Morgan Wallen recently flew a five-year-old fan named Gracie, who is currently battling leukemia, to his first headlining stadium show at Globe Life Field in Texas on October 8th.
She is a huge fan, and even had a Morgan Wallen-themed birthday party a few weeks ago, so you can only imagine how excited she was to go see him play, and meet him in person, at such a milestone show in his career.
Her mom just shared the sweet video of Gracie and her parents backstage with him over on TikTok, and it’s quickly gone viral in the last 24 hours or so since it’s been up.
And actually, the story of how it came to be is pretty cool, as Brevin, who you hear Gracie’s mom reference in the video, is the one who first told Morgan about Gracie.
He is a fan who met Morgan back in July, after Morgan found out Brevin had been dealing with some tough stuff at home and school.
Apparently, during their meeting, Morgan asked Brevin what he wanted for his birthday, and Brevin asked that Morgan meet Gracie, who he had seen on TikTok and knew how much she loved Morgan too.
I mean, that alone is enough to melt your heart.
Per Brevin’s request, Morgan and his team made it happen, and when you see how excited little Gracie is when Morgan comes in the room, it’s just a heartwarming moment for a little girl and her family who have no doubt been to Hell and back dealing with her sickness.
When Gracie first sees Morgan, she of course has a huge smile on her face, and runs up to give him a big hug.
He introduced himself to her parents, as well (as if they didn’t know who he was), and told Gracie he liked her outfit and asked her how old she was.
It’s a very sweet video, and it will certainly make your Wednesday a whole lot better.
This is what country music’s all about:
@prayersforgracie Gracie meeting her biggest fan! @morganwallen @brettfitness #dreamcametrue #WeStickTogether #fightingleukemiasincebirth #teamgracie #fightingleukemiawithadance #fypシ ♬ original sound – Gracie
Gracie’s mom shared a few other videos from the night on Instagram, and you can clearly see that she’s in Heaven seeing her favorite artist play her favorite songs, and I couldn’t love this any more:
Singer-songwriter James McMurtry released his first CD in 1989, so it’s pretty much inevitable that his shows these days resemble career retrospectives. At an August 26 solo acoustic show at Houston’s McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, McMurtry led off with “Melinda,” from his 1995 album Where’d You Hide the Body.
James McMurtry (photo by Paul T. Mueller)
Next came the title track of 2002’s Saint Mary of the Woods; more songs from other stages of his career followed, accompanied by masterful work on six- and twelve-string guitars. They included “a medley of my hit,” the raucous “Choctaw Bingo,” and “Levelland,” which McMurtry described as “one of the Robert Earl Keen songs that I wrote.” Four songs from last year’s excellent The Horses and the Hounds made the cut; the later-in-life romance tale “Canola Fields” might have held particular significance for audience members, many of whom were old enough to have been fans from the beginning. McMurtry closed on a upbeat note with “If It Don’t Bleed,” a wryly humorous look at aging that tempered ruefulness (“there’s more in the mirror than there is up ahead”) with acceptance (“it don’t matter all that much if it don’t bleed”).
We are shaking in our boots over here! The CMA Awards are tonight in Nashville – and y’all they are really trying to impress us this year. If you have been staying up to date with us, you’ll know that we have been hard at work predicting who will win each category – someone has to right? Oftentimes the list of performers can be a tell as to the default winners, but this time we think we will receive a few curveballs!
The CMA Awards s are getting their high step on with some A-list country stars hitting the stage and we are even more locked in for some incredible tunes. Carrie Underwood and Jason Aldean are performing “If I Didn’t Love You” for the first time on live television – which good grief that is going to be a *performance*! Prepare to record the show, so you can rewatch whenever you need. Kane Brown and Chris Young are slated to rock the house that night as well and we are desperately hoping they perform their song “Famous Friends” which is nominated for Song of the Year.
Entertainer of the Year nominees Miranda Lambert and Luke Combs are already slated for performances. We hope that Lambert performs songs off of her snubbed album “The Marfa Tapes”, but that is just the pettiness in us. They are both going to put on incredible shows! Male Vocalist of the Year nominee Chris Stapleton and Vocal Group of Year nominee Old Dominion will aslo be performing. We honestly don’t know who we are most excited about.
Mickey Guyton is set to perform with rising stars Brittney Spencer and Madeline Edwards with the collaboration of the year. They will be performing some songs off of Guyton’s debut album, Remember Her Name. Carly Pearce will also be performing with Ashley McBryde, as they belt out their heart-breaking ballad “Never Wanted to Be That Girl.”
The CMAs continue to pull out all the stops with Eric Church performing “Heart on Fire” from his Album of the Year-nominated Heart, and boy, are we pumped for that! Something we are really looking forward to over here at ACountry though is the performance by Brothers Osborne off of their deeply personal and Album of the Year-nominated Skeletons. Plus, reigning and two-time Vocal Duo of the Year winners Dan + Shay are giving us some advice with their performance of ‘I Should Probably Go To Bed.” We also get a performance from 10-time CMA winner Blake Shelton. We wonder if Gwen Stefani will show up for a surprise duet! Our fingers and toes are crossed, y’all.
The CMA Awards airs tonight (November 10) at 8/7c on ABC or you can stream it on Hulu. We plan on live-tweeting through the event, so join in on the conversation here, check in on our happenings on our Facebook page here, and follow us on Instagram to see all the cute photos here.
One morning in early September, Lainey Wilson awoke to the news that she’d received her first CMA Awards nomination. But not just one; she had six in total, including Female Vocalist of the Year. After she blinked the sleep out of her eyes and realized she wasn’t still dreaming, she called her parents at home in Louisiana.
“They believed in me before anybody did,” Wilson says. “It’s really surreal — it feels like the hard work is finally starting to pay off.” On our Zoom call, she’s wearing an orange-and-white tie-dyed t-shirt, a baseball cap from Dierks Bentley’s Seven Peaks Festival, and a couple of braided chains, including one with a dangling stone.
Wilson is taking this call from Charleston, South Carolina, where she’s opening for superstar Luke Combs. Once upon a time, long before either of them was famous, they’d get together and make music. “We’d write songs in my camper. I’m just glad that he’s remembering that he used my AC and he drank my cold drinks,” she says, grinning.
In the past two years, the 30-year-old native of tiny Baskin, Louisiana, has been seeing the returns on her more than 10 years of toil in Nashville. Her stately ballad “Things a Man Oughta Know” went Number One on country radio in September 2021 and she had another hit with Cole Swindell, “Never Say Never,” a few months later. Her major-label debut, Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’, was a year-end 2021 favorite for many outlets (including Rolling Stone), thanks to it its engaging mix of personality, groove, and wit. Her music also showed up on Paramount’s popular drama Yellowstone, on which she’ll appear as a cast member in next season. And she secured high-profile tour spots with Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen, managing to steer clear of the controversies that swirled around those artists.
While promoting Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’, Wilson often used the term “bell bottom country” to describe her sound, a clever way of saying it was a stylish throwback that could stand out in the present. She carries the term forward as the title for her new album with Broken Bow. Out Friday, Bell Bottom Country plays up the things she was already doing well and adds a few new flavors into the mix. This time, “bell bottom country” is more than a sound; it’s a whole ethos.
“It’s about finding whatever it is that makes you you, and different and special,” she says. “It could be where you’re from, how you were raised, the way that you talk, the way that you dress, the way that you look, your story, whatever. And it’s about leaning into that as much as you possibly can.”
Bell Bottom Country does that with seemingly every facet of Wilson’s personality. She comes off tough and brash in “Hold My Halo,” restless in “Road Runner,” sweetly nostalgic in “Watermelon Moonshine,” and flush with desire in “Grease,” displaying considerable emotional range. She describes the album as “pulling back the layers a little deeper,” as in the ballad “Weak-End” and its clear-eyed look at the wreckage of heartbreak. “Wish that Friday wasn’t just another way to say lonely,” she sings.
“When I wrote these songs, I was going through a hard time,” Wilson says. “I was in a very dark place. But at the end of the day, time heals all wounds.”
Wilson’s speech patterns and thick Southern accent have a familiar, unvarnished quality that can obscure how skilled she is at staying on message without ever coming across as inauthentic. The way she presents herself publicly is not unlike the mix of homespun wit, musical talent, and business savvy of Dolly Parton, whom Wilson praised in her song “WWDD” (an acronym for “What would Dolly do?”).
Jay Joyce, who produced both Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ and Bell Bottom Country, saw something similar when he first met Wilson prior to working together. “It’s like the reason everybody likes Dolly Parton,” he says. “Even the indie-rock kids like Dolly because it’s real, it’s honest.”
Like Parton, and for that matter Loretta Lynn, Wilson’s biography is fodder for her songwriting. She paints herself as a glorious mess of extremes in “Hillbilly Hippie,” getting “all Willie’d up” — she makes a toking gesture during our video call — and embodying “all peace and love up until I ain’t.”
“People think I’m a nice person and I’m friendly, but when shit hits the fan and somebody needs a butt whoopin’, I’m in there too,” she says, putting her fists up to mimic a boxing stance. “I’m one extreme to the next. I really think that’s hereditary.”
Wilson’s family is important in her story. She recounts a memory from childhood about her father, a farmer by trade, in “Those Boots (Deddy’s Song)” — the spelling is how Wilson refers to him. The family lived together in a house with a prefab trailer grafted onto the side to make room for Wilson and her sister, and in the mornings she’d help her father get ready for work by pulling his jeans down over his boots. “When I think of mine and my deddy’s relationship, I think of that,” she says. “I think of him giving me a job and me feeling proud about it.”
The song took on extra poignancy when Wilson’s father had to be hospitalized for a serious illness in August. He’s on the mend now, but it was a scary, uncertain time for her family. “[‘Those Boots’] has a more powerful meaning to me now,” Wilson says. “Sometimes you forget how much you love somebody until you think you’re going to lose them.”
For an album released in mainstream country music, where vocals and run-time are valued most, Bell Bottom Country has its share of instrumental exploration. Abetting the deep groove of “Grease,” there’s a funky guitar solo that sounds like something from a lost Prince album. In “Hold My Halo,” there’s a moment where the instruments drop out, leaving Wilson to sing to a rubbery bass lick.
“If you listen to older Jerry Reed, cool-ass country, there were lots of musical, interesting things,” Joyce explains. “I don’t mean 10-minute solos or anything, but there’s plenty of room to develop a musical hook. If the players are having fun, you’re on the right track.”
That approach gives Bell Bottom Country the feel of a band performing together, not just a functional backdrop to showcase a singer. Even so, Wilson does reveal new sides of her voice. Her deep twang curls its way around lyrics in a conversational manner, but she growls with ferocity on a rollicking cover of 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up.” (“I look up to Linda Perry. I think she’s just a badass,” Wilson says.)
Then there’s the extended high note at the end of her single “Heart Like a Truck,” an impressive display of power and range that conveys the kind of resilience she describes in the song. Joyce calls it an “accident,” while Wilson admits she may have shot herself in the foot with the performance.
“I don’t know why I did that to myself, ‘cause now I gotta do it every single night,” she says. “I could run to the bathroom and back — it’s so long.”
Wilson’s distinctive voice was exactly what Cole Swindell had in mind when he brought her in as his partner on the brooding 2021 duet “Never Say Never.” “There’s nobody else in the world I could’ve heard sing that first line — ‘I told my momma’ — other than her. She truly made this song everything I dreamed it could be,” Swindell says. It ended up being her second Number One and landed two of her recent CMA nominations.
Likewise, Hardy, the country-rock firebrand, sought out the sense of realness that Wilson projects for “Wait in the Truck,” a song that deals with domestic violence in gritty fashion. Wilson believably portrays the abused, conflicted woman in the narrative, spared from her troubles by another act of violence. “She’s unapologetically herself. She’s very authentic,” Hardy says. “I care so much about that song and I wanted the fans to believe every word of what the woman in the song had to say, and she has the most believable voice.”
Wilson’s ability to inhabit these characters — watch her convincing performance in the video for “Wait in the Truck” — is one of the reasons she’s been cast in the fifth season of Yellowstone. She’d become friends with the show’s creator Taylor Sheridan over the last couple of years and he wrote a part with her in mind: Wilson’s character is a musician.
“I pretty much get to be myself on the show,” Wilson says. “I get to sing my songs, wear my crazy clothes, pretty much be me…with a little extra.” The aspect of series-TV performance made sense to her as well. “[It’s the] same thing with getting on stage and doing a performance — the pressure’s on, you better get it right.”
Wilson doesn’t need any help in that department, but her rising fame over the last year has presented her with a lot of new opinions, some of them unkind, from the outside. She listens to what she calls “frequency music,” an assortment of buzzy sounds, to relax and meditates with a grounding mat. Her new friend Miranda Lambert, against whom she’ll compete for Female Vocalist of the Year at Nov. 9’s CMA Awards, gave her advice on tuning out the noise.
“She’s like, ‘You need to worry about what ya mama and ya daddy think aboutcha, and your best friends, and if you lay down at night knowing you’re with that, then you good,’” she says. “You better keep your blinders on and not worry about what everybody else is thinking. They don’t know the real you. They don’t know your heart. I’m sharing a huge part of me, which is my music and songwriting, but they don’t know me when I’m sitting on my couch at home.”
Somewhere in there lies a quiet acknowledgement of Wilson’s two sides: the public, switched-on Lainey and a private one. They’re nearly identical, except one has retained parts of her life for safekeeping. Right now, Wilson is in command of that story and knows how to present the most interesting bits as compelling art. As long as she can hold on to that precious sense of self, she can keep at it.
“If I’m not living a slightly normal life over here, I don’t feel like I’m going to be able to write things that are relatable,” Wilson says. “I’m not posting on Instagram every single time I’m meditating in my closet or I’m talking to the Lord or I’m doing things that help me stay grounded and stay centered. But it’s absolutely important. Because life is crazy.”
Steve Earle’s August 31 show at Houston’s Heights Theater began with a seven-song tribute to one of Earle’s musical heroes, Jerry Jeff Walker. Fittingly, Earle opened with “Gettin’ By,” which happens to be the opening track of his latest album, Jerry Jeff, featuring 10 Walker songs, and also the first track on Walker’s iconic 1973 album ¡Viva Terlingua!.
Photo by Paul T. Mueller
Backed by his excellent band, Earle then did full justice to several more selections from Walker’s distinguished catalog, including “Gypsy Songman,” “Hill Country Rain” and, of course, “Mr. Bojangles,” which Earle said he had been singing since age 14. The band then moved into an 18-song retrospective of Earle’s own greatest hits, including “Someday,” “Guitar Town,” “Galway Girl,” “Transcendental Blues” and the classic “Copperhead Road.” All featured stellar instrumental and vocal support from The Dukes, most notably guitarist Chris Masterson and his wife, Eleanor Whitmore, on fiddle, mandolin, guitar and keyboards. After a hardly-worth-it break, the band returned for a 20-minute encore. Earle prefaced “Harlem River Blues,” written by his oldest son, Justin Townes Earle, with an alarming account of Justin’s death in 2020 by accidental overdose. That was followed by the exuberant “City of Immigrants” and an energetic take on the Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones.” The two-hour show concluded with a lively version of The Band’s “Rag Mama Rag.” The night’s opener was The Whitmore Sisters, consisting of Eleanor and Bonnie Whitmore, plus Masterson, who’s married to Eleanor. The 30-minute set, drawn from the band’s recent album Ghost Stories, featured five original tracks and one by singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan.
The Martin Brothers (Frank Welling & John McGhee) / Paramount 3217
Whistling Rufus / Climbing Up Dem Golden Stairs
recorded October 1929 in New York City, New York
Here is one of those `mystery` records. Why was this not issued under the name Welling & McGhee? They were quite popular recording artists in the late 1920`s. I`m just guessing, but it surely would have sold more under their real names. Whistling Rufus was a common fiddle instrumental. It was an old pop `coon` song from vaudeville performances. The real name of the song was Rufus Blossom and had words, and is sang here on this disc. We also get some good jew`s harp playing. Climbing Up Dem Golden Stairs is what I`d call a `white spiritual`, a song written to sound like an earlier spiritual type song, although maybe the song is an older song than I suspect. CAUTION —- both sides contain words that we now consider very offensive racially! So, PLEASE, if you are offended by that sort of stuff, please don`t download this. At any rate – happy listening as these are some interesting sides if you are a fan of old time music.
Click here to download The Martin Brothers – Paramount 3217
The Country Music Association has revealed performers for its 12th annual holiday special, “CMA Country Christmas.” First-time hosts, Gabby Barrett and Carly Pearce, will be joined by Jimmie Allen with Louis York & The Shindellas, BRELAND, Brett Eldredge, Lady A, Pistol Annies, Carrie Underwood and Lainey Wilson for an intimate evening of holiday classics. “CMA Country Christmas” airs Monday, November 29, 2021 (8:00-9:00 PM/ET) on ABC.
“CMA Country Christmas” brings the holidays home again, inviting viewers to sit back and enjoy the season in a warm and intimate home setting reminiscent of classic Christmas television specials of the past. Coming together for a night of festive performances and cozy holiday moments, “CMA Country Christmas” is sure to celebrate the magic of the Christmas season.
“CMA Country Christmas” will also feature two student musicians, supporting CMA’s longstanding commitment to support equity in music education. A student at Nashville School of the Arts, Truman Eltringham, 17, and Carter Hammonds, an 8-year-old student at FH Jenkins Preparatory School, joined hosts Barrett and Pearce for an unforgettable performance you won’t want to miss.
Starting in 2010, “CMA Country Christmas” rings in the holiday season annually with a show full of festive classics and one-of-a-kind musical performances. The event is filmed in Nashville and airs each holiday season on ABC. ABC is the network home to the CMA Awards and CMA’s summer concert TV special “CMA Fest.”
Actor and comedian Leslie Jordan wasn’t done with country music yet, and a new interview makes it clear country music hadn’t had enough of him, either.
Jordan — who died on Monday (Oct. 24) at age 67 — sat down CBS News’ Anthony Mason two weeks ago in Nashville for a piece scheduled to air in November. However, the tragic news accelerated what might end up being his final television interview.
Watch the full career-encompassing interview below. Portions were filmed at Nashville’s Eastside Bowl, where Jordan was filming a new music video with country duo LoCash and “The Git Up” singer Blanco Brown.
Brown shared a short clip on Instagram on Oct. 21, with Jordan commenting, “I am so proud of this song. Thanks for making it happen.”
One day before Jordan died in a vehicle crash in Hollywood, he shared video of himself singing with songwriter and producer Danny Myrick. There, he teased even more new music. The clip is of him singing the same song he sings to close the interview with Mason, but the Instagram video includes this caption:
“Danny helped me with a new original song that should be comin’ out real soon. Love. Light. Leslie.”
A new post at @thelesliejordan indicates his fans won’t have to wait long to hear and see what the new project was. In a matter of hours, the photo received more than 100,000 comments and nearly two million likes.
Jordan told Mason he’d found a home in Nashville and felt comfortable in the community. Stars of all ages and calibers embraced him as well, some even going as far as to sing with him. An album of gospel songs called Company’s Comin‘ (2021) included songs with Dolly Parton, Tanya Tucker, Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile and more. That same year, Jordan would appear at the ACM Awards in Las Vegas.
Popular roles movies like Ski Patrol and The Help, plus television shows like Will & Grace are how Jordan became famous, but his star began to burn its brightest during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he started posting two videos a day to Instagram. For 80 straight days he kept up this pace, and millions fell in love with his relatable observations and humor.
PICS: Remembering Leslie Jordan’s Best Country Music Moments
Take a look back at the special moments and incredible collaborations from the life and career of beloved comedian, actor and personality Leslie Jordan, who died Oct. 24, 2022, at the age of 67.
R.I.P.: 27 Country Singers and Songwriters Who Died Too Soon
These country singers had so much more to give. See 27 country singers who died much too soon: Keith Whitley, Mindy McCready, Troy Gentry and more.
The Power of Women In Country Music | Friday, Oct. 28–Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023 | The North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh
Country music is said to revolve around “three chords and the truth.” But the truth is that, despite a progressively diverse roster of talent, the genre’s history has tended to heavily emphasize white men.
The Power of Women in Country Music, a new exhibit coming to the NC Museum of History from the GRAMMY Museum on October 28, spotlights the women who shaped country music and those who continue to propel it forward.
The impetus for the project occurred a few short years after Tomato-gate in 2015, when radio consultant Keith Hill discussed the issue of gender parity on the radio by crafting one limp metaphor: In the salad of country music, he explained, men were lettuce and women were tomatoes. Playing too many tomatoes distorted the dish.
At the time, Hill’s rhetoric received significant flak, though that did little to change things. Women have continued to struggle with terrestrial radio, where visibility in country music arguably matters most.
It doesn’t seem to matter that Kacey Musgraves became the rare country artist to win Album of the Year at the 2019 Grammys or that Miranda Lambert is now the most-awarded musician in the Academy of Country Music’s history. As of 2019, women still comprised just 16 percent of airplay.
The GRAMMY Museum set out to help change that erasure with a traveling exhibition that landed in cities like Tulsa and Los Angeles prior to Raleigh.
“We wanted to shine a light on not only the contemporary women in country music but also the ones who came before them and show how important women have been this whole time,” says Kelsey Goelz, associate curator at the GRAMMY Museum.
The exhibit material is featured chronologically, beginning with country music’s purported inflection point in 1927, when the Carter Family traveled to Bristol, Tennessee, to record with producer Ralph Peer. “The show takes you back and shows you that people have been working hard so the Kaceys and Mirandas can do what they do,” Goelz says.
“Some of the most groundbreaking stuff that’s happened in country music has happened because of women,” says the Durham musician Rissi Palmer, who also hosts the Apple Radio show Color Me Country. Palmer is also featured in the exhibition.
Much of that history-making has taken place along gendered lines, but a growing number of artists, Palmer among them, have pushed for greater racial inclusivity as well. After all, many of the songs deemed “country” in the early 20th century were popular hymns, spirituals, and folk tunes that circulated in sundry communities.
“The history of the music itself goes back to Black women and people in the South,” says Goelz. “They’ve been there the whole time, but they’re finally getting their due.”
Palmer’s inclusion feels especially important considering the growing spate of artists—Mickey Guyton, Brittney Spencer, Allison Russell, and Amythyst Kiah, among others—who are working to deepen country’s legacy.
“My inclusion as a Black woman shows the impact people of color have had on the genre,” Palmer says.
The Power of Women in Country Music features a wealth of objects that bring an ephemeral art form to life. Costumes from Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, among many others, sit alongside Shania Twain’s famous top hat and tuxedo jacket from her “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” music video.
“We wanted to show performance outfits and fashion because I think that trickles into pop culture so much,” Goelz says.
Palmer donated the 1950s-style Betsey Johnson dress she wore during her first televised Grand Ole Opry performance.
“It means a lot to me to be able to go see it alongside LeAnn Rimes’s dress—or now Loretta Lynn,” says Palmer. “All these people that I looked up to and all these people that made music that mattered to me.”
Visitors will also get to see handwritten lyrics, and interact with certain instruments, like a dulcimer and autoharp.
The exhibit’s arrival in Raleigh brought an opportunity to expand the number of musicians featured in the display. Katie Edwards, curator of pop culture at the NC Museum of History, pulled Emmylou Harris and Rissi Palmer from the main setup and placed them alongside four new additions: Myrtle Wiseman (aka Lulu Belle), Donna Fargo, Rhiannon Giddens, and Kasey Tyndall.
Like the GRAMMY Museum’s original curation efforts, the sheer abundance of North Carolina talent made it difficult to figure out whom exactly to include.
“It was hard coming up with those women because there are so many,” says Edwards. “But I decided to choose natives from all over the state.”
The museum will also host four concerts in a Southern Songbirds series to bring attention to the different North Carolina artists who play in and around country music. Durham singer-songwriter H.C. McEntire kicks off the series on October 29, along with Charly Lowry, who lives in Pembroke, and Caitlin Cary, who lives in Raleigh. The three following concerts will feature Triangle musicians Tift Merritt, Alice Gerrard, and Rissi Palmer.
“I grew up in North Carolina,” says McEntire. “I grew up in the mountains, so country to me is much more than a genre—it’s more cultural.”
And that culture has been overdue for a shift, especially as more voices insist on new perspectives.
“As much as I am inspired by the country musicians that came before me, I challenge myself as a queer woman in the South playing music,” McEntire says. “I’m proud to be from the South and be creating art in the South. I also think with that comes a responsibility.”
Palmer is set to close out Southern Songbirds on January 21. “I love the name of the series because I think that being country and being Southern are two different things. It’s not a monolith. All of our experiences and influences are different, but it doesn’t make them any less authentic.”
McEntire echoes that sentiment. “There should be room for everyone,” she says. “Sometimes you have to elbow your way in a little bit. I think it’s starting to crack open in terms of visibility and opportunity, but there’s a long way to go.”
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