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  • Music by the Mile: Survival Tips for Touring on $4 Gas

    While some artists famously can't wait to get on the road again, last summer's rapid ascent of fuel prices sparked some quick adjustments just to keep the music on the move. Even headliners felt the pinch: Big paydays kept the fuel crisis from slowing them down, but profits were stretched by the cost of getting fleets from arena to arena.

  • Glen Campbell Revisits the Country-Pop Summit

    The title Meet Glen Campbell is a little puzzling, considering the album was released this year.

  • New Artist Spotlight: Jason Matthews

    Folks on Music Row already know Jason Matthews. He arrived in 1995, having left North Carolina and a job as a high school English teacher to try his luck in the music business. His break came in 2002, when Kevin Denney chose "That's Just Jessie," which Matthews wrote with Kerry Kurt Phillips, as the first single from his debut album.

  • New Artist Spotlight: Jonalee White

    One day back home in Erie, Pa., Jonalee White was spinning the radio dial when she stopped on Vince Gill singing "Whenever You Come Around." That's all it took for this young teenager to convert from her upbringing on Christian music to a steady diet of Garth Brooks, Patsy Cline, Reba McEntire and other influences.

  • Randy Travis Revisits his Roots on 'Around the Bend'

    Backstage at CMA Music Festival in June, Randy Travis came face to face with the new reality.

  • New Artist Spotlight: Jeremy McComb

    Some people are born to perform but they still need a little nudge toward the spotlight to fulfill that destiny.

  • The Art of the Real: Martina McBride's Live in Concert CD/DVD

    Live albums differ almost to the point of being opposite in nature. They are essentially journalistic endeavors, chronicling — or glossing over — each detail, from inspired moments to microphone malfunctions, wrong notes and sudden feedback.

  • Songpluggers Find Homes for Hits

    March 12, 2008 — The motto of the Nashville Songwriters Association International lays out the truth in plain language: "It all begins with a song."

  • NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Ashton Shepherd

    March 5, 2008 — The first single from the new album by Ashton Shepherd tells us all we need to know about the soul of this 21-year-old singer and songwriter.

  • Gary Allan: Living Hard One Song at a Time

    March 5, 2008 — The ascension of Gary Allan, back from a difficult period of emotional retrenchment and introspection, is welcome and familiar news throughout the Country Music world. But to the crowds gathered at Nashville's Sommet Center on the night of Nov. 30, 2007, it was an event to witness literally.

  • Taylor Swift is Not 'Just a Girl' Anymore

    2/27/2008 — It's hard to believe a year and a half ago I sat in a building that'd be my label, where the walls weren't even painted, and we were stuffing envelopes with what would be my first single," said Taylor Swift with the "aw shucks, hey world" enthusiasm that defines her suddenly high-profile personality. "We were just hoping people would listen to a song called 'Tim McGraw.'"

  • CMA Announces 2008 Members of Country Music Hall of Fame

    2/13/2008 — The Country Music Association announced Tuesday, Feb. 12 that Emmylou Harris, Tom T. Hall, The Statler Brothers and the late Country Music pioneer Ernest "Pop" Stoneman will become the newest members of the coveted Country Music Hall of Fame.

  • Emmylou Harris: Transformation Through Tradition

    2/13/2008 — Listening to your typical greatest hits package is like strolling down Rodeo Drive or some other dream street for shoppers, where one familiar designer name after another gleams from well lit windows. That's not the impression that emerges from Songbird: Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems on Rhino Records. This 78-track, five-disc Emmylou Harris retrospective is more like what one finds after rummaging through a corner of a grandparent's attic, where old hope chests and photo albums hide memories too rich for overexposure.

  • Brooks & Dunn Open the Aussie Door

    2/6/2008 — Feb. 29 isn't just another Leap Day for Brooks & Dunn. On that date, the superstar duo will do something never before attempted in more than 16 years together, as they open their first-ever string of dates in Australia.

  • NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Laura Bryna

    1/30/2008 — While attending high school in nearby Mount Airy, Md., Laura Bryna performed in Washington, D.C., with the South African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo and took classes at the Kennedy Center's Summer Drama Workshop. As an undergrad at Philadelphia's University of the Arts, she considered careers in archeology or anthropology and somehow found time to become fluent in French.

  • NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Chuck Wicks

    1/30/2008 — Next time you pull up to a restaurant in Nashville, look carefully at the valet: That person who took your keys today might be signed to a major record label deal tomorrow. That's what happened with Chuck Wicks, who came to Nashville after growing up on a farm near Smyrna, Del., and attending Florida Southern College.

  • Ken Nelson: 1911-2008

    1/23/2008 — The road is long from Jelly Roll Morton to the Beach Boys, but Ken Nelson followed it and even steered it deep into the realm of Country Music, on a journey that ended with his death at home in Somis, Calif., on Jan. 6, less than two weeks before what would have been his 97th birthday.

  • Hank Thompson: 1925-2007

    1/23/2008 — If Bob Wills was the Henry Ford of Western swing, then Country Music Hall of Fame member Hank Thompson was responsible for streamlining this vehicle before sending it out, over the airwaves, through international sales of more than 60 million recordings and in countless shows from coast to coast and border to border.

  • NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: The SteelDrivers

    1/23/2008 — That old saying about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts may or may not apply to The SteelDrivers. It sounds true, though, when you spin the band's self-titled debut album, a set of 11 originals that sound like they've been carved in wood and left in the hills to weather and age. Playing with a breezy virtuosity, these five musicians interact, keeping tempos down to the point they can bounce ideas around spontaneously and allow listeners to hear what's happening.

  • The Derailers and Dwight Yoakam Remember Buck Owens

    1/23/2008 — If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then inspiration is the highest form of creativity. Both elements come to play in two recent albums that achieve their excellence through celebrating the late County Music Hall of Fame member Buck Owens.

  • NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Sherry Lynn

    1/16/2008 — If Sherry Lynn had never been born, someone would have brought her to life in a Country lyric. In fact, that song has already been created — by Sherry Lynn herself.

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