Category: country music

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If you’ve been reaching for cowboy boots and hats lately, you’re not alone. With the long-awaited return of Yellowstone and debuts of spinoffs like 1923 and 1883, designers and consumers alike have been inspired to shop functional, well-made clothes with a western flair. Among the list of shows making waves is Showtime’s latest miniseries, George & Tammy, starring Michael Shannon and Academy Award winner Jessica Chastain as legendary country artists George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

Watch George & Tammy on Showtime

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As an intimate portrait of the life and love of Jones and Wynette, the series also serves as an interrogation of some of their most iconic style statements. Below, costume designer Mitchell Travers shares his top points of inspiration from four decades of fashion and how he chose to honor the work of these country music icons.

Stepping back in time with vintage country western style

Designing on-screen—and on-stage—styles for Chastain and Shannon was no easy feat, given the still-dedicated fans of the two historic singers the actors portray. “Building the costumes for this took a tremendous amount of research,” says Travers. “Anytime you’re working with a built-in fan base, it’s really important that you understand them and respect what came before you.” That research involved watching every recorded interview he could find of the duo, watching copious documentaries about ‘60s country music culture and interviewing stylists and tailors that dressed Jones and Wynette. Travers even did deeper research through conversations with Georgette Jones, daughter of the famed couple. 

What results is a careful study of what Jones and Wynette wore on stage and in their private moments, what their fans wore to their concerts and the role of color and style in mythmaking. Travers’ costumes are not just a historic recreation, but a lesson in how performance wear can be incorporated into even the most simple everyday outfits. “There’s a fearlessness that comes from country music that I think we could take a lesson from,” says Travers. “Rock and roll gets a lot of credit for having its own aesthetic, but I think country is an equal match.”

Recreating Tammy Wynette’s iconic looks for a modern audience

Dressing Jessica Chastain as the “Stand By Your Man” songstress meant that Travers went deep into a Tammy Wynette wormhole while working on this project. It was essential to the designer that he wasn’t just looking at photographs and videos, but really trying to get a grasp on who Tammy Wynette actually was. “I wanted to understand the different performances because listening to Tammy sing ‘Stand By Your Man’ through different eras of her life—it’s a different song that takes on very different meanings for her. It was really important to get to know the song like she got to know the song.”

An equally complex understanding of Wynette’s sense of personal style was also deeply important to Travers. Plagued by health issues throughout much of her later life, the way Tammy Wynette chose to dress was often a reflection of a fraught relationship with her own body. “It was really important to understand how she saw her body,” says Travers. “She was obviously a very sensual woman. She loved really simple styles that had a little bit of form and a little bit of skin, but never anything racy.”

For the screen, Travers portrays Wynette in dynamic costumes including monochromatic ensembles with glamorous textures for stage performances and classic silhouettes with timeless style during intimate scenes. Each costume serves as a time capsule of period-appropriate trends combined with Wynette’s own perspective, highly stylized and designed for visual impact.

Interested in adding some Tammy-inspired style to your wardrobe? Start with a classic ruffle dress like the Dokotoo Women’s Deep V Neck Ruffle Long Sleeve Floral Print Mini Dress. Available in 35 feminine prints in women’s sizes XS to XXL, the dress features ruffle details, a chic mini length, along with full, billowing sleeves that’ll add drama to any look. Pair the dress with leather cowboy boots and dainty accessories for a look that’s classic county without being too on-the-nose. Fans of the dress suggest sizing up for extra comfort and coverage, but the majority of the over 18,000 reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

From $40 at Amazon 

It’s hard to imagine a country performance that doesn’t incorporate fringe, but according to Travers, it’s a style element that Wynette really only relied upon in her later years. “One of the stylists I’d spoken with did a lot of work with Tammy in the nineties and he was telling me that everything had fringe. And it’s funny when you look at those photos—she was really in her fringe era.” 

If a fringe era feels right for you, look no further than the Twist & Shout Vegan Shacket from Blank NYC. This jacket comes movement-ready with dynamic fringe across the back that extends down both sleeves. Pair the jacket with jeans and sneakers for an easy day look, or wear it with a form-fitting dress for an evening look that’s stylish and contemporary. Shop the Twist & Shout jacket in six colors in women’s sizes XS to L.

$128 at Free People

For a twist on a classic blouse, try the Reclaimed Vintage Inspired cropped embroidered shirt with collar from Asos. Made in a cropped style with an oversized collar and puffed sleeves, pair this sweet top with denim and boots for a western flair or with a high-waisted dirndl skirt for a more demure elegant style. Shop the shirt in women’s sizes 0 to 12.

$46 at Asos

Bold and dedicated: George Jones’ undeniable style

In speaking with the image-makers who dressed Jones, Travers discovered just how committed the singer was to crafting his own idea of country-star style. One of Jones’ tailors recalled an instance where the star came into the shop and ordered 30 identical suits in different fabrics and colors. “He was definitely a man who took a lot of pride in his appearance,” says Travers. “A legendary story that I was told from Peanutt Montgomery himself is that they used to have go-bags ready for George. Outfits that were put together just in case they got on a plane or a bus.”

And yet, the most interesting point of entry to Jones’ dynamic wardrobe wasn’t when he was at the height of his fame, but in the moments when he was challenged. “Who is George Jones without the color-coordinated rhinestone-embroidered suits?” asks Travers. “Or, what is Tammy like when she’s making a birthday cake for the kids?” The intimate moments that were hidden from the public are where Travers had the most fun with this project, resulting in a cadre of costumes that feature Jones’ classic and famous performance style contrasted by well-made basics for off-stage moments.

To sprinkle some of Jones’ country flavor into your own clothes, Travers suggests investing in dependable wardrobe stalwarts. “I think having really great, well-made staples can give your closet a long way to go; staples that you can put basics around like your go-to coat, your go-to belt and your go-to boots. That’s the sort of stuff that makes it really feel like a signature.” 

A dependable pair of boots is the ideal place to begin building a George Jones-inspired wardrobe. Try on The Cartwright from Tecovas for size, which uses a classic cowboy boot design that will look just as elegant decades from now. Available in soft calfskin, bovine, or goat leather in men’s whole and half shoe sizes 7 to 15, these boots aren’t just attractive, but they’re functional too. Don’t be afraid to rough them up as work boots, or dress them up with a pair of bootcut jeans for a classic country twist. Fans of the boots praise their soft leathers and short break-in period.

$275 at Tecovas

If there’s one style lesson to be learned from George & Tammy, it’s that the fellas can have as much fun with their clothes as women. The Coofandy Men’s Western Cowboy Embroidered long Sleeve Button Down Shirt offers a classic embroidered western shirt profile in 32 different colors and patterns in men’s sizes S to XXL. With a shirt this bold, it might be best to tone down the rest of your ensemble so the embroidery can really shine. Keep things simple with a pair of black jeans and boots. Don’t be afraid to throw a blazer on top so the shirt’s embellishments can be more of a treat that peaks through rather than overwhelm the entire look.

From $30 at Amazon

We get it: An embroidered western shirt might be too much of a commitment. But there are easier ways to add Jones’ classic style to your wardrobe—like donning a well-tailored suit in a non-traditional color. It may be a far cry from the Nudie suits that George Jones made famous in the 1960s, but we love the Paisley & Gray Slim Fit Suit Separates Coat from Men’s Wearhouse. The medium-hued brown is a total throwback while still feeling entirely contemporary. Pair the coat with the matching Slim Fit Suit Separates Pants to complete the ensemble. Opt for a simple vibe with a classic white oxford shirt, or go with a bolder print to make more of a statement. Shop the blazer in men’s regular sizes 36 to 56, and the pants in men’s waist sizes 29 to 52.

$190 at Men’s Wearhouse

$80 at Men’s Wearhouse

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Jessica Chastain is currently portraying country music icon Tammy Wynette in the miniseries George & Tammy. But the Oscar-winning actress revealed she recently met a current queen of country music, and the singer clearly made an impression.

Jessica spoke to Audacy’s 103.7 KSON in San Diego about her role in the new miniseries. She explains that she feels very protective of Tammy Wynette, “I just love her. I love what she stood for…I visited her resting spot many times in Nashville and every time I go there’s more pictures that fans have drawn of her, and cards from families, and pictures from grandchildren. It’s really a testament to the incredible woman she was.”

The hosts of John & Tammy in the Morning ask, “You have a dinner party, there are 6 people at the party. Who is at the table?” Jessica agonizes over the question. She says, “I want it to be a wild dinner party.” The actress finally settles on her George & Tammy co-star Michael Shannon, French actress Isabelle Huppert, Oscar Isaac (who starred with Jessica in Scenes from a Marriage), Anne Hathaway, and artist George Condo. That leaves one spot, and Jessica chooses country music superstar Miranda Lambert. And, it turns out, the two have met before.

© John Shearer
Jessica Chastain and Miranda Lambert at the 2022 CMA Awards

Jessica tells John & Tammy, “I met Miranda Lambert at the CMAs and she offered me bourbon in a red solo cup, and I ‘m obsessed with her. She would be a fun addition to the party. It has to be people that are going to bring it, you know?”

© Leah Puttkammer
Jessica and Michael presented the CMA Entertainer of the Year Award to Luke Combs

We’d certainly love to get an invite to this party! In the meantime, we’ll be catching up on George & Tammy on Showtime. New episodes air stream every Friday on the Showtime app and Paramount+ with on-air releases scheduled for Sundays at 9 P.M. on Showtime.

A Country Music Jam is held each Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the North Buena Vista Civic Association, 2039 Orange Drive, Holiday. 

Donation are $3. 

Food and drinks are also available for a donation. All donations go to the community center. 

The music selection is country to light rock. New musicians are encouraged to join. For more information, call 727-534-8649.

Each Monday at 7 p.m. is the Monday Music Jam at Beacon Square Civic Association, 3741 Bradford Drive, Holiday. Meals are available from 6 to 7 p.m., as supplies last. Proceeds go to the association. For information, call 727-807-7007.

A Grammy-winning recording engineer who has worked in the Nashville music scene for 35 years, Mark Capps, was shot and killed by police in Nashville Thursday afternoon. A spokesperson said he was killed by a SWAT team member after he brandished a gun in his doorway, as police responded to an incident in which Capps had allegedly held his wife and adult stepdaughter captive at gunpoint.

Multiple news outlets in Nashville reported the death, which sent shock waves through parts of the local music community. He was part of a family that is well-known in Nashville circles, as his father was legendary session player, Grand Ole Opry guitarist and Musicians Hall of Fame member Jimmy Capps, who died in 2020. The fatal shooting of Capps comes just two days after his brother died, as indicated on his social media.

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Capps, 54, was wanted on aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping warrants at the time of his death. Metro Police spokesman Don Aaron told reporters that Capps brought his 60-year-old wife and 23-year-old stepdaughter into their family room at gunpoint at approximately 3 a.m. and “told them if they called someone, he would kill them. They were extremely frightened by him and his actions toward them in not letting them leave.” After he fell asleep around dawn, police said, the two women escaped and went to the Hermitage precinct to file a report. The SWAT team confronted and killed him shortly after the warrants were issued at 1:55 p.m.

A discography on Capps’ website indicates that, since 1987, he has worked with country and gospel artists including Alabama, the Dixie Chicks, Neil Diamond, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Brooks & Dunn, Barry Manilow, Chris Young, Aaron Tippin, Conway Twitty, Joe Diffie, the Oak Ridge Boys, Big & Rich, the Gaither Vocal Band, John Michael Montgomery, Kenny Rogers, Donna Summer, the Mavericks, Anita Cochran, Kenny Loggins, Olivia Newton-John and the Isaacs, among others.

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The Recording Academy’s website shows he picked up a Grammy for best polka album four years in a row, from 2005 through 2008, working with the group Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra.

“Just after the arrest warrants were issued, SWAT was preparing in the event he barricaded himself inside,” Aaron told reporters, per News Channel 5. “He came to the door with a gun in hand. At that point, he was fatally shot. We have since learned there were cameras monitoring the outside of the home. He may have well seen them outside the residence. They were in SWAT gear and clearly marked to him as members of the police department.”

Police said that body cam footage was being reviewed and would be released later.

Capps had just lost his brother two days prior to the incident that resulted in his own death. In Capps’ last public Facebook post, dated yesterday, he wrote, “No words. RIP Jeffery Allen Capps, Dec 31, 1967 – Jan 03, 2023,” alongside an undated photograph of himself and his brother standing in front of their father’s grave.

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In a pivotal moment of Yellowstone’s pilot episode, protagonist John Dutton’s estranged son, Kayce, returns to his father’s ranch. As he steers his truck toward the property’s entrance, he mutters, “Hope I don’t regret this,” and the choppy fiddle from Texas band Whiskey Myers’s “On the River” sets an adventurous tone. As Kayce drives toward the threshold of his childhood home, the austere song intensifies the scene with a power worthy of a prodigal son’s return. 

First-time viewers of the hit Paramount Network series may come for the cowboys, the Western culture, and the serene vistas of horse-dappled pastures, only to get sucked into the show’s gripping story lines (think: bar brawls ending in bullfights) and operatic melodrama (think: a livestock commissioner burying someone alive under a cattle guard instead of making him pay a fine).

On Yellowstone, stakes are constantly rising and expanding beyond the property markers of Dutton’s Montana ranch. No matter where the plot wanders, however, it retains a singular dark, Western tone that brings fans along for the ride. The soundtrack, featuring Texas musicians such as Whiskey Myers, the Panhandlers, Ryan Bingham, and Wade Bowen, is critical to keeping the expansive show tethered to its tone and cultural subtext.

Yellowstone’s playlist, curated by music supervisor Andrea von Foerster, helps wash every setting—from corporate boardroom scenes to still shots of vast flaxen plains—in the same stark, rustic realism. A proud roster of Texas artists has scored some of the series’ most dramatic moments. This isn’t simply because Texas is the second-largest state in the nation. Taylor Sheridan, the show’s cocreator, is a born-and-raised Texan and a 2021 inductee to the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. His Academy Award–nominated film, Hell or High Water, takes place in Texas, and the state is a primary setting in several of his other works (Sicario: Day of the Soldado, 1883). Texas runs deep in the DNA of Yellowstone, and it’s only fitting that Sheridan and von Foerster would tap its rich music scene to help set an authentic tone for the neo-western opus.

The show’s recurring use of Texas music is made linear in Spotify’s popular Yellowstone official playlist. (The country and rock mix boasts over 165,000 followers, a number more than one-third larger than the population of Billings, Montana—the closest metro city to Yellowstone National Park.) Featured singers who hail from our state, from Whiskey Myers to Uncle Lucius, make music with stripped-down qualities of country and rock often collectively pegged as “Texas country.” Genres and labels aside, the Texas country music scene is famous for its independence from the mainstream. Artists can spend their entire careers touring and pursuing success without crossing state lines. This self-sufficiency supplies the state with a high concentration of artists empowered to take alternative paths, which begets the creation of country songs that may not be fit for national country radio but are perfect for a ranch-set soap opera. 

One of season four’s most consequential scenes uses “All I See Is You,” a tune by Austin-based country-rock quartet Shane Smith & the Saints. It marks the exodus of Jimmy, a young wrangler, whom Dutton dispatches to Guthrie, Texas, to learn how to be a cowboy. Jimmy is tossed into the custody of brawny rodeo bullies who aren’t too keen on the young, wide-eyed buck. Dreading their long drive ahead with the naive Jimmy, the older cowboys decide to blare music instead of talk. The driver, Travis (played by Taylor Sheridan himself), barks “Shane Smith and the motherf—ing Saints” before flipping on the song. Its plaintive fiddle lead rises above the noise, transforming the scene from a comical back-and-forth to a bittersweet tearjerker. As the ballad gets louder, Jimmy peers out his passenger window to share a final glance with the lover he’s leaving behind. From beginning to end, the scene is filled with a sense of anxiety. But at the end of it all, Shane Smith & the Saints’ grassy, upbeat song grounds it in a hopeful tone and an assurance that Jimmy is off to bigger and better things.

Later in the season, we see Jimmy fully integrated into his rodeo assistant role. In a montage, he looks on as professional wranglers rein and trot in the center of a rodeo arena. The rodeo is a new setting for Yellowstone, not only because it’s in Texas, but because it portrays the flashy, showbiz aspects of Western riding. Up until this point, horse riding is all utility and no performance. Through Jimmy’s starry eyes, we see a stark change from the rural acreage that backdrops most of the show. The montage is set to two country-rock songs by Texas artists: Bluff Dale native Red Shahan’s “Javelina” and Sebastopol-born Cody Johnson’s “Dear Rodeo.” Von Foerster could have just as easily selected more popular or recognizable Southern rock songs to set an upbeat pace for the scene, but that wouldn’t have fit the realism of the show. These selections sound more like things you would actually hear at a Texas rodeo, making the sequence as real and exciting for us as it is for Jimmy.

One Texas musician is getting a boost by appearing on-screen as well as on the soundtrack. Grammy-winning songsmith and Austinite Ryan Bingham plays a ranch hand on the Dutton property. At night, he often serenades the crew with tunes from Bingham’s real-life catalog. His performances help to add a bit of culture and romantic sensibility to the rowdy Dutton workforce, who otherwise seem to spend the entirety of their free time drinking, gambling, hiding bodies, and breaking into fights. “To have him on ‘Yellowstone’ is a gift,” Sheridan told the L.A. Times. “He is the graveled voice of this generation’s cowboys and poets.”

Sheridan and von Foerster seem to be making a concerted effort to extend opportunities to Texas artists. Sheridan enlisted Weatherford native Garrett Bradford to pen a song for the show to be used in a transitional scene. The track, “This Way of Life,” is a spare recording of Bradford and his acoustic guitar. Played over various shots of the ranch—aerial views of the equestrian barn, daybreak over the mountains, the family chef making biscuits—it mourns the death of the rural lifestyle. This point is often returned to throughout the series. Dutton’s ranch—the largest privately owned property in Montana—is under constant territorial threat from outside forces. In some ways, the show is about the unbeatable strength of stalwart country dwellers who stick to their guns, literally and figuratively. The Texas artists featured on the soundtrack help to provide the show, and this message, with sensitivity and thoughtfulness that temper its harsher aspects of murder and betrayal. They add to the show’s immersive power, so viewers feel like they can imagine what life is really like on a picturesque Montana ranch, even if it’s the last of its kind. The final Bradford lyrics heard in the scene play as Dutton is shown waking up: “As long as I’m still breathing and my blood is flowing red / Our way of life ain’t dead.”

Speaking for the group, Danica Hart told the House that Chapel Hart tries to inspire young people.

“I just continue to encourage you guys to go out and take every bit of your Mississippi-ness with you,” she said.

Chapel Hart grabbed national attention during Season 17 of “America’s Got Talent” with the original song, “You Can Have Him Jolene” — a follow-up to the Dolly Parton classic. Danica Hart said on the show that the group had been trying to break into Nashville for a couple of years.

“It’s been kind of hard when, I think, country music doesn’t always look like us,” she said, referring to Black artists in a mostly white genre.

At the Mississippi Capitol on Wednesday, Republican Rep. Jansen Owen of Poplarville said: “I think it’s safe to say that from now on, country music will always look a lot like Chapel Hart.”

After appearing before the House and Senate, the trio was joined by a guitarist and performed in the Capitol rotunda, their voices echoing through the marble hallways. When they saw three young girls dancing, the singers called the children over for a conversation and photos.