Country Music

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IN 1996, GARTH BROOKS’ TEAM BUILT SOMETHING FOR HIS ARENA TOUR THAT LOOKED LIKE JUST ANOTHER STAGE PROP. They called it the Drum Pod — a specially designed enclosure around the drum kit that became one of the most recognizable pieces of Brooks’ World Tour. But the Pod wasn’t built to look impressive. It was engineered to solve a recording problem that came with playing arenas, and what it captured during those shows became one of the biggest-selling albums in music history. Thirty years later, Brooks is bringing the Drum Pod back for his Blame It All On My Roots Tour, opening August 21 and 22 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Pod has been redesigned, and he’s adding a 360-degree video system called The Halo — something the ’90s never had. Brooks has said country fans deserve the same touring technology as any genre, but for anyone who remembers what the original Pod made possible, it’s the recording side of this tour that deserves the most attention.

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Garth Brooks Brings the Drum Pod Back, and the Real Story Is What It Was Built to Capture At first…

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THEY HELD HIS FUNERAL AT WACO MEMORIAL PARK. THE VISITATION WAS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC — AND THEY BURIED HIM RIGHT BESIDE HIS SON EDDY AND HIS WIFE BRENDA, THE TWO LOSSES HE HAD SUNG ABOUT FOR TWENTY YEARS. Billy Joe Shaver wrote nine of the ten songs on Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes — the album that launched the entire Outlaw movement. Elvis recorded him. Johnny Cash recorded him. Bob Dylan name-checked him in a song. Willie Nelson called him, flatly, “the greatest living songwriter.” When he died on October 28, 2020, Jason Isbell wrote what everyone was thinking: “Billy Joe Shaver might’ve been the only true outlaw who ever made his living writing about the inner workings of his heart. The realest of them all.” Two years later, the tribute came in full: Live Forever, an album of his songs sung by Willie Nelson, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, and Lucinda Williams — named after the song he wrote with Eddy: “Just like the songs I leave behind me, I’m gonna live forever now.” Nashville never made him a star. It just spent fifty years singing his words.

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Billy Joe Shaver: The Outlaw Songwriter Nashville Could Never Forget They held Billy Joe Shaver’s funeral at Waco Memorial Park,…

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THE SONG TOBY KEITH NEVER WANTED TO RELEASE JUST BROKE HIS CAREER RECORD — TWO YEARS AFTER HE WAS GONE. After America celebrated its 250th birthday, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” returned to the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 11. It passed “Red Solo Cup,” which reached No. 15 in 2012, and rose far beyond the song’s original No. 25 peak in 2002. In one week, it drew 15.3 million official streams and reached No. 2 on both Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales. But the number is only half the story. Toby originally intended the song for military audiences, not commercial release. He wanted to sing it for the troops. Twenty-four years later, the country he wrote it for made it the biggest Hot 100 hit of his life. Toby Keith was not here to see the record. But America was still singing every word.

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The Song Toby Keith Never Wanted to Release Just Broke His Career Record Two Years After He Was Gone Two…

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JERRY REED WROTE A MOVIE THEME ALMOST OVERNIGHT—THEN OFFERED TO THROW IT OUT AND START AGAIN. Hal Needham needed a song that could carry the illegal 28-hour beer run at the center of *Smokey and the Bandit*. Reed and co-writer Dick Feller answered with “East Bound and Down,” using the speed, CB language and impossible deadline already built into the story. But when Reed first played it for Needham, the director barely reacted. Had Reed mistaken silence for disappointment? The movie went on to earn roughly $126.7 million in North America, finishing behind only *Star Wars* among 1977 releases. Reed’s song reached No. 2 on the country chart and became his signature recording, long outliving its original job as soundtrack music. None of that seemed certain in the room where Needham first heard it. Reed offered to rewrite the song, and the director’s blunt response stopped him before he changed a single note.

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Jerry Reed Wrote a Movie Theme Almost Overnight, Then Offered to Throw It Out and Start Again Some songs arrive…

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KID ROCK STOOD AT MOUNT RUSHMORE AND ASKED WHY PATRIOTISM HAD BECOME SO DIFFICULT. During Hannity’s July 3 broadcast, Sean Hannity asked why some entertainers appeared reluctant to celebrate America. Kid Rock replied that people should be able to feel patriotic regardless of their political beliefs. But his words raised a harder question: can a message about national unity remain above politics when it is delivered in an unmistakably political setting? Kid Rock did not describe America as flawless. He called it “a work in progress,” then said it was still “the greatest country on Earth.” His own political loyalties are hardly hidden, and listeners will judge the moment differently because of them. Still, the thought at its center was simple: acknowledging a country’s failures does not require abandoning gratitude for it—and pride does not have to belong to only one side.

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Kid Rock at Mount Rushmore: Why Patriotism Suddenly Felt So Complicated On July 3, during a broadcast of Hannity from…

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147 EPISODES. 7 SEASONS. EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT IN 20 MILLION LIVING ROOMS. HIS FACE APPEARED EXACTLY ONCE. From 1979 to 1985, he opened every episode of The Dukes of Hazzard. “Just the good ol’ boys…” He was The Balladeer. The voice that set up every chase, every jump, every cliffhanger. Kids across America could quote him word for word. Most of them had no idea who he was. His name was Waylon Jennings. By then, he’d already changed country music forever. Fought Nashville for the right to record his own songs — and won. Sold millions of albums. Started the Outlaw movement with Willie Nelson. But CBS didn’t hire a legend to show his face. They hired him to talk. So he talked. And he sang. The theme song, “Good Ol’ Boys,” went to #1 on the country charts in 1980. He wrote it himself. Seven seasons. 147 episodes. His face appeared on screen exactly once. He didn’t need the camera. The voice was enough. Waylon Jennings spent his whole career refusing to play by the rules — no rhinestone suits, no Nashville machine, no compromise. And somehow his most famous role was one where nobody ever saw him at all. Maybe that’s the most outlaw thing he ever did.

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147 Episodes, 7 Seasons, and One Unforgettable Voice: The Waylon Jennings Story Behind The Dukes of Hazzard From 1979 to…

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THE CRITICS CALLED HIM A WARMONGER. THE SOLDIERS CALLED HIM FAMILY. ONLY ONE OF THEM EVER MET HIM. Toby Keith didn’t have to go. He was already a superstar — private jets, sold-out arenas, number one hits. Instead, he got on military transport planes. Flew into Iraq. Afghanistan. Kuwait. Places where the stage was a flatbed truck and the audience carried rifles. Not once. Not for a photo op. 11 USO tours. Over 285 shows. Nearly 256,000 troops. More than any artist of his generation. He did it for his father — H.K. Covel, an Army veteran who lost his right eye in service, who raised his kids to respect the flag. When his dad died in 2001, six months before 9/11, Toby wrote “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” in 20 minutes. Critics tore him apart for it. Radio hosts called him angry. Hollywood called him worse. He never apologized. He just kept flying back. Soldiers remember him eating in the mess halls, not backstage. Playing acoustic sets on forward operating bases too dangerous for full crews. Coming back year after year, even when the cameras stopped following. Then came the diagnosis. Stomach cancer. He fought it quietly for two years — and still stood on stage in 2023, thin and unbroken, singing “Don’t Let the Old Man In.” He passed in February 2024. The Country Music Hall of Fame called his name that same year. He never wore the uniform. But ask any soldier who was there. Some people salute with their hand. Toby Keith saluted with 20 years of his life.

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Toby Keith: The Country Star Who Chose the Front Lines The critics called Toby Keith a warmonger. The soldiers called…

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THEY HELD HIS FUNERAL AT FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN HENDERSONVILLE. MORE THAN 1,000 MOURNERS FILLED THE PEWS — IN THE SAME CHURCH WHERE, FOUR MONTHS EARLIER, HE HAD SAID GOODBYE TO JUNE. He was buried in a black coffin with silver handles. No other color was ever considered. The service ran two and a half hours. Kris Kristofferson stood and said: “He represented the best of America. We’re not going to see his like again.” He paused, then added that Johnny Cash was “Abraham Lincoln with a wild side.” In the front rows sat Vince Gill, Hank Williams Jr., George Jones, Kid Rock, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, and former Vice President Al Gore. No cameras were allowed inside. His daughter Rosanne delivered the eulogy. Reporters who were there said they had covered many celebrity funerals — and had never felt heartbreak quite like that moment. Two months after the funeral, the CMA Awards handed out three trophies bearing his name. Each time his children walked to the stage to accept, the room rose to its feet. Every single time. He had finished recording his last song one week before he died. He left more than thirty unreleased songs behind — enough for Nashville to keep hearing his voice for years after it was gone.

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The Day Nashville Said Goodbye to Johnny Cash They held his funeral at First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, and from…

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EIGHT DIFFERENT SONGS HAVE KNOCKED ELLA LANGLEY OUT OF NO. 1. EVERY SINGLE TIME, “CHOOSIN’ TEXAS” CAME BACK — AND NOW IT HAS BROKEN A RECORD THAT STOOD SINCE 1977. Thirteen weeks at No. 1. And counting. Ella Langley cowrote and coproduced “Choosin’ Texas” herself — an Alabama girl who built her own smash from the ground up. It first hit No. 1 back in February. Since then, eight different songs have taken turns at the top — Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, BTS, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo. Every single time, “Choosin’ Texas” climbed right back. The records keep falling. It’s now the longest-leading Hot 100 No. 1 ever by a woman with a country hit, breaking a mark that stood since 1977. Only Mariah, Whitney, and Brandy & Monica have led longer among all-female hits. “None of us thought it would be the song to do everything it’s doing,” Langley admitted. This week, she holds three songs in the Hot 100’s top four — a feat previously reserved for The Beatles, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Taylor Swift. A country girl just joined that club. Some artists chase No. 1. Ella Langley moved in and changed the locks.

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Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” Keeps Coming Back to No. 1, and the Music World Can’t Stop Watching Some songs arrive…

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NASHVILLE SAID “SON, YOU FINALLY GOT IT MADE.” HE ANSWERED WITH THE MOST DANGEROUS QUESTION IN COUNTRY MUSIC HISTORY. “Lord, it’s the same old tune, fiddle and guitar…” Waylon Jennings wrote “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” completely alone — scribbled on the back of an envelope on the way to the recording session. But the song really began in 1959. A 21-year-old bass player from Littlefield, Texas gave up his seat on a small plane carrying Buddy Holly. The plane went down. Waylon spent the next decade haunted, broke, and grinding through one-night stands — ten years on the road, speeding his young life away. By 1975, Nashville wanted him in rhinestone suits. He answered with a question: would Hank Williams — his hero, a man he never got to meet — have done it this way? “I wrote it in ten minutes,” Waylon said. “It took me ten years to think it up.” It hit No. 1 that year. Rolling Stone later called it outlaw country’s closest thing to an official statement. Some songs follow the rules. This one asked who wrote them — and never waited for an answer.

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Waylon Jennings and the Song That Asked Country Music a Dangerous Question Nashville thought it had Waylon Jennings figured out.…

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WHEN WAYLON JENNINGS DIED ON A WEDNESDAY IN FEBRUARY 2002, HIS FAMILY BURIED HIM QUIETLY IN ARIZONA TWO DAYS LATER. FIVE WEEKS AFTER THAT, NASHVILLE GATHERED AT THE RYMAN TO SAY THE GOODBYE HE NEVER ASKED FOR. Waylon died peacefully at his home in Chandler, Arizona, on February 13. He was 64, and years of diabetes-related illness had already forced him off the road and cost him his left foot. There was no large funeral procession. On Friday, his family held a private graveside service in Mesa and laid him to rest away from the crowds that had followed him for decades. The public farewell came on March 23 at the Ryman Auditorium, the same room where Waylon had performed his final major concert. Kris Kristofferson, Travis Tritt, Billy Ray Cyrus, David Lee Murphy, and Stargunn, led by Waylon’s son Shooter, helped carry his songs back onto the stage. It felt right that the man who spent his career refusing Nashville’s rules received two goodbyes: one small enough for family, and one inside country music’s most sacred room.

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WEARING CAL RIPKEN JR.’S NUMBER, MORGAN WALLEN WALKED INTO A BALTIMORE STADIUM WITH THE U.S. NAVY AT HIS SIDE. Morgan Wallen’s walkout has become a place for famous faces. But on the first of two nights at M&T Bank Stadium, he chose a Baltimore symbol and a different kind of company. Wearing Cal Ripken Jr.’s No. 8 Orioles jersey, Wallen made his way toward the stage flanked by members of the U.S. Navy. In Baltimore, that number means more than baseball. Ripken played 2,632 consecutive games. He became the “Iron Man” not because of one spectacular night, but because he kept showing up, season after season, whether anyone was watching closely or not. The sailors beside Wallen understand that kind of duty in a much deeper way. Maybe that is why this entrance felt different from the celebrity walkouts that came before it. One jersey represented a hometown hero who never stopped showing up. The uniforms represented people who stand ready whenever their country needs them. Wallen did not need to make a speech. Before he sang a single note, Baltimore understood the message.

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FORGET THE TRANS AM. FORGET THE GRAMMYS. THE MOMENT THAT TRULY CHANGED JERRY REED HAPPENED ON AN OPERATING TABLE, WHEN HE CAME CLOSE TO NEVER WAKING UP. Around 2002, Reed underwent open-heart surgery. Years later, he said plainly, “I nearly died on the operating table.” The man known for lightning-fast guitar runs, wild laughter, and “East Bound and Down” came out of that room looking at his life differently. He admitted that fame had once made him feel like a king. People moved when he spoke. He got what he wanted. But after surviving surgery, the applause no longer felt like the point. “For 50 years, all I’d done was take, take, take,” Reed said. So he decided the rest of his life would be about giving. He began devoting himself to veterans, visiting hospitals and promising God that his final chapter would belong to the men and women who had sacrificed for him. Jerry Reed’s greatest change did not happen beneath stage lights. It happened under surgical lights, when the entertainer nearly lost everything and woke up determined to spend whatever time remained helping somebody else.

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WHEN DAVID ALLAN COE DIED ON A WEDNESDAY IN APRIL 2026, NASHVILLE DID NOT HOLD THE FINAL GOODBYE. THREE WEEKS LATER, HIS YELLOW HARLEY STOOD INSIDE A CINCINNATI FUNERAL HOME. Coe died on April 29 at 86. His cause of death was not publicly disclosed. On May 22, fans gathered at Spring Grove Funeral Home in Cincinnati, back in his native Ohio. The room was filled with photographs, old memories, and the banana-yellow Harley-Davidson Panhead that had become part of his outlaw image. People shared stories about a man country radio never fully understood, but listeners never forgot. The next day, members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club helped guide the motorcade to Gate of Heaven Cemetery and served as pallbearers. His black-and-purple casket carried an image from his masked “Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy” years, along with the words “American Bad Ass.” His widow, Kimberly, and members of his band were there. Some of his estranged children were not. David Allan Coe spent a lifetime living outside Nashville’s rules. In the end, Cincinnati gave the outlaw one final ride home.