrow, tonight let’s flip a coin / Heads Carolina, tails California, somewhere greener, somewhere warmer …”

As fans of the original know, those are not the lyrics that Messina recorded. As a Massachusetts native, she was unfamiliar with paper mills, but she worried about offending Nichols and Sanders by asking if they could change the words. Undeterred, they swiftly wrote a new opening, even swapping Austin for Boston to represent her home state: “Baby, what do you say we just get lost? Leave this one-horse town like two rebels without a cause / I’ve got people in Boston, ain’t your daddy still in De Moines?”

“It just gets your adrenaline going, you know?” Messina said. “It was, ‘It’s me and you against the world.’”

Her label released it as the first single off her self-titled debut album in January 1996 and the up-tempo track flew up the charts. Though everyone assumes it went straight to No. 1, it actually got stuck at No. 2 for several weeks behind Brooks & Dunn’s “My Maria.” (“Maria got in my way!” Messina said, laughing, though she has no hard feelings, especially because Brooks & Dunn took her on tour.)

Nichols said when he first heard Messina performing “Heads Carolina,” he was reminded of Trisha Yearwood’s “She’s in Love With the Boy” and Faith Hill’s “Wild One,” two smashes that helped launch them to stardom. “Whatever magic those two songs had, I thought ‘Heads Carolina’ had the same thing,” he said.

A new take on a classic

Swindell launched his Nashville career with “Chillin’ It” in 2013 — it went No. 1 and he’s had a slew of hits ever since. But a decade into his career, he wanted to take a chance on something different. During a conversation last year with his publisher Rusty Gaston, chief executive of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville, they started talking about Swindell putting his own spin on a ’90s country hit. (Country music is in the middle of a surge of ’90s nostalgia.) One classic that happened to be in the Sony catalogue was “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” which Gaston mentioned was extremely popular at karaoke.

Although Swindell loved the idea, he was nervous, especially paying homage to a song and artist that he “grew up on when I was falling in love with country music.” But once he got permission from the original songwriters, he gathered a group of trusted collaborators for the writing process.

Originally, the plan was for the song to be a duet with country star Thomas Rhett, Swindell’s longtime friend and tour-mate. “There’s something anthemic about that song that has resonated for the world,” said Rhett, who, like Swindell, originally hails from Southern Georgia. “The first line that came to my head was ‘Maybe she’d fall for a boy from South Georgia; heads Carolina, tails California.’”

The singers got together with Nashville songwriter/producers/hitmakers Ashley Gorley and Jesse Frasure. “Both Jesse and I grew up on a lot of hip-hop and R&B music, where they sampled a lot of stuff,” Gorley said, noting that sampling and interpolations are still unusual in country music. He immediately latched on to the “Heads Carolina” concept, though he said they all felt the pressure of adapting such a famous song and switching from the female to male perspective.

“We were all obsessed with the idea of doing it and we all wanted to really careful: ‘We can’t make this cheesy, we can’t do this wrong, we have to honor the original,’” Gorley said.

At first, Fraser said, the group considered a duet similar to the 1982 Paul McCartney-Michael Jackson song “The Girl is Mine,” where Swindell and Rhett compete for the affections of the girl singing “Heads Carolina” — maybe they could use the coin flip to see who “won” the chance to talk to her. But as they toyed with the idea, they wondered if it would work better as a Swindell solo effort.

“Once we kind of said, ‘Let’s stop trying to make this a TR and Cole duet’ and tapped into this karaoke moment, it did open up this idea,” Frasure said. They solidified the lyrics, in which the narrator and “Heads Carolina” karaoke-singing woman bond over their love of ’90s country: “She’s a ’90s country fan, like I am / Hey, I got a Chevy, she can flip a quarter, I’d drive her anywhere from here to California / When this song is over, I gotta find her, cause she had me at ‘Heads Carolina’ …”

When the demo started making the rounds, it instantly struck a chord with songwriter-producer Zach Crowell, who lobbied Cris Lacy, co-president at Swindell’s label Warner Music Nashville, to produce the song.

“When I heard it, I was, first off, instantly jealous as a songwriter I wasn’t part of writing that song,” said Crowell, who brought in singer-songwriter Madeline Merlo to sing backup vocals. “I rarely have that feeling — but when I heard it, I literally just wanted to be part of it.”

‘You knew from the get-go’

During the writing process, Rhett remembers thinking, “Dang, this kind of feels like a smash.” Swindell recalls Crowell saying, “This is going to be absolutely massive.” Swindell still wasn’t sure.

“I respect Jo Dee and ’90s country and the songwriters so much,” he said. “I just didn’t know how everyone was going to take it.”

They took it very well: The impossibly catchy hook combined with the familiarity of the original instantly connected with listeners. Swindell held an album launch party in April, and even though “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” was barely 24 hours old, fans lost their minds.

“These people in the audience were just screaming it, partly because they’ve heard it before,” Frasure said. “That’s the beauty of an interpolation when it’s done right.”

The song was released as a single in June and 12 weeks later it topped the radio chart, the fastest-rising single of Swindell’s career. “People are now coming to shows literally to hear that one song,” he said.

“From day one, you couldn’t not see it across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube,” Rhett said. “You knew from the get-go that this was going to be a big hit. But I don’t think any of us knew it was going to be a five-week No. 1 song.”

Jo Dee Messina takes center stage

Years later, audiences still go wild when Messina performs “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” and she hears countless stories of how the song inspired people to flip a coin and decide where to move. But she was still shocked last year when she got a text from Nichols saying, “Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this song was recorded,” along with a copy of Swindell’s version.

“At first I was kind of like, ‘Okay!’ and taken aback a bit,” she said. “Then I listened to it and I was like, ‘Okay, what a great take on the song’ … I mean, what a wonderful thing to have that song considered to be a karaoke staple.”

Then she heard from Swindell and his label that he was eager to do another remixed version of “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” that he would sing with her.

“It was always the plan — the fans were losing it, saying, ‘You gotta put out a version with Jo Dee!’” Swindell said. “I wanted to say, ‘Just be patient.’” He emphasizes repeatedly that none of this could have been possible without Messina, and he was thrilled to film the music video with her playing the bartender. (Nichols, and a photo of Sanders, make cameos as well.)

The two met up in the studio a few weeks before the Country Music Association Awards in November and worked with Crowell, adjusting the key so it would work in both vocal ranges. The song was released right before the CMAs, and the day of the show, Messina purposely didn’t walk the red carpet so that viewers would be surprised during Swindell’s performance when she strolled out to sing the song with him.

Sure enough, her appearance drew one of the biggest roars of the night — Swindell decked out in fringe, Messina in leopard print — as the two sported huge grins and Messina flawlessly belted out the chorus, with thousands singing along.

“Mark D. Sanders was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I saw you on the CMAs, you did such a great job,’” Messina said. “I said, ‘Well, that goes to show you have written a song that has provided a lifetime of happiness.’”

A life-changing hit — again

Messina has kept writing songs and touring — all of this ’90s country nostalgia has resulted in sold-out shows — but she’s received an unexpected level of attention this year.

“It’s changed my whole trajectory for 2023,” she said, adding that she’s become more active on social media, where she’s been flooded with messages asking what she’s up to now. “Now we have new music that’s coming out … it really has changed what the future looks like.”

The songwriters were similarly taken aback by the success — even for consistent hitmakers like Rhett, Gorley, Frasure and Crowell, a five-week No. 1 is fairly unprecedented — and Swindell is grateful to everyone who was involved. He’s well aware these situations don’t happen often: After you’re past the “new artist” phase in Nashville, you have to work and change things up to keep up the momentum, though he never expected this.

“It’s crazy what a song can do,” Swindell said. “I’ve known that, but I never thought one after 10 years could take me to a completely different level. I’ve been saying it’s one of the best years of my life, and a lot of that is because of what this song has done for me and my whole team.”

In all seriousness, Billy Ray Cyrus’s best contribution to country music might be his daughter, Miley Cyrus.

Don’t get me wrong, everybody loves a little “Achy Breaky Heart” when you’ve had a few too many Busch Lattes, but Miley can flat out sing. I wish she’d actually focus on releasing a country album someday, but that’s another story…

Four years ago, Miley proved once again that she has the vocal range to cover basically any song she sets her mind to, and her dynamic stage presence is just a bonus.

Setting all personal stunts and antics aside, this girl is a force when it comes to singing, and one of my favorite performances from Miley is one I’ve gone back to a lot over the years…  an impeccable rendition of The Soggy Bottom Boys’ classic, “Man Of Constant Sorrow.”

In a salute to George Clooney, Miley covered the O Brother, Where Art Thou vocal piece with ease, often making eye contact with a smiling George in the audience.

Ironically enough, back in 2000 George Clooney “fine-tuned” his vocals for weeks leading up to the iconic scene in the film where the chain gang trio join to sing the folk song. It was always intended to be George’s real voice on the track, but his singing didn’t make the cut.

Instead, he was replaced by Union Station vocalist, Dan Tyminski.

Almost a decade ago, George Clooney answered fans’ questions on Reddit, sharing some of the behind the scenes on the O Brother, Where Art Thou film:

“I remember they assumed I could sing, I kind of assumed I could too… They were all looking down at the ground and kind of shaking their heads and they play it back and it’s just terrible, and I think great, they’re going to have to tell me they’re going to have to bring in another guy to sing.”

So even though George Clooney himself didn’t make the cut on the vocals, Miley Cyrus threw together a flawless rendition of the song in his honor.

The song won the Grammy for Best Country Collaboration at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in 2002

But much different than George, Miley superbly slayed the vocals. This folksy cover is just insane and Miley dominates the stage with presence, keeping a crazy smooth, low range on the vocal.

And George made his feelings about her version well known with his constant beaming smile.

The song was originally written first published by Dick Burnett sometime around 1913. Originally called “Farewell Song,” it was Emry Arthur’s 1928 rendition that gave the song the title, “Man Of Constant Sorrow.”

Different versions of the old tune were recorded by a number of artists including the Stanley Brothers, who recorded the song in the 1950s; Bob Dylan, who recorded it in the ’60s. Joan Baez,  Barbara Dane, Judy Collins, Peter, Paul and Mary, Ginger Baker’s Air Force and more have all took a run at a variation of the song as well.

But for my money, Miley is up there with the best of ’em.

The Soggy Bottom Boys version:

© Provided by People
John Mackie | @johnmackie_ Jordan Harvey and Madison Fendley

Jordan Harvey is engaged to his “Alabama Girl”!

The country singer-songwriter popped the question to girlfriend Madison Fendley on Sunday at Dundas Castle in his native Scotland after two years of dating.

“Life has changed significantly for the better,” Harvey, 30, tells PEOPLE. “I couldn’t imagine doing life without Madison and every day she makes me a better person. I’m excited for the next chapter of life together!”

Though the singer, who performed with King Calaway before going solo, says he typically lives life “in the fast lane” and isn’t much of a planner, he took a different approach for such a special occasion.

“I was definitely nervous before because I wanted to make sure that the proposal was perfect for Madison,” he says. “I made sure that I planned everything out down to the finest details and I am so glad that I did because this is a moment that neither of us will ever forget!” he says.

Luckily for Harvey, everything went to plan, something he jokes is “rare” for him — and a potential brewing storm even held off on showering the proposal with rain.

© Provided by People
John Mackie | @johnmackie_ Jordan Harvey and Madison Fendley

“The only other concern was the fact that George [the castle dog] was roaming the exact spot I wanted to use for the proposal,” he says. “But luckily a few treats were thrown his way, and he went on his happy way.”

The “I Will” singer says he and photographer John Mackie scoped out the grounds together to find the perfect angles about an hour before the proposal. Harvey then picked up his future bride, 26, and drove her to the castle, when she was told that Mackie was snapping photos for a Christmas calendar.

“I said to Madison, ‘Honey, there’s a guy taking photos, let’s not get in his shot,’ and she agreed,” Harvey recalls. “As we got closer I said to John, ‘Sorry mate, do you mind if we walk in front of the camera?’… That’s when I took Madison’s hand and dropped to one knee.”

Though Harvey says he “blacked out” from that moment on and doesn’t remember what he said, it was perfect for Madison, a professional dancer and choreographer.

RELATED: King Calaway’s Chris Deaton Ties the Knot with Molli Benson — All the Details

© Provided by People
John Mackie | @johnmackie_ Jordan Harvey and Madison Fendley

“I was at a total loss for words,” she says. “After I said yes, I felt an immense sense of happiness, peace and gratitude and still haven’t stopped smiling.”

Afterward, the happy couple headed back to Harvey’s house and enjoyed champagne, and “in true Scottish fashion, a wee dram” (known across the pond as a shot of Scotch Whisky).

Harvey says he knew Madison was the one almost instantly — and has had her engagement ring ready to go for nine months as he planned the perfect time amid their busy schedules, which included moves to New York and Chicago for Madison and the making and promotion of a record for Harvey.

“I knew from our very first date that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her,” he says. “On our one-year anniversary I brought it up and we both agreed we could see us growing old together.”

© Provided by People
John Mackie | @johnmackie_ Jordan Harvey and Madison Fendley

Madison says she also knew from their first chat that they had something special.

“After the first conversation I had with Jordan, I said, ‘That guy is going to be my new best friend,'” she recalls. “What I didn’t know is that on top of that he would become the love of my life. I knew very early on that I wanted to marry him, but wanted to take the time to build a strong foundation before getting engaged.”

She continues: “Each and every day he gives me a glimpse of what our future will look like together and makes me feel so loved, desired, respected, and supported. I truly am looking forward to tackling life with my best friend!”

Read the original article on People

Chris has been with the Bendigo Advertiser for more than 10 years. He has great passion for the performing arts and is very supportive of the Bendigo live music scene. Outside of the news world Chris plays golf and, regardless of the result, loves watching St Kilda play in the AFL. He loves community theatre and has performed on stage with the Bendigo Theatre Company and worked with Baldrick himself, Tony Robinson. Story tips: chris.pedler@austcommunitymedia.com.au

Year in and year out, musical history occupies a prominent place in Nashville, so central is it to how the Music City brand is marketed to the outside world. When a towering legend passes, as Loretta Lynn did this year, we expect reverent, public tributes from other country stars, like the medley that opened the most recent CMA Awards show. But as a close observer of the city’s multiple music scenes and industry sectors, I can attest that the shaping and spotlighting of musical legacy wasn’t limited to well-established forms in 2022.  

Expanding the limits of legacy 

Naomi Judds’ death, just a day before the Judds’ induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, called for careful improvising. I witnessed the ceremony, and felt how its usual tone of familial dignity shifted a bit to allow for the expression of fresh grief. With the Judds’ final tour already scheduled, Naomi’s daughter and singing partner Wynonna stepped into a new role: performer and custodian of memory, singing each night alongside guest vocalists who count themselves among the duo’s many spiritual children. 

John Prine was the subject of lavish tributes when he died in 2020. This year, though, the tending of his memory became an ongoing project, a week-long suite of events, ranging from multi-artist Ryman shows to a soiree at a fast-food joint that translated the warm empathy and folksy quirks he was known for into charitable fundraising.  

But to only note the celebrations of those who’ve passed would be to overlook the important ways that living traditions were honored in 2022. A remarkable album from Tennessee Sate’s Aristocrat of Bands united the lineages of HBCU marching bands and gospel music, the contributions of student musicians and gospel luminaries, in the process, helping provide for the future of the historic AOB program. Embedding in the band room was some of the most exhilarating field reporting I did this year. 

And from one of the most casually poetic voices in Nashville’s hip-hop scene, Ron Obasi, part of the Third Eye collective, came a song naming local heroes and predecessors from the vantage point of a Black Nashville native. He likened his ambitious hustle to that of entrepreneurial artist and community educator Quanie Cash and baseball powerhouse Mookie Betts, who both came up here before him.  

Dance, dance (pop) revolution 

There are times when dance music goes partially underground, but it never truly goes away. In 2022, the sound and energy of dance music was reabsorbed into pop, and often in ways that nodded to club culture as a source of inspiration. Beyoncé pulled it off on the grandest scale, with a sleekly sequenced exploration of the pleasure and power of house music, invoking the art form’s Black and queer pioneers in the process, Grace Jones included. Drake went there, too. And so did the band Seratones.  

On an album released through New West, a roots-centric, Nashville-based indie label, they treated the synthetic textures of disco as an emotionally rich tradition to play with, at moments, echoing the ecstatic sounds of former Nashvillian Donna Summer.  

In an interview nearly a decade ago, Miranda Lambert told me that she had little interest in dance remixes of her songs, despite how many of her peers dabbled in the practice. But when I sat down with her again this year, she explained that she’d changed her mind and commissioned a tropical house remix of a single with feedback from her brother, who’s gay, in hopes of giving her queer fans something for the dance floor. 

In the old-time string band scene, Jake Blount even used acoustic elements to approximate four-on-the-floor disco grooves and dramatic strings.  

Albums that contain multitudes 

Jake Blount did his experimenting on an especially high-concept concept album that unfurled an Afrofuturistic storyline. Through radically reimagined a capella field recordings, spoken liturgies, rapped verses and liner notes, all of which he dissected for me, he depicted survivors of an environmental apocalypse finding new meaning in their ancestors’ songs.  

The idea of an album as a collection of music meant to be heard all at once can seem almost quaint now, its importance eroded by the ways that TikTok and prime streaming playlist placements can rocket seemingly random songs to viral popularity. So I think it’s worth noting the resurgence of concept albums and cohesive song cycles this year, particularly in roots and country realms.

That not only applies to Blount’s work, but also Leyla McCalla’s. She dug into the archives of Haiti’s first independent radio station and shaped a rhythmically vivid, political and personal story of the relationship between Haiti and the US around bits of that audio.  

Tyler Childers took what can be an austere musical form—country gospel—and recorded a set of those songs three different ways. One version features a lean, lusty live band and at the other extreme, the performances were taken apart, reassembled and looped to surreal effect.  

Ingrid Andress made a country-pop singer-songwriter album that subtly probed the flexibility of country’s sonic and moral values, a searching approach that I asked her about when I visited her home for an interview, while on a rollicking, rootsy song cycle, Adeem the Artist did their scrappy, immensely clever part to counter troubling narratives of race, gender and class they’ve picked up on in some modern country songs.  

But no artist committed themselves to a concept more thoroughly, or spiritedly, than Ashley McBryde. She made up a small, working-class town with her songwriting buddies, then enlisted them to play parts in the cast of salty characters she imagined living there. She was so intent on conveying the personality of each protagonist that she only sang lead on a handful of songs herself.