Tag: Dierks Bentley

The Stanley Brothers Clinch Country’s Top Honor

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

They started playing music as farm-bred young boys growing up amid the Appalachian mountains of Southwestern Virginia, sometimes using sticks of firewood to mime picking banjo and guitar.

A few years later, Ralph and Carter Stanley embarked on a 20-year professional journey as the Stanley Brothers. The music they created starting in 1946 lives on, bringing them widespread fame. It survives in their hundreds of live and studio recordings, and as a deep influence heard in cover performances by artists from Bob Dylan to Billy Strings, Vince Gill to Patty Loveless, Emmylou Harris to Ricky Skaggs, Elvis Costello to Dierks Bentley.

Carter, the older brother, lead singer, and guitarist, was born in 1925 and died tragically young in 1966, ending the brothers’ career as a duo. Banjoist and tenor singer Ralph, born in 1927, lived until 2016, building a legendary career of his own.

In March 2026, the Stanley Brothers achieved the highest honor available in this field, membership in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Their formal induction in October recognizes not only their distinctive body of creative, deep-roots music, but also the strong impact they have had on performers within and outside of bluegrass.

For years, Carter Stanley’s daughter Jeanie had led legions of family and fans to press acceptance of the brothers by the Country Music Association voter pool that picks new Hall of Fame inductees. In regular social media posts, Jeanie described previous bypasses of the act as ridiculous and called upon followers to write and implore CMA insiders to honor her father and uncle.

From a bluegrass point of view, it didn’t make sense to overlook an act recognized as one of a few foundational artists of the style, along with Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs, who were inducted in 1970 and 1985, respectively. But voters in the Veterans category of membership choose among acts eligible 45 years after each emerged in country music. This formula meant that the Stanley Brothers had been eligible since 1991, but also allowed more recent “veteran” stars such as Tanya Tucker to be honored in increasing numbers, with each year that passed.

For all the Stanley Brothers’ authenticity and artistic merit, they only enjoyed one Billboard chart hit, a jokey number called “How Far to Little Rock.” It says something that the Music-City-based CMA honored the brothers even though they never moved to Nashville and never joined the Grand Ole Opry during their years together. (Ralph became a member of the historic show in 2000.)

All of that aside, the Stanley Brothers’ Hall of Fame induction illustrates their increasing recognition as a cornerstone act, each year growing new legions of followers, both in America and far beyond. String-band-music phenomenon Billy Strings, who regularly performs for houses of more than 10,000 fans, features songs at each show that were first composed or brought to wide attention by Ralph and Carter Stanley. There’s no way to measure how much that exposure means.

Overall, the richness of the Stanleys’ sound and legacy means it pops up over and over again, not just in bluegrass or country settings, but also among pop acts. A story circulates that the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards once mouthed “Stanley Brothers!” to a bandmate to illustrate the mournful backup sound he wanted for a performance.

In more formal recognition, the Library of Congress added the brothers’ rendition of the Albert Brumley composition “Rank Stranger” in 2008 to the prestigious National Recording Registry, an annual listing that “highlights the richness of the nation’s audio legacy.”

Elsewhere, “The brothers rose to fame performing traditional religious songs in an Appalachian bluegrass style marked by tight, high-pitched harmonies and strongly influenced by Bill Monroe,” their Encyclopedia Britannica entry reads in part.

Why include this Britannica language, even though it overemphasizes their gospel orientation? The Stanley Brothers’ acknowledgement in a top-rank information source shows the distance the brothers covered during their million-mile journey from a tough childhood, through countless challenges, to creative triumphs that have kept creating new fans in recent years.

Down Home

Born in rural Dickenson County, Virginia, the boys were raised by banjo-picking mother Lucy and ballad-singing father Lee Stanley among mountainside farms and busy lumber camps, living in an atmosphere of homegrown food, spring-drawn water, and lamplit rooms through their early years. Church music, sung unaccompanied in the traditional style, became a mainstay of the brothers’ own music, along with Celtic-derived story songs, neighbors’ country-string music, and eventually the commercial country music heard on a battery-powered radio. The music they learned emerged as what’s now called “pre-bluegrass” until Ralph and Carter first heard the riveting sounds of Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs on WSM’s Grand Ole Opry.

Starting out on country radio stations such as Bristol’s legendary WCYB, the Stanley Brothers recorded their early sounds for the busy regional label Rich-R-Tone, then graduated to major labels Columbia and Mercury before winding up on Starday and King, as well as a handful of smaller outlets.

Many standards of bluegrass and country music, such as “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow,” “The White Dove,” “Rank Stranger,” “How Mountain Girls Can Love,” “Pretty Polly,” “Harbor of Love,” “Angel Band,” and “Could You Love Me One More Time,” were written or adapted by Carter and Ralph Stanley.

Both brothers wrote songs, but it is Carter who has been recognized as perhaps the most gifted songwriter in the style. It wasn’t until the folk revival and the later country traditionalist movement that Stanley Brothers songs commonly reappeared in versions by other artists.

Covers by the Hundreds

Carter Stanley had co-written songs with bluegrass founder Monroe, and pitched his song “Going to the Races” in 1957 to the recently formed Washington, D.C.-based act the Country Gentlemen. The Gents’ recording of this song, released by the Stanleys in 1958 as “Gonna Paint the Town,” represented an early example of what would become hundreds of the brothers’ songs reflected in other artists’ recordings.

Bob Dylan’s 1962 release of “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow” hasn’t been definitively linked to the Stanley Brothers, but decades of the folk legend’s work have reflected their influence. He’s performed a batch of Stanley-connected tunes – including “Hallelujah I’m Ready” and “Searching for a Soldier’s Grave” during his endless touring years. Dylan recorded “Rank Strangers” and “Driftin’ Too Far From the Shore” as solos, and “The Lonesome River” in a 1998 duet with Ralph.

Brotherly innovation, including the skyscraping “high-baritone” harmony, influenced members of the West Coast bluegrass scene going back to the 1960s, Byrds founding member Chris Hillman once said in an interview. The striking harmonies produced by Carter and Ralph likely played a role in the two-part sound the Byrds came up with when recording their first hit, Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” he said.

The influential Johnson Mountain Boys from the Washington, D.C., area helped move bluegrass back to its roots from a newgrassy direction in the early 1980s, serving up such Stanleys classics as “I Don’t Want Your Rambling Letters,” “Harbor of Love,” and “Our Last Goodbye.”

Elvis Costello, an artist who shook pop music in the 1970s, has been best known for hard-hitting, sometimes abrasive New Wave pop and rock. In a 2015 interview with New York Times writer A.O. Scott, Costello remembered early days embracing all sorts of country music: “From the ’70s through the mid-’80s, I absorbed all the American music, not just country music like Nashville country music or Bakersfield country music, but older, more traditional styles, even the Stanley Brothers and that stuff.”

Jammin’ Stanley-style

Before Billy Strings arose, a swath of bluegrass artists brought awareness of the Stanley Brothers to new generations of fans through cover renditions. The Grateful Dead, especially co-founder Jerry Garcia, cited the Stanleys as an inspirational source, adding fuel to the jam-band movement that in recent years has brought giant crowds to bluegrass.

Del McCoury, also a Stanleys believer, draws mighty crowds to his festival, DelFest, where mashups of straight bluegrass and Dead-driven improvisational bands are common. Bluesy Larry Sparks, a onetime member of the Stanleys’ Clinch Mountain Boys band, cooks up his own mix of gospel, country and ‘grass, also citing the brothers’ influence on any music he produces.

Fellow Country Music Hall of Fame members Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley also served as key testifiers to the greatness of Ralph and Carter Stanley.

Disciples since their youth, Skaggs and Whitley were overheard by Ralph Stanley in 1970 singing note-for-note recreations of the duets of Ralph and Carter. Ralph was an hour late to his own gig, due to a flat tire; when he arrived, he initially thought the venue was playing a Stanley Brothers recording. Still in their teens, they would go on to tour, record and release music with Ralph Stanley as members of the Clinch Mountain Boys.

After a starry career as a bluegrass sideman, Skaggs had early hits as a solo country artist that included versions of the brothers’ “I’ll Take the Blame” and “Could You Love Me One More Time.” His 1997 roots-return CD, Bluegrass Rules, a Grammy winner, included a large helping of Stanleys numbers, including “Think of What You’ve Done” and “Midnight Train.” In concert appearances years before the Stanley Brothers’ Hall of Fame induction, Skaggs paid tribute to the act and talked about how richly they deserved the honor.

Emmylou Harris, Skaggs’s onetime employer in her Hot Band, also helped advance the Stanleys’ legend through her recording of their songs. Her dedication to country and bluegrass produced cuts of “The Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn” and “Who Will Sing for Me.” Harris even took part in a gospel album and act called “Angel Band” along with Vince Gill, Emory Gordy Jr., and Carl Jackson. And Harris and Skaggs joined voices on the Stanleys’ “Could You Love Me (One More Time),” on Skaggs’s first solo album in 1979.

Why the Stanleys?

There’s more to the long reach of the Stanley Brothers even than the captivating sounds of the brothers’ voices, the hard-hitting stories of their songs, and the driving rhythm of their instrumentals. Fans sum it up as authenticity.

When country music veered into steel-driven honky-tonk and later the smoothness of the Nashville sound, the Stanley Brothers stuck mostly to the music they’d come up with in their early days. Oh, there was the steel guitar of “If That’s the Way You Feel,” the Elvis-esque sounds of “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” and the R&B side-trip of “Finger Poppin’ Time,” but Ralph and Carter stayed almost entirely acoustic, always leaning on their hardcore mountain sound, true to their rural roots.

This quality of authenticity touched countless musicians and fans on first hearing. Patty Loveless shared an IBMA Award with Ralph Stanley for their recording of “Pretty Polly” on the all-star Clinch Mountain Country album and even helped inducted him into the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium in January 2000. Released later that year, the inclusion of “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” (newly recorded by the Foggy Bottom Boys) and the a cappella rendition of “O Death” by Ralph Stanley were highlights on the multi-million-selling soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, bringing new attention to their style of roots music.

For a California punk musician named Gillian Welch, one Stanley Brothers cassette was all it took for her to find “her music.” In 2018, Americana star Welch and partner David Rawlings were among the performers at an evening tribute to Ralph and the Stanley Brothers at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, with country star Dierks Bentley as host. The event was a celebration of a Ralph Stanley exhibition opening at the museum.

That night, Bentley brought on the Traveling McCourys, the act starring Del’s boys and other musicians, as well as the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. Others on the show included Ralph Stanley’s son, known as Ralph II, bluegrass duo the Gibson Brothers, and the hot-picking Justin Moses and Sierra Hull.

The evening of music from a diverse group of performers shone with songs such as “I’ll Just Go Away,” “Could You Love Me One More Time,” “How Mountain Girls Can Love,” and the first Stanleys hit, “Little Glass of Wine.” It reflected a theme universal to myriads of musicians and fans, that the Stanley Brothers’ music hits so hard and so deep that it has served as a foundation for followers going back generations.

“Some of the first songs I ever saw played on a guitar were Stanley Brothers songs,” Auerbach said, according to Rolling Stone.

Closer to the present and into the future, Compass Records this year announced an all-star tribute album marking the 80th anniversary of the Stanley Brothers’ debut as a performing act in 1946. Last year, the label gave a hint of the disc’s content with a single release of “Ralph’s Banjo Special” featuring Kristin Scott Benson, Gena Britt, and Alison Brown.

Through the years, fans have treasured the forthright values of the Stanley Brothers and admired the ways they combined the traditional music they loved with creative new ways of addressing those sounds. Sad to say, the Stanley Brothers endured some hard times just to play the music they had fashioned, instead of changing their sound to follow the whims of music-business fashion. Carter once addressed their steadfast point of view with a note in a publication written to be mailed to their fans.

“For the past few years, we have tried to bring to you country people the kind of entertainment you enjoy,” Carter wrote. “In doing this we have been criticized by some for not being more modern. Since we were raised with this old-time music as part of our background, we have never had and still do not feel any desire to change our way of playing.”

Sticking to their guns remained the Stanley Brothers’ trademark through their two decades of touring, performing, and recording together. Some 60 years after Carter’s death ended those years, the Stanley Brothers’ legacy has paid off for them with membership in the Country Music Hall of Fame among country music’s most highly esteemed acts.

Photo courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame ® and Museum.

LISTEN: Charlie Worsham, “Wrap My Porch Around”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Charlie Worsham
Hometown: Grenada, Mississippi
Song: “Wrap My Porch Around” featuring the Travelin’ McCourys
Album: Once Upon A Second Time Around
Release Date: July 3, 2026 (single); August 7, 2026 (album)

In Their Words: “I take any chance I can to emulate my heroes. With ‘Wrap My Porch Around,’ I wanted to honor both Vince Gill, in the way he cut two versions of ‘High Lonesome Sound’ and Dierks Bentley, who I would argue has done more to keep bluegrass relevant in modern country music than any other artist in the last 20 years. Not surprisingly, those two guys have been responsible for giving me a home stage from which to make music on the road these past five years. Also not surprisingly, besides my own shows, those are the two guys I last shared the stage with at the Station Inn.

“Working with the Travelin’ McCourys – recording at Vince’s house, no less – made the bluegrass version of ‘Porch’ extra sweet. Unless I’m mistaken, I think ‘Porch’ was the last thing Jason Carter played on with them before striking out on his own. For a liner-note, hillbilly history buff like me, it’s as cool to be associated with that milestone as it is to be in possession of Roy Acuff’s last tube of Poli-Grip (this is a fact… it was collected from his dressing room at the Opry after he passed, and gifted to me by a close friend).” – Charlie Worsham

Track Credits:
Alan Bartram – Bass, background vocals
Cody Kilby – Acoustic guitar
Jason Carter – Fiddle, background vocals
Ronnie McCoury – Mandolin
Rob McCoury – Banjo
Charlie Worsham – Vocals, acoustic guitar

Photo Credit: PJ Brown

How-dee! And Happy 100 to the Grand Ole Opry

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In 1925, world leaders were signing the final treaties coming out of WWI; Congress authorized work on Mt. Rushmore as a national memorial; the Scopes Trial was held in Tennessee; and the first patent on radio transmission was only 28 years old.

And, in 1925, WSM first broadcast its barn dance – soon to become the Grand Ole Opry.

One hundred years later, the Grand Ole Opry is the world’s longest-running radio program. After a century that saw changes unparalleled in world history, audiences are still drawn to the Opry. Every week thousands make the pilgrimage to the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville while others tune in around the world. The show continues to inspire new generations of performers to aspire to step “into the circle” on the Opry House stage.

President Jimmy Carter on the Grand Ole Opry stage with Kelly Foxton, Hank Snow, Mel Tillis, June Carter Cash, Skeeter Davis, Bill Monroe, Jeannie C. Riley, and others on October 9, 1980. Photo courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.

In The Beginning Was Insurance

In the 1920s, Edwin Craig was watching radio stations emerge across the nation – and seeing the money-making potential for sponsors and owners. He convinced Cornelius Craig, his father and founder of the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, that a radio station could sell a lot of insurance.

Soon, the fifth floor of the company’s downtown Nashville building held a radio studio. The call letters WSM stood for “We Shield Millions,” the company’s motto. A program that would become the lifeblood of country music started as a way to promote life insurance.

The hiring of George D. Hay away from Chicago’s WLS was the beginning of the WSM Barn Dance. The 30-year-old who called himself The Solemn Old Judge and started every show with a steamboat whistle would set the tone for much of the Opry’s 100 years – including its name.

Which all started with a clash of cultures.

Some upper-crust Nashville residents complained the only radio they could hear on weekends was string band programming from the dominant WSM station. In response, WSM began carrying the syndicated “Music Appreciation Hour.”

The Barn Dance slot followed the classical program, and Hay, not one to pass up a good line, said, “For the past hour, we have been listening to music largely from Grand Opera, but from now on, we will present ‘the Grand Ole Opry.”

George D. Hay is pictured at microphone with a whistle and Uncle Jimmy Thompson is seated in this 1925 photograph from when the Grand Ole Opry was still the WSM Barn Dance. Photo courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.

For years, the Shield Men – door-to-door National Life and Accident insurance salesmen carrying the company’s shield logo – introduced themselves as representing the Grand Ole Opry. They would even listen outside windows to see who was tuned in to the Opry – and who would be a likely customer.

The earliest WSM shows relied on local talent, running heavily toward fiddlers and string bands. But Hay would invite whoever he thought the audience would like.

DeFord Bailey, a Black musician grounded in both the blues and old-time string band music, became a regular, wowing audiences with his harmonica. Kitty Cora Cline, the first female soloist, performed on hammered dulcimer, and Fred Shriver played the accordion. Uncle Dave Macon on his banjo with Sid Harkreader on fiddle and guitar set the stage for the comedy that would remain central to the Opry’s success, with songs like, “Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy.”

A Beacon

As the recording industry grew, the variety of musicians available to the Opry grew, as well. The show began featuring brother duets, cowboy music, Western swing and solo crooners. Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys were featured stars for decades.

Opry singers expressed the joys of new romance, the happiness of Sunday dinner on the lawn, the sorrow of lost love, and the loneliness of leaving home. Audiences across America listened – and related. The Opry became a focus of family life.

Dolly Parton, like many rural listeners, grew up without electricity. Her family faithfully listened to the Opry on a battery-powered radio. Waylon Jennings’ dad would hook their radio to the car battery. Jeannie Seely’s family would pile in the car and drive up a hill until they could get the signal. Opry history is filled with stories of musicians who listened as children – and dreamed of growing up to perform, like their idols, on the iconic stage.

Opry member Dierks Bentley, who gracefully moves between country and bluegrass, told BGS, “Being invited to join at all is the biggest honor – especially for me, personally. I grew up listening to all the Opry greats on the radio with my dad, so becoming a member is like having the ultimate backstage pass to see the best musicians in the world. And to be invited by Marty Stuart … hands down, it was one of the coolest nights of my life.”

Dan Rogers, the Opry’s senior vice president and executive producer, said the Opry has always been a place to celebrate the good times and be uplifted during the tough times. “Think about,” he said, “the folks who tuned in on Saturday nights during World War II. That was their only source of entertainment throughout the week.” Minnie Pearl, with her signature “How-dee,” and Roy Acuff gave them respite from war news.

On the first show after the 9-11 attacks in 2001, Rogers said, “Our background singers sang an a cappella version of ‘God Bless America.’ And one by one, the people in the audience stood and sang along. And I remember thinking, I bet everybody tuned in across the country is singing along to ‘God Bless America.’”

The Opry’s response to the COVID-19 crisis created desperately needed connection during a frightening time of isolation.

Just a week after deciding that live audience shows weren’t safe, Opry staff arranged a pared-down streaming production with no audience and a skeleton crew. Longtime cast members Bill Anderson, Jeannie Seely and Connie Smith held down the first night alongside Mandy Barnett, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, and Sam Williams.

For the second weekend of restrictions, veterans Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, and Brad Paisley sat on stools spread out across the stage and pulled off what Rogers called “a beautiful, beautiful show.”

Watching from his office, Rogers started reading comments from grateful listeners. For months, people marked their calendars to tune in. They wrote, “I’m in Europe. I set my alarm. It’s 2 a.m. here, but I wanted to experience this with a community.”

Marty Stuart, Vince Gill, and Brad Paisley perform for an empty Grand Ole Opry House during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. Photo by Chris Hollo, courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.

Kathy Mattea, the newest Opry inductee, feels those connections whenever she performs there.

People may have sung along to her hit “18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses” in their car or in the shower, but at the Opry, she says to BGS, “Here’s your chance to sit with an audience and sing this song that everybody knows. Nobody knows who the person next to them voted for and it doesn’t matter at that moment.”

“The Ellis Island of Country Music”

In the early days of radio, what was called hillbilly music was as limitless as the range of a 50,000 watt radio station. And the Opry remains dedicated to maintaining those wide open spaces.

Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, in their forward to the book 100 Years of the Grand Ole Opry, refer to the show as the “Ellis Island of Country Music – a place where all are welcome.”

Contemporary country often has been accused of being homogenous and limited. But despite the factors that have controlled commercial country, the Opry maintains its open-arms attitude. Rogers said, “The two core tenets of an Opry show are celebrating the past, present, and future of country music, and also showcasing multiple genres under the country music umbrella.”

In any show, he said, “You might have something that’s on the top 20 of the country charts today. And you’ll have country classics. You might have a contemporary Christian song, Americana string music, or even something from outside the genre by somebody who just happens to be a country music fan or was influenced by country music.”

In 1974, the R&B-oriented Pointer Sisters included an original country song, “Fairytale,” on their second album. The cross-over hit earned them an invitation to the Opry stage, where they became the first Black group to perform.

Ringo Starr appeared for the first time in 2025 and James Taylor’s debut on November 11 will be remembered as a big part of the 100th anniversary celebration.

And, Rogers said, “Because we can do it, it’s fun to take a chance on a new artist.”

Before his first Opry appearance in July 2022, Zach Top had no hits to his name. But Rogers remembered the programming team saying, “You don’t see an artist like that every day. It sure feels to us like our audience would absolutely eat that guy up!” Today, Top’s music is everywhere.

Bluegrass has been a staple since before it had a name and it has never lost its place on the stage. Bentley and Del McCoury played “Roll on Buddy, Roll On” when the Grand Ole Opry House first reopened after the 2010 flood closed its doors for months.

Charlie Mattos is a 10-year veteran Opry announcer and longtime co-host and producer of WSM’s morning show. He said that on any given night, a portion of the Opry House audience “may truly have never seen a bluegrass band play.”

“And when Del McCoury and the boys finish with an incredible instrumental,” Mattos continued, “or Sister Sadie blisters the stage … the enthusiasm that comes out of that crowd, the immediate standing ovation for the insane musicianship that they have just witnessed …” Mattos said, “it blows their minds.”

Mattea said, “Bluegrass is front porch jazz – the virtuoso playing and the vocals and the harmonies and the trading off of licks. That’s how I fell in love with bluegrass.” And the Opry exposes millions to that brilliance.

A Good-Natured Riot

The Opry show is a complex set of acts and sets requiring precision planning, flexibility, and good nature on the part of the announcers – and commitment on the part of the performers. Rehearsals are brief or non-existent. Timing is everything.

Borrowing a phrase from George D. Hay, the Opry is still sometimes called a “good-natured riot.”

Mattos said, “When you come to see the show live, you see it all. The set changes. The artists leaving as the announcer sends them off. You can see the stage crew out there and usually in 90 seconds they can completely swap things around.”

But while reading a commercial during set changes, Mattos may notice the stage manager giving the “stretch” signal. He might have to keep talking for as long as four minutes – a millennium in radio time.

Sometimes the commercials themselves become the entertainment.

The first time Glad Wags sponsored an Opry segment, Chuck Morgan was announcing. While he stood off-stage reading the dog food commercial, house bassist Bill Linneman came up behind him and started barking. “By my last year there, there were like 20 people behind me going at it,” Morgan said. (The consensus is that Connie Smith does a great chihuahua imitation.)

A Family

Jeannie Seely – who racked up nearly 5,400 performances on the Grand Ole Opry before her passing in August 2025 – remembered it was more than the music that fueled her desire to join the Opry: “That’s hearing these people, like Mr. Acuff and Minnie [Pearl] and Jimmy Dickens and all of them, coming together every week,” she says in 100 Years of the Grand Ole Opry. “They always sounded like they were so glad to be together. They picked on each other and joked, and I thought, that’s just like a family.”

And they were family. When the plane Jim Reeves was aboard crashed in a wooded Nashville suburb, Marty Robbins and Ernest Tubb joined the search party, as did the elegant Nashville socialite Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon – known as Minnie Pearl.

Opry star Jean Shepard was expecting her second child with husband Harold “Hawkshaw” Hawkins when Hawkins died in the plane crash that also killed Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. After months feeling adrift, as Shepard was quoted in the 100 Years book, “I looked down my driveway one day and here come two big black limousines full of the so-called ‘higher-ups’ from the Grand Ole Opry. They said, ‘We want you to come back to the Grand Ole Opry.’ And it really meant a lot to me.”

The family feeling is no accident. In earlier years, Opry members had to perform a specified number of Saturday nights a year. While there’s no set number today, Rogers said they look for a sense of commitment in new members. “It truly is about that relationship,” he said.

Rogers quoted Mattea, upon her invitation to become a member, saying, “These people treat you like family, no matter what.”

One of Mattea’s favorite Opry memories involves a bass player who toured with her. “He was sitting on a stool, playing and singing some old Western swing chestnut, and suddenly Riders in the Sky leaned into the dressing room in full regalia and started singing harmony.

“He was gobsmacked. He felt it was the highlight of his life,” she said.

Bluegrass performer Kody Norris’ music is influenced heavily by first- and second-generation bluegrass. But the band’s preference for flashy suits dates back to a family-friendly welcome Norris received 25 years ago.

His parents took nine-year-old Kody backstage at the Opry, “and I met Bill Anderson. And he had on a red rhinestone suit. That’s the first one I ever saw up close, where I could touch it.”

Later that day, upon meeting his equally rhinestone-clad hero, Porter Wagoner, young Kody got so excited he spit out his chewing gum. Wagoner graciously grabbed two Opry-logoed napkins, one of which the little boy used for his gum. The other one the grown Norris still keeps in perfect condition.

The Circle is Unbroken

In 1974, the Opry left its revered home of decades, the Ryman Auditorium, to move to the deliciously air-conditioned 4,400-seat Grand Ole Opry House.

To honor its longtime home, the Opry crew cut a circle out of the Ryman stage and inset it in the new Opry House stage. The circle symbolizes the Opry’s continuity, respect for the past, and optimism for the future.

Mattea experienced that sense of a completed circle on the day she became an Opry member.

“Suzy [Bogguss] was there. We’ve toured together and sung on each other’s records. She’s my closest artist friend, and she was the only one at the ceremony who was not a member. And I thought how generous it was of her to be there.

“So, while I was overflowing with celebration, to get to invite my friend to the party publicly in the name of the Opry was the sweetest gift. It was a moment I’ll never forget, and I’m going to be there for her induction, too.” Bogguss will officially be inducted as an Opry member in early 2026.

Braid Paisley and Little Jimmy Dickens return the Circle to the Opry stage after the 2010 flood. Photo courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.

Join The Celebration

There’s nothing low-key about the Grand Ole Opry – so in the classic Opry spirit, fans have had plenty of opportunity to celebrate the centennial all year long.

Earlier this year, NBC broadcast a three-hour anniversary special, with dozens of stars ranging from Reba McEntire to Jelly Roll to The War and Treaty. The Opry also took the show to London’s Royal Albert Hall for the very first time. You can stream clips of these and other Opry events on YouTube and social media.

With the Virgin Music Group, the Opry has produced the album Opry 100, Country’s Greatest Songs (released November 7). Among the unforgettable recordings are Vince Gill singing his heart-rending “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” Dolly Parton singing “I Will Always Love You,” and Ashley McBryde covering the classic “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” You can order the album from the Opry site.

Craig Shelburne, Brenda Colladay, and Opry members and employees collaborated on 100 Years of the Grand Ole Opry, a book filled with anecdotes and photos that vividly illustrate the Opry’s remarkable history. And to teach your children well, there’s also a new childrens’ picture book written by Emily Frans and illustrated by Susanna Chapman. Find them in your local bookstore.

And, on November 28, 2025, the official 100th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry we all hold dear, the Opry is celebrating with two huge birthday party shows featuring country stars and Opry members like Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Trace Adkins, Dailey & Vincent, Bill Anderson, Jamey Johnson, Marty Stuart, and many, many more. Tickets are available here.

Of course, the celebrations will continue in 2026.

“The Opry is the core and soul of country music,” Bentley said. “It’s a place where the past, present and future of our genre all come together. There isn’t anywhere else like it.”

Continue exploring our Artist of the Month coverage of Opry 100 here.

All photos courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties, credits and attributions as marked. Lead image: Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys and the Opry Square Dancers take the Opry stage at the Ryman Auditorium in the 1960s.

Danny Burns’ Roots Music Journey Through the South

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

My new album’s theme, along with the theme of this Mixtape, is a roots-inspired journey through the South, with songs that evoke the feeling of traveling across its landscapes and into the heart of the Deep South. I hope the fans enjoy the journey of these songs and all the sounds and people it takes to make them come to life on Southern Sky – it takes a village.

That village comes to life across the nine-track journey of Southern Sky, where Irish roots fuse with Southern soul driven by Dobros, fiddles, and rich storytelling that soar with Appalachian tradition and Southern warmth. Inspired by the textures of the South, the spirit of the album is like Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights, where Appalachian tales intertwine with the deep twang of the South.

Southern Sky features a multitude of musical titans – Vince Gill, Tim O’Brien, Ricky Skaggs, and Sam Bush to name a few – all contributing to the exceptional sound that I strive for. – Danny Burns

“Summer in Siam” – The Pogues

I always loved this tune, growing up listening to the Pogues and having met Shane many moons ago.

“My Old Friend the Blues” – Steve Earle

Steve is one of my favorites. I’ve had the honor to sing with him, open shows with him, and hang on his bus. His songs are epic; this is a great example of that.

“Southern Nights” – Citizen Cope

I first met Clarence Greenwood in New Orleans when I was driving him, Neal Casal, and Jon Graboff (the Cardinals) around while they were playing Tipitina’s. I fell in love with Clarence’s songs and his performances. Another great American artist and songwriter.

“Whenever You Come Around” – Vince Gill

I’m a huge fan of Vince and this track is about as good as it gets. I’ve always admired his songs, his voice, and everything he brings to the table.

“Locals Only” – ERNEST

I first heard this song down in Mexico during the pandemic while hanging out on the beach in Puerto Morelos. It became a bit of an anthem for those days by the water.

“Waiting On You” – Cecilia Castleman

A truly killer talent. Cecilia can play, she can sing, and I’m sure her skills as an engineer and producer are just as strong. This song is fantastic.

“Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground” – Willie Nelson

This has always been one of my go-to lonesome Willie tunes.

“That’s How Every Empire Falls” – John Prine

Epic song written by RB Morris out of Knoxville. I love both versions, but it was John’s take that first introduced me to it.

“The Lucky One” – Alison Krauss & Union Station

What can I say about Alison’s voice– absolutely world-class. Pair that with a world-class band, production, and song and it’s just unbeatable.

“Years” – Sierra Ferrell 

This is pure ear candy. So intriguing and instantly captivating. It feels amazing and sounds incredible. Perfect work!

“Colony” – Damien Dempsey

A heavy hitter in the Irish scene, this track is a prime example of his finest work.

“Settle For A Slowdown” – Dierks Bentley

I really loved this album; it feels like a perfect introduction to where country meets bluegrass with a modern twist.

“Señor” – Tim O’Brien

Love Tim and his take on this epic Bob Dylan song.

“Linger” – Áine Burns

Love Áine’s take on this Cranberries hit – can’t wait to hear more from her before the year’s end.

Photo Credit: Jim Wright

Bluegrass Gospel,
Arena-Style

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

This feature ought to start with a laundry list of our subject’s accomplishments, but rootsy country hitmaker Dierks Bentley’s résumé and inventory of accolades, awards, and trophies would be far too long to include. After 30+ years in Nashville, Bentley has more than made it and his particular brand of country – down-to-earth approachability, bro-ey (while remarkably non-toxic) good-time vibes, honeyed crackling vocals, an unwavering sense of humor, and fierce love for bluegrass virtuosity – has now gained such a strong gravitational pull, it continues to shift Music Row. (For the better, of course.)

In June, Bentley released his eleventh studio album, Broken Branches, and launched an eponymous continent-spanning tour with everybody’s favorite, fellow trad country lover Zach Top, and swampgrass North Georgia duo the Band Loula in tow. Broken Branches features guests like Miranda Lambert, Riley Green, John Anderson, and more and – like all of the albums in his expansive Dierkscography – quite a few string band- and bluegrass-inspired moments, as well.

The Broken Branches Tour, which has been clipped and shared thousands and thousands of times on social media over the past several weeks, includes many hits, striking sets and theatrical tech, cameos from the infamous Hot Country Knights, and, yes, plenty of bluegrass. On the set list, Bentley and Top duet on an incredible “Freeborn Man” – we’re leaving out spoilers here so you can catch the tour’s scant remaining dates yourself and still be delighted. Bentley also performs the title track from his hit bluegrass album, 2010’s Up On The Ridge, and Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills of The Band Loula join him elsewhere in the set for a delicious bit of church.

@thebandloula the broken branches tour is in fulll effectttt 🥹🤧 y’all come see us with @dierksbentley and @Zach Top ♬ original sound – The Band Loula

Singing a Bill Monroe bluegrass gospel number in tight, intricate three-part harmony may seem like an odd choice for a big mainstream country arena show, but longtime fans and listeners of Bentley will know this is no aberration. This is the norm. Whatever the sonics of his music, from the most poppy and radio-ready country to the more Americana-coded to straight-ahead bluegrass, classic rock, and New Orleans grooves (and back again), Bentley brings bluegrass with him everywhere he goes. He brings its pickers, legends, and unsung heroes, too, uplifting them for all to enjoy.

When Mills, Simmons, and Bentley step to the center stage of an enormous auditorium or amphitheater to sing “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray,” depicted behind them on towering LED screens is a little log cabin dive bar with a neon cross steeple and a flickering “open” sign. As they lead the audience in the stark, convicting, hair-raising number – with grit and heart and endless spirit – you realize, yes, this is church. This is gospel. This is country and bluegrass, front porch music and arena music. This is Saturday night and this is Sunday morning.

It’s hard to imagine all of these intricate roots music details not only being palpable in a show of this scale, but they’re also measured, vulnerable, and intimate – traits not known as hallmarks of either country or bluegrass. It’s here that we find exactly the conglomeration of reasons why Bentley retains such widespread appeal and adoration from fans of all entry points. While neither he nor any other artist is universally loved, Dierks Bentley accomplishes being the modern country “everyman” not by diluting himself and his personality beyond recognition, but by purposefully, creatively, hilariously – and spiritually! – putting all of himself on the line in his music.

Before the Broken Branches tour launched earlier this summer, Good Country sat down backstage with Dierks Bentley and the Band Loula during a break from tour rehearsals, after the trio had just run through “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray.” We spoke about what bluegrass means in a country context, the appeal of gospel to folks of any (or no) faith, tent revivals and camp meetings, the joys and vulnerabilities of singing harmony, and much more.

Obviously, Dierks, across your entire career you’ve had a relationship with bluegrass. And not just Up On The Ridge, which we just heard you rehearse a bit of for the Broken Branches Tour. You’ve got records and posters on the wall at the Station Inn here in Nashville, you namecheck Keith Whitley on the new album. You’ve worked with the McCourys over and over, Charlie Worsham, an excellent bluegrass picker, is in your band. There are so many more bluegrass touchpoints. Your bluegrassy CMA Awards show appearance last year was very popular with our audience.

And for y’all, the Band Loula, you call yourself “swampgrass.” The harmonies clearly have the grit and the gospel of bluegrass and the timbre of how your voices blend together reminds me of bluegrass.

It might be an obvious question to ask, but I figured we could go around the circle here and get each of your takes on what does the genre mean to you? What’s your relationship with bluegrass? What does bluegrass mean to you in the constellation of country music that you make now?

Dierks Bentley: When I think about bluegrass, obviously it’s the music and all that, but really it’s just people with acoustic instruments gathering to play and sing together. I never really did a lot of stints on my own, solo. Probably I’m not good enough, but bar gigs where I was just doing cover songs never really interested me. I always liked being in a band. I love the way this instrument talks to that instrument, this voice talks to that voice, and this voice gets added and– “Whoa!”

Like the Osborne Brothers, they’re switching harmonies. Sonny is singing the high tenor, then the next thing you know, he is on like a low baritone part. The voices, the way they move around. That’s the main thing, that’s what drew me in when I walked into the Station. And there were guys my age. I always thought bluegrass was kinda like Hee Haw stuff. I walked in and I was like, “Oh my God, there’s guys my age.”

It was about just playing songs together. And they were doing a lot of Merle Haggard songs, George Jones songs mixed in. Johnny Cash songs mixed in with Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, and all that too. So it was just, “Wow.”

It’s more about the community of people congregating through and with their instruments. And using those to have fun – and drinks as well. [Laughs] Lotsa drinks, a lot of moonshine back then. The real stuff! No label on it.

Not 30 proof. [Laughs]

DB: That’s what it means to me and that’s what I hear in [The Band Loula’s] music, a lot of, if you want to call it, “front porch” picking music. Picking their roots – you know, deep, Southern gospel-y kind of roots, the mixing of that, and those voices together.

That’s what bluegrass has always been to me. It’s about the community as much as it is about the instrumentation and the bands. It’s the great community of people.

(L to R): Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills (of the Band Loula) confer with Dierks Bentley during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.

Logan Simmons: I’ll say something that comes top of mind for me. I spent my whole life going to tent revivals. It’s not just, “I go and it’s summer camp, ’cause somebody made me.” It’s like the pinnacle of who I am.

I really believe that it’s the pillar of my family. We go for about 10 to 15 days every year. It’s beside my nanny’s house, and all it is, red-back hymns and bluegrass. The service happens every night and you go for about an hour and a half before service starts, before preaching starts, to hear bluegrass, gospel bands.

That’s how I learned harmonies, hearing all my godmothers and aunts sing the wrong ones around me. [Laughs] And you’ll hear somebody over there, Linda’s like [sings operatically and off-tune] and she’s not on it at all. But I was at least learning something and I feel like with my roots in general, it already infused that bluegrass sound into my life.

Then when Malachi and I became friends and started making music together. He has a lot of Motown roots. I think, blended together, the blues and bluegrass just made something beautiful. And, on top of that, the family harmony we have together. We’ve been friends forever, half our lives.

Malachi Mills: It all comes back to blues, yeah. And just like you said, that cross-pollination of the different genres. North Georgia is like the southern point of Appalachia. Like she said, it really influences the music we make by our harmonies. That’s the biggest thing we take from it. I love bluegrass music, but I’m not like a bluegrass buff. I would lose at bluegrass trivia. [Laughs] But it’s just in our bones and in the harmonies that she was talking about. Growing up in church and everything influences the way that we sing together and the notes that we pick whenever we’re singing harmonies. One of the biggest things that I love about bluegrass is the rhythm and pocket. And the intonation of the instruments. Bluegrass players choose to be intentional about [all of] it, the pocket, the timing, the tuning. It’s all so dead on. The details matter when you’re making records.

Dierks Bentley and band give Good Country and members of the media an exclusive sneak peek at their Broken Branches Tour set at rehearsals in May 2025 in Nashville. Photo by Zach Belcher.

I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s striking that y’all have this bluegrass song as part of this big, arena-sized stage show. Because for me, translating those details in such a big space and in such a broad format could be really hard.

Then I hear and see y’all singing in three parts with a neon cross behind you and suddenly yes, this is church. This is what it is. Any close-singing harmony vocals are great, but when it really sounds like bluegrass to me is when you can hear the reeds of your voices match up when you’re harmonizing. That was a really beautiful moment.

Could you talk a little bit about capturing those details for a big audience in big rooms like this – or even outside, in amphitheaters. How do you take a Bill Monroe gospel song and translate it to that space?

DB: Well, there’s “Bluegrass” Ben Helson out there walking the hallways. Ben and a couple other guys in the band have played with Ricky Skaggs. Ben played with Ricky and Tim [Sergent] still plays with Ricky. I always say, if you can graduate from the Ricky Skaggs school of bluegrass and country music, you’re probably a pretty good musician. He also played with Rhonda Vincent.

I’m a big Del McCoury fan. They did [“Get Down on Your Knees and Pray”] and Del has such a cool version of it. We were just kinda thinking of songs to do with these guys that would be great using their voices. Like [they] said, they’re the blues and bluegrass. I’m still trying to figure out their sound. It’s such a unique mixture; it’s so Americana in the way that in this country we have this melting pot of stuff. We thought it would be cool to do a little three-part thing, so that one came up.

Marty Stuart also did a really cool version of that song. But Ben [Helson], our guitar player really came up with that [arrangement], leaning into the swampy stuff they do. Gave it that feel, a little Southern – I don’t know what the vibe is there, but that telecaster is playing and it just has a cool kind of dirty, bluesy vibe to it. Then working up the harmonies, there’s just something about hearing a cappella bands.

I remember seeing Billy Strings at a bluegrass festival years ago and the band all stopped – no one knew who he was back then. Bryan Sutton had told me who he was, so I was where he was. He played like a Thursday set in the middle of the day. They had just done three songs and then they stopped and did a four-part harmony thing. There’s just something about it that’s so powerful. It goes straight to your soul.

The oldest version of entertainment there was was probably harmonizing. Finding people, seeing how your voices sound together, it’s a weird, cool thing. Singers talk about it all the time, in any genre of music about how seeing how we sound together is an intimate thing.

It’s vulnerable and it’s immediately establishing that community that you’re talking about. “We may not be a band, but now we’re a thing.”

DB: I feel like I blend well with anybody, because I’m like the condition. I sing it pretty straight here and allow the people around me to really do their stuff. I’m just gonna hold the line. There’s like nothing special about my voice, but it’s good to blend with ’cause other people have these amazing voices. They can do a lot of movement and a lot of great vibrato. I’m like the dumbest Del McCoury School of Bluegrass [student], just find that note and put everything into it. [Laughs]

Not to mention, introducing people to bluegrass as well – I love that. You have a chance to be a bridge to your heroes and that is always fun. People have been that to me, Marty Stuart probably the biggest. You get into Marty Stuart’s music and you find out who he likes, and then, whoa! He brings you back there. So [I hope] this turns somebody onto Bill Monroe. That’s pretty cool.

Dierks Bentley has a quiet moment on stage during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.

Country – a lot like blues, R&B, and the early days of rock and roll – it has this often tempestuous and inspiring relationship between the fun of Saturday night and the conviction of Sunday morning. So seeing y’all sing that song in front of the depiction of a church as a dive bar, complete with a neon cross and a flickering “open” sign – to me that’s “a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man” epitomized. You guys are embodying that relationship between the sacred and the secular here. And that duality is all over your new album, too, Dierks.

MM: I’ll say, I think that one of the biggest things that contributes to that is the goosebump, hair-standing-up-on-your-arm feeling. It’s knowing that you have a part in something and whenever you sing and play bluegrass music together, you have to give way to one another on stage. So it’s the whole stage saying we’re doing this very intentionally in unity, in harmony.

And everybody in the crowd, whether they know that or not, they feel it. That’s what I think people feel. Even if you’re not a believer and maybe the message that’s being said [doesn’t apply], but you still resonate with serving each other. With being present, which is a strong energy. I think that’s what makes me excited about playing this song. I don’t know what’s gonna happen emotionally for me whenever that moment happens, ’cause it’s gonna be so much of that unified energy.

DB: Unified energy is a good way of putting it. It’s unified and it really is energy.

We’re pretty involved with the church. I have an older daughter who’s involved in the church and another middle daughter who doesn’t believe it like I did. But there’s something divine that you just can’t ignore, whether you believe it or not – just look at a sunset, look at a flower, look at a fish, look at so much unnecessary beauty in the world. There’s just some energy that exists and you can’t deny it when you sing a song like this. It just taps [something] on anybody. Recognizing how small you are in this world and the power of whatever version of prayer you do.

LS: I liked how you said it joins secular and holy together and that actually made me think of the tent revival, as well. I think growing up in Appalachia, like Malachi said – I wish I could just teleport you there so you could experience!

DB: That would be cool, a tent revival – I can’t even imagine.

I haven’t been to a camp meeting or revival in so long!

LS: Everybody’s invited to camp meeting. I don’t know if you’d love it. Our tent – I say tent, it’s like a shack on a square, it’s like a big square, four sides. So we’ll say, “Are you on the upper line or the lower line?” We’re on the upper line, which is not a good thing. It’s like you think upper line is like uppity people or something, but it’s not. Our shack is the oldest and [most] untouched of the whole campground. It was built in 1846.

DB: Wow!

LS: So there’s holes in the roof and like, my bunk bed, I get water drops on my head if it rains. There’s hay floors, there’s no air, and there’s a lot of us, so it’s all packed in there. But camp meeting is where I learned my first Bible verses and where I smoked my first joint. [Laughs] So it all marries together how you said, like holy and secular at the same time. I think of that picture of going to the gospel tent revival, going to camp meeting, singing those red-back hymns, doing all those things – but then also learning the grit of growing up.

I just loved when you said joining those things together, because that was such a representation of my upbringing. Yeah, it’s a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man. It’s definitely Saturday nights and Sunday mornings – and the tent revival is where I feel like those two worlds are so evident.

Dierks, in all you’ve done across your career there are all these bluegrass moments. The country that you “grow,” it’s mainstream, it’s radio-ready, but it’s like there’s bluegrass in the “soil” you grow it in, so you can always taste bluegrass in everything you do. Like on the new record, “Never You” with Miranda Lambert feels that way and “For As Long As I Can Remember”–

DB: There’s a little “Circles Around Me” by Sam Bush [reference] there at the top of that song.

Oh my gosh, yeah! Exactly what I’m talking about.

You said a little bit earlier turning people onto your heroes always feels great, but for you, from your own perspective being that guy that used to just hang out at the Station Inn and now being the Dierks Bentley and going on tour in sheds and arenas and amphitheaters… Why do you keep bluegrass with you?

Dierks Bentley: It is selfish in a lot of ways. I have such a great band and I just take so much joy watching them do cool stuff that I can’t do. It’s like our guitar player, Ben, he’s just an unbelievable flat picker. Charlie Worsham’s in our band and Charlie won the CMA Musician of the Year. He is just an incredible musician. Dan [Hochhalter] is an incredible fiddle player. Tim is so underutilized. Our steel guitar player – who plays banjo and everything else – he’s one of the best singers to me. Hearing him is like hearing Merle Haggard. He sings like nobody else, but he’s also so underutilized. And Steve’s been playing with me since 1999.

It’s just a great group and we love bluegrass music, featuring that, and having the music part of the show. I like being in a band setting, so just getting to be around it and hear these instruments swirling around me playing, I think it’s just cool.

I got a chance to play ROMP Festival last year and I feel lucky to be friends with guys like Jerry Douglas and Sierra Hull and have them come up on stage and play with us. I still think bluegrass music is the punk rock of country. It’s just the coolest genre of music there is.

It’s gotta be centering or grounding to a certain degree just to have that as something you can go back to, to feed yourself and fill yourself back up even while you’re touring.

DB: Absolutely. In the show we go from playing Tony Rice to John Michael Montgomery. We play bluegrass with the Hot Country Knights with costumes on. It’s just it’s all very selfish! It’s like, “How can I have a lot of fun in the next 90 minutes?”

I wanna do our radio country. I want people singing songs back, because that’s a great feeling. I want to get a little bluegrass in there. Just see if we get away with that. Then, can we try to get canceled on the way out? [Laughs] I dunno. It’s really fun for me. And having these guys [out with us] and getting to harmonize with them, it’s gonna be really fun. Check back in a few months, see how it turned out.

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All photos by Zach Belcher.

Dierkscography

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In 1994, a not yet 20-year-old Dierks Bentley threw all caution to the wind when he packed up his dorm room at the University of Vermont with hopes to never return. Bentley’s relocation would not only forever change the course of his life – it would go on to catalyze his tremendous impact on roots music at large.

After a trip with his father to Nashville made quite the impression, Bentley decided to complete his college degree at Vanderbilt, dedicating his studies to English (the major most proximal to songwriting). After graduating, Bentley continued to foster both his musical education and career; his day job entailed archiving old country performances at The Nashville Network (in fact, his diligent field work even got him banned temporarily from the Grand Ole Opry), while his evenings were filled with bar gigs and songwriting sessions. After five years of grunt work, 2003 saw Bentley release a self-titled album with Capitol Records. His first single, “What Was I Thinkin’,” made waves on the country charts. Since then, Bentley has been responsible for the release of 20 No. 1 country singles and 10 additional studio albums, the latest of which, Broken Branches, arrived in June.

While Bentley’s career has seen major commercial country success, his deep respect for expansion and immersion has made him a beloved fixture within bluegrass, as well.

Of his instrumental move to Nashville, Bentley has shared, “I moved to Nashville in 1994 – I was trying to find that seed of truth, that authenticity, that thing ‘country music’ that I had in my head. And I got here and it was definitely different than I expected it to be. It’s big business, a lot of money.

“Luckily, for me, I found a little bar called the Station Inn where bluegrass music existed – and I found what I was looking for. Just the sound of a five-piece bluegrass band blew my mind. And they’re not trying to take meetings all the time and meet producers, and get their foot in the door. It’s funny, I moved to Nashville looking for country music, but I found bluegrass.”

Whether it’s his proclivity for cross-genre conversation, songwriting prowess, or patinaed tenor delivery, Dierks has proved himself a mainstay favorite for country, Americana, and bluegrass fans – here at Good Country and BGS, and beyond. In honor of his recent album release and his huge Broken Branches tour with Zach Top and the Band Loula concluding this month, we present you with our Dierkscography, a non-comprehensive compilation of more than 15 songs meant to show off some of our favorite Dierks gems from across genres sampled from the many years of his remarkable career.

“Never You” featuring Miranda Lambert, Broken Branches (2025)

Dierks’s new album, Broken Branches, arrived fresh off the press with a slew of impressive collaborators, from Riley Green to Stephen Wilson Jr. Dierks fondly calls the record a “special” display of “making music in the studio with our buddies.” Country giant and longtime collaborator Miranda Lambert joins Bentley on this banjo-driven track, with the pair’s velvety duet vocals imbuing tenderness and warmth into one of the album’s only love songs.

“High Note” featuring Billy Strings, Gravel & Gold (2023)

This rip-roaring tune off of Bentley’s tenth studio album features a whole handful of bluegrass greats. Not only does Billy’s high tenor soar above Dierks gravelly tones during choruses, his famous flatpicking joins the likes of Sam Bush, Bryan Sutton, and Jerry Douglas for a superjam ending.

Of the collaboration, Dierks recalls, “Bryan Sutton first tipped me off to Billy Strings about seven years ago, mentioning that the future of bluegrass was in good hands. I was totally blown away the first time I saw him. I’ve cut songs like these since my first record, and I knew I wanted to have him on this one, I’m such a huge fan. It was a lot of fun to have him, Jerry, Sam, and Bryan all passing licks around – having them all on this record means a lot to me personally.”

“American Girl” (2024)

Who doesn’t love an Americana “American Girl”? Bentley delivers this country-fied Tom Petty classic alongside some BGS favorites, including Chris Eldridge on guitar and Noam Pikelny on banjo. Dierks reprised the hit single joined by Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Sierra Hull, and Molly Tuttle on stage at the 2024 CMA Awards, bringing down the house.

“For As Long As I Can Remember,” Broken Branches (2025)

The country canon has seen its fair share of heartache, murder, trains, and drinking. Also on his latest release, “For As Long As I Can Remember” shirks these motifs in favor of something a little more wholesome – a warm and adoring ballad dedicated to the strength of enduring familial bond. An ode to his brother and father, Dierks reminds that respect and love can be country, too.

“Train Travelin’,” Dierks Bentley (2003)

With many of his nascent Nashville days edified by nights at the Station Inn and in the surrounding bluegrass scene, iconic bluegrass family the McCourys quickly became repeat collaborators for Dierks. Their features pepper many of his earlier albums, dating all the way back to his debut self-titled release in 2003. “Train Travelin’” would become the first of many, with other gems such as Good Man Like Me (Modern Day Drifter, 2005) and Last Call featuring Ronnie McCoury (Feel That Fire, 2009) dotting the road to Bentley’s eventual bluegrass-centric album, Up On The Ridge.

“Up On The Ridge,” Up On The Ridge (2010)

The titular track off of Bentley’s bluegrass-inspired album is thrumming with energy, both quickly-paced and haunting with its descending melodic hook. Up On The Ridge was Bentley’s fifth studio album, featuring a star-studded list of bluegrass collaborators including Alison Krauss, Punch Brothers, Chris Stapleton, Tim O’Brien, Sam Bush, and beyond. Del McCoury even joins forces with Bentley and Punch Brothers to deliver a deliciously grassified cover of U2’s “Pride (in the Name of Love)” further evidencing the album as a culmination of both tradition and innovation.

“Freeborn Man,” (Live, 2025)

Another of our favorite timeless covers, Dierks has been adorning his Broken Branches Tour this summer with his vigorous take on “Freeborn Man.” This rendition includes a fiery feature by Zach Top, nearly toppling the stage with talent.

“Hoedown for My Lowdown Rowdy Ways” featuring Dierks Bentley, Lowdown Hoedown (Jason Carter, 2022)

With Jason Carter fiddling his heart out on Dierks’ records since 2003, it’s of course a polite roots custom for Dierks to return the favor. Released as part of Carter’s second solo album, Lowdown Hoedown, “Hoedown for My Lowdown Rowdy Ways” has Dierks singing harmony and strumming away on the bluesy breakdown. Lowdown Hoedown also features a tender Jamie Hartford number, “Good Things Happen,” that Dierks Bentley covered on his 2005 album Modern Day Drifter, yet another frame of conversation between the two artists.

“Prodigal Son’s Prayer” featuring The Grascals, Long Trip Alone (2006)

This acoustic tune features the bluegrass sensibilities of the Grascals, a long-running group lauded for their instrumental prowess. The song loosely follows the parable of the prodigal son, ultimately centering themes of repair and reconciliation. The song also features the stomps and hums of incarcerated individuals from Charles Bass Correctional Complex, who had been in Bentley’s producer’s Bible studies course at the time.

“Free and Easy (Down The Road I Go),” Long Trip Alone (2006)

From the same release, this breezy banger remains a hallmark of Bentley’s career, even after nearly two decades since it dropped. The fifth of his singles to top Billboard’s Hot Country charts, “Free and Easy (Down The Road I Go)” lures in listeners with its fast-paced country twang and life-affirming sentiment.

“Beautiful World” featuring Patty Griffin, Feel That Fire (2009)

No stranger to incredible collaborators, Dierks Bentley asked iconic folk and country singer-songwriter Patty Griffin to accompany him on this track, gushing, “Her voice is one of a kind and she’s such an important figure in the American music scene… She’s just amazing. And so I asked her.”

The result is a tender homage to the beauties of the world, largely inspired by his wife, who was pregnant with their daughter at the time of the song’s conception. “You hear people sometimes say, ‘Man, I can’t imagine bringing a child into this world. It’s so bad.’ That’s just such a negative outlook,” Dierks says. “You cannot live your life with that viewpoint of the world. Yes, there are a lot of things that are wrong, but it is a beautiful world, and you need to find the positive in it.”

“Heart of a Lonely Girl,” Home (2012)

From Bentley’s sixth studio album, Home, comes this spirited, emotionally deep number. The narrative song was penned by the infinitely talented Charlie Worsham, who would go on to join Bentley’s touring band a decade later – and you can currently see him on stage each night during the Broken Branches tour.

“Trip Around the Sun,” featuring Dierks Bentley, I Built a World (Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, 2024)

Fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes first connected with Bentley through Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, the popular bluegrass group that opened for him several times on tour. She’s also married to Jason Carter, so Dierks wasn’t just a professional collaborator, but a member of her personal Nashville network, as well. It’s no surprise, then, that she’d end up on stage with him at the CMA Awards and, in the same year, he would guest on her acclaimed and GRAMMY Award-nominated album, I Built a World.

“Mardi Gras” featuring Trombone Shorty, Black (2016)

Soaked in Louisiana charm, this tune was inspired by Dierk’s 2015 galavant on a Mardi Gras parade float. Featuring the indelible hornsmanship of Trombone Shorty, the track grooves along with bluesy undertones. “Getting Trombone Shorty to do his thing on it, what a great guy. I love working with him. He is so laid-back and so good at what he does,” Bentley boasts of his collaborator.

“Travelin’ Light” featuring Brandi Carlile, The Mountain (2018)

Featuring the powerhouse vocals of Americana giant Brandi Carlile, this tune appears on Bentley’s 2018 album, The Mountain. The collaboration between the two icons came to fruition after Bentley saw Brandi perform at Telluride Bluegrass Festival, inspiring him to approach her about dueting on the track.

“Sun Sets in Colorado,” Gravel & Gold (2023)

Written reflecting his pandemic move to Colorado (though he has since returned to Nashville), Bentley released this tune on Gravel & Gold. The song shouts out New Grass Revival and Telluride in a verse: “Sing an old new grass song with me/ Telluride along with me,” while also featuring New Grass Revival founding member Sam Bush on mandolin. Bryan Sutton also joins in on the studio recording, yet another sparkling collab with bluegrass greats.

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Photo Credit: Robby Klein

Ketch Secor
Contains Multitudes, Too

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After a quarter century fronting the frenetic bluegrass and jug band outfit Old Crow Medicine Show, Ketch Secor is finally breaking out on his own with his solo debut Story The Crow Told Me. The retrospective record looks back on the past few decades, from his own journey to stardom spurred by a chance encounter with Doc Watson to the certified platinum hit “Wagon Wheel,” through the lens of a soundtrack that’s equal parts bluegrass and contemporary country.

“Because the band [recently] celebrated 25 years, I was already in the mindset of a retrospective look,” Secor tells BGS. “I was thinking about everything that’s happened and transpired over that time and started writing about it. In fact, at first I really thought it was going to be a spoken word record before the music eventually took over.”

Talking over the phone, Secor spoke about the timing for his debut project, its connections to both Old Crow and contemporaries like Dierks Bentley, becoming the new host of Tennessee Crossroads on Nashville PBS, and more.

You mentioned this album was initially envisioned as a spoken word compilation. What led to its transformation into a fully realized album?

Ketch Secor: I was working with Jody Stevens. We had written a couple songs that were largely based around spoken word and others we were looking to add background sounds on. Those sounds started getting more and more like what I already do, which is writing songs with choruses and verses and hooks. It just evolved out of the beat poetry version of the album, which was probably a little less listenable but closer to what I was striving for. The musicality of it is a bit of a compromise to be like “Well, I’m going to make this an actual record people might want to listen to” because the spoken word records I enjoy are not highly listened to.

I recently was trying to find them again since my record collection got lost in the 2010 floods we had in Nashville. I went on Spotify, which I’d never used before, to find all these songs in my head like Amiri Baraka’s “It’s Nation Time” or Moondog – a 1950’s renegade beat poet from New York – in trying to get an understanding of how the spoken word music I heard as a kid was being utilized today. It quickly became clear that nobody listens to that stuff anymore. [Laughs] So it seemed like making it musical would make it more fun for people.

It seems a bit ironic that you had to look up all these songs – many of which would be considered part of the Great American Songbook – on a digital streaming platform like Spotify. Talk about two very different worlds colliding!

I talk a little bit about that phenomenon on the song “Junkin’.” A lot of the experience of making music with Old Crow, especially in the beginning when we were still developing a canon, was about music’s physical form. When the band first started the internet was still new and we were still selling cassettes. The last time I made a solo record was on tape, the band didn’t have a website and none of us even used email when all of this started. It meant that searching for the physical was really important.

There’s another song on the album called “Thanks Again” that highlights the personal relationships that you develop out on the road – these chance encounters that are very much real and put the wind in your sails. There’s something to be said about having to come of age in a time when information was so tactile and often involved a human touch.

With the emergence of the internet and things like streaming and social media it really is an entirely different world for artists to navigate nowadays.

I realized that I had a kind of time capsule in my mind I had yet to crack open in the days before going in to make this record, which was done quickly and often with me writing the songs as we were recording them. Opening it up was really cathartic and essential for me to process and move past because the experience of coming to Nashville when we did and the kind of band we were in was, at times, slightly traumatic. It was a very intense quest similar to a military deployment, being a minor league ball player fighting your way through the ranks or even being a teenage whaler in Moby Dick. You end up leaving everything else behind in search of this one pursuit.

It’s not unique to come to Nashville to make it big, but what made our experience unique was that we were trying to do it with these traditional sounds in an era in which technological changes were happening as we were doing it. It was almost like we were going against the literal tide with our choices and artistic motivation.

You just mentioned writing these songs as you were recording them. Is that something you’d done before?

That was a very new way of going about things. I understand that record-making has changed a lot since we first started – our most popular Old Crow records that gave us a career were the early ones we made with Dave Rawlings on analog tape that we cut with a razor blade. Making a record the way Gillian [Welch] and Dave do is very studious, labor and time-intensive. But now the technology exists to do it super fast.

This record almost felt like a throwback to the seminal recordings of the 1920s and ‘30s that are the headwaters of our sound. Those records were made in three minutes oftentimes without knowing what the arrangements would be. Three minutes wasn’t the time frame of hillbilly music until the record company said it was – they just sat there, watched the light turn on and played. Writing a song and building a track like that actually felt really on par with what it would have been like going to Camden, New Jersey, in 1928 on a train when you’d never left your county before that. The challenge is keeping one foot in the past and one in the present. When you play fiddles and banjos and blow harmonica for a living the instrument kind of does it for you.

You name dropped Jody Stevens a few minutes ago. How’d y’all come together and what was it like working with him?

We met through my publishing company. I was going to do a co-write with him and knew he’d written a lot of songs for contemporary country artists, so I brought my bag of tricks that I bring out when I try to pretend I’m going to write the next big, top 10 country smash, except for this one time with Darius [Rucker]. I love country music even though I feel that in the past 25 years I have a whole lot less in common with it than I did when I was a kid, in terms of what it sounds like today in its mainstream output versus when I was singing along to Jo Dee Messina when I was 19. It was interesting to circle the wagons with Jody because he brought such a unique perspective in record making that comes from contemporary country music even though his roots are in hip-hop.

The other thing that brought us together was that Jody had seen Old Crow a lot, especially in our early days from 2000-2005, which is the sweet spot I try to explore on this record. He’d been there at the Station Inn and the festival Lightning 100 used to do downtown and some of these other places that have since been replaced by high rises. The fact that he had been a first-account witness to the band was really helpful to bounce ideas off of. His sister was also a big Old Crow fan and even though I’ve never met her I thought about her as my target demographic – someone who saw us back in 2001 and wanted to know what that time capsule looked like.

The fact that Jody had done all this work with people that rapped – only to find that 25 years later the tapes and demos he’d made with Jelly Roll were now part of a pop culture consciousness that hadn’t been there when he first started working on them – gave him a similar orientation to country music that I have about Americana. When I got started there was nothing called Americana and nobody lived outside of contemporary country music unless you were alt-country. Coming into this period of time in Nashville where it wasn’t yet determined that anyone with a banjo could make it that wasn’t bluegrass is another place where Jody and I shared commonality. The rap game has since become a massive component to contemporary country music similar to how Americana has become the tastemaker for anything roots-related.

In terms of the sound on this record, the way you move between more Old Crow-esque bluegrass and those pop country flavors reminds me a lot of Dierks Bentley, another person who excels at showcasing the best of both sides of roots music.

I came up with Dierks and remember witnessing his arrival. Before [“What Was I Thinkin’”] came out there was an issue of CMA Up Close that had a story about us on the page opposite one about Dierks and I thought to myself, “Well, if a guy named Dierks Bentley can make it, then probably a guy named Ketch Secor can, too.” Surely Nashville has the appetite for two oddly-named boys. [Laughs] Then I went on and took a moniker that wasn’t my name. Because of that I feel very much like a brand-new artist now and have developed a strong sense of empathy for the young guns who are out there trying to put their stuff out for the first time, because it’s so much harder now than when I was a kid.

What are some of those major hurdles you’ve noticed for new artists today compared to what you first encountered with Old Crow?

Now the way you stand out in a crowd is through visual means that often require the least amount of artistic acumen and the most amount of social media acumen. So far, I’m not sure it’s helping the cream rise to the top, though. The skill set should be how good can you pick a banjo, not how good can you pick the keypad on your iPhone, even though you have to do both to be successful today. When I was a kid it was about making these connections with people, knocking on doors so many times that every time something good came to me [it did] on account of me showing up and being in the right place at the right time.

Seeking a viral moment has an undue effect of potentially limiting the number of new entrants into the arena. For one generation, what was once divinized is now digitized. I’m sure that if there’s a God above that He or She can use the binary code to reach people and connect their children. I can pick up The New York Times and feel like there’s a closeness with the loss in Texas right now, which is only amplified by me having swam in the Guadalupe before and having a personal connection to the area. If you’ve plunged in the waters yourself then you’ll share something so much more vital with those who are experiencing the loss.

It’s really a metaphor for how we all have a shot at playing the Grand Ole Opry or going from the Station Inn to the Ryman like I did. There’s a turnstile in front of that and I want to see it spinning wide so that artists of all stripes can find their way up to that stage where they belong. As a steward of those stages, I want to see the people show up who have found music as the great connector that, regardless of the speed of the computer in your pocket, the speed of music breaks all other forms of sonic barriers.

In terms of personnel, what motivated you to bring in past and present Old Crow members like Willie Watson, Critter Fuqua, and Morgan Jahnig to record these songs with?

I really wanted to have all the past members of Old Crow on the record, because it felt like a bit of an offering to the gods to say “thanks.” So I really wanted a little bit of all their spirits on it. Not only that, but I read through a lot of old journals and called up some people I’d met hitchhiking, but hadn’t talked to in 25 years. I went and visited the guy who coined the term “Wagon Wheel,” because that song was always called “Rock Me Mama” until I met James Sizemore – a wonderful rascal and drug-dealing Vietnam vet.

I went to see him on his deathbed and recorded phone conversations late at night with old friends. While none of that stuff is necessarily on the record in its physical form, it all went into the process of trying to bake something that really felt like I was living in the past and bringing it to the present through these songs. I think a lot about cairn stones that the Inuit people up north call inuksuit, which are like sign posts that tell you where to turn, but they’re also spiritual. So imagine a road sign that could say “300 miles to Memphis,” but also told you the ancestral route of the settlers who first brought buffalo down 7,000 years ago, sort of like the duality of a time signature.

That duality of time reminds me of one of the album’s songs, “What Nashville Was,” which highlights how much Nashville has changed over the decades while also highlighting how no matter how many venues are replaced with condos, music will always be the city’s heartbeat.

A lot about the way Bob [Dylan’s] record Nashville Skyline had a way of pointing out Nashville for the first time to anyone who didn’t live in the South or listen to country music. He was really pointing to Nashville from a unique perspective and certainly Bob Dylan’s Nashville was the kind of Nashville that I was looking for when I first started playing on the street corner there in 1996.

Similarly, I was also looking for Dolly Parton’s Nashville. I wanted the Nashville that Dolly got when she stepped out of the pickup truck and married the first guy that honked his horn at her, the kind of Nashville where Willie Nelson was laying down in the street in front of Tootsie’s thinking he’s gonna kill himself because nobody wants his songs.

I used “Girl From The North Country” as the template for a love letter to a changing place and a cityscape that has gone on to do so much stuff that it itself is largely oblivious to the price it pays for its constant reinvention. And the price is that who we’re ushering in … is probably because you were on a reality TV show more consistently than because you had a song that people couldn’t stop singing at summer camps. Not that those things are good or bad, they just change. But we’re at a point now where the legend and lore of Nashville has grown so much that we’re at risk of the bubble bursting and it being something like Seattle after grunge or Austin after it wasn’t weird anymore – which is a glass, monolithic, industry executive business center. Oftentimes those forces stand in opposition to the ability of songwriters, hucksters, showmen, and the survival spirit that goes into creating the next Bob Dylan of a generation. I’m hoping that we, the architects of Nashville, can endeavor to build a place that still allows a hearty hero or heroine to come through the gates just like Loretta Lynn or Jack White did.

You were recently named the new host of Tennessee Crossroads on Nashville Public Television. How’d that opportunity come about and what’s it mean to you?

When PBS called me about this unique role that had come available with the sudden and sad loss of Joe [Elmore] – who ran the show for 30 or so years – it only made sense to find someone else to step in who’s also run a business for around 30 years that’s similar to Tennessee Crossroads. Old Crow Medicine Show has been criss-crossing the American south getting inspired by quilters, gee-haw whimmy diddles, carvers, and folks that plant by the lunar signs – those are the kind of folk heroes that go into our music. They’re also the same kind of stories that this show loves to tell.

I love public broadcasting and care a lot about access to it in this country. I made my television debut on our local PBS affiliate up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia when I was in fifth grade. I fell in love with my own backyard because Ken Burns showed me what was so rich about it and so frightening and tragic, which was the bones of the Union and Confederate armies right here, just past the fence. Ken Burns really illuminated that for me and ever since I’ve been the biggest fan of public broadcasting.

What has the process of bringing this record to life taught you about yourself?

I was born about 35 miles outside the birthplace of Walt Whitman and always wondered why I like the guy so much. Then I recently rode my bicycle there and thought, “God, this guy’s place is really popular!” There were people sleeping on a stoop and waiting for a free sandwich in the parking lot. And it turns out where Walt Whitman used to live is like the center of the drug-addled corpse that is parts of Camden, New Jersey. It looks a bit like the Dickerson Road corridor, at least as it was in about 1999.

I feel like Walt really said it best when he said he contains multitudes on “Song Of Myself, 51.” I feel as a picker of banjos and fiddles and guitars and dulcimers and auto harps; and a blower of jugs and juice harps and harmonicas; and a singer of ballads and lamentations pretty songs; and [an attender of] corn shuckins, frolics, and cotillions, that I am like you, a container of multitudes.

Photo Credit: Jody Stevens

Opry 100: A Live Celebration

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

If you missed the Grand Ole Opry’s no-holds-barred 100th birthday party and live television broadcast extravaganza on NBC, we’ve got your recap right here on BGS.

Hosted by Blake Shelton at the historic Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee, Opry 100 included performances by artists like Vince Gill, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Lainey Wilson, Brad Paisley, Ashley McBryde, Reba McEntire, Dierks Bentley, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, and many more. The primetime broadcast and streaming concert is just one event among an incredible, chocked-full effort by the Opry to celebrate their centennial – officially November 28, 2025 – throughout the entire calendar year.

Over the two-hour broadcast, there were dozens of show-stopping moments, from the brash, bold, and sensational to tender, intimate, and heart-wrenching performances. Good country of all varieties was on display from a wide array of artists at all levels of notoriety.

The War and Treaty sang alongside Steven Curtis Chapman and Amy Grant; Vince Gill reunited with his old pals Jeff Taylor and Ricky Skaggs; Ashley McBryde brought the house down alongside superstar country newcomer Post Malone and elsewhere in the show, ’90s stalwart Terri Clark; Lainey Wilson shared the stage with country picker and renaissance man Marty Stuart; husband-and-wife Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks were on hand; and Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss reunited for their 2003 smash hit duet, “Whiskey Lullaby.”

The show wrapped with a stunning full cast tribute to Dolly Parton, who greeted the Opry House audience via video and gave her sincere regrets for not being able to appear at the event. (Parton’s husband of 58 years, Carl Dean, recently passed away.) Dozens of the evening’s star artists took to the stage to pay tribute to Parton by singing her most famous hit, “I Will Always Love You,” a perfect, soaring sing along to close the momentous show.

There are truly too many once in a lifetime collaborations, songs, moments, and performances from Opry 100 to list, but we’ve collected a few of our favorite moments so you can relive this once-in-a-lifetime – or once-in-a-century – show! Get your fix by traveling through a few of our own favorite moments from Opry 100: A Live Celebration below.

Blake Shelton Hosts

Country superstar, award winner, and television personality Blake Shelton was a more than qualified host for Opry 100: A Live Celebration. Of course, he also gave a rousing performance of Joe Diffie’s “Pickup Man” to the delight of everyone in the crowd who find somethin’ they like in a pickup man. It wouldn’t be a celebration of country or the Opry without a truck mention.

Nashville’s Own, the McCrary Sisters

Nashville’s favorite, in-demand singing siblings, the McCrary Sisters were on hand for Opry 100, too. It’s certainly not their first time on the hallowed Opry stage, but in the centennial context their appearance reminds of the legacies of similar groups who blazed trails at the Opry before them – like the Pointer Sisters – and those who’ve followed in their footsteps, like the Shindellas and Chapel Hart.

Steven Curtis Chapman and the War and Treaty Share a Sacred Moment

Grand Ole Opry member and contemporary Christian singer-songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman was joined by Americana/soul/country duo the War and Treaty for his performance on Opry 100.

Lainey Wilson and Hall of Famer Marty Stuart Duet

One of the biggest names in country at the moment, former GC and BGS

Artist of the Month Lainey Wilson was joined by bluegrasser, fiery picker, and Country Music Hall of Famer Marty Stuart backing her up on mandolin. They perform “Things a Man Oughta Know” from her huge 2021 album, Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’, which many regard as her breakout release.

Ashley McBryde with Post Malone and Terri Clark

Ashley McBryde had multiple stellar moments during Opry 100, including these two prime duo performances. One with ’90s country star Terri Clark and another with a superstar newcomer to the genre, Post Malone. Her song selection with Postie was impeccable, too, taking the Opry 100 down to “Jackson” to mess around.

Trisha Yearwood with Garth Brooks and Reba McEntire

Country has boasted many amazing artist couples, but who better to take the Opry 100 stage than Trisha and Garth? Trisha also appeared with Reba McEntire to perform “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” a track that has been a huge generation-spanning hit for McEntire.

Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss Reunite

An iconoclastic example of a tear-jerker country story song, Paisley and Krauss’s recording of “Whiskey Lullaby” was released in the 2000s, but has had immense staying power. It shines from the Opry 100 stage in its simple and stripped-down styling. Is anyone a better duet partner and harmonizer than Alison Krauss? Perhaps not. Certainly a highlight among all of the many highlights of the broadcast

Alison Krauss & Union Station Perform, Too

On the precipice of their first album release in over 14 years, Alison Krauss also brought her band Union Station – including newest member,

Russell Moore – to the Opry 100 stage. Introduced by the Queen of Bluegrass, Rhonda Vincent, AKUS performed a hit from a prior era, “Let Me Touch You for Awhile” off 2001’s New Favorite. Their brand new project, Arcadia, releases March 28.

Country Music Hall of Fame Inductee, Vince Gill

It wouldn’t have been a complete lineup for Opry 100 without Vince Gill! The Country Music Hall of Famer was joined by his old friends Jeff Taylor on accordion, Sonya Isaacs, and fellow inductee Ricky Skaggs, to sing perhaps his most famous song, “Go Rest High on that Mountain.” An impactful and inspiring number, the original has been a comfort to thousands of fans and listeners experiencing their own losses and grief. Of his deep-and-wide catalog of music, there’s not a better choice for an evening like Opry 100.

Ketch, Dierks, and Jamey

An Opry member trifecta, Dierks Bentley, Jamey Johnson, and old-time and bluegrass fiddler Ketch Secor (of Old Crow Medicine Show) paid tribute to the Charlie Daniels Band with a perfectly honky-tonkin’ medley of “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye” and, of course, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” From the sidewalks of Lower Broadway to the Grand Ole Opry stage, Charlie Daniel’s impact on country is indelible.

Luke Combs’ Mother Church Moment

From the hallowed stage of the Ryman Auditorium, the most famous former home of the Grand Ole Opry, one of the most popular singers in all of country, Luke Combs, performed George Jones’ “The Grand Tour,” as well as “Hurricane,” for Opry 100. With more than 800 million streams (on Spotify alone), “Hurricane” is one of his biggest hits from his 2017 album, This One’s For You, which has been certified double platinum by RIAA.

This long list of our favorite Opry 100 moments is still, somehow, merely the tip of the country iceberg. Stay tuned as the Grand Ole Opry continues their 100th birthday celebration all year long.

All photos courtesy of the Grand Ole Opry; credit Getty/Jason Kempin.

Lead image: Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss perform “Whiskey Lullaby” live at Opry 100.

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Brendon Anthony & Jon Randall on Only Vans with Bri Bagwell

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

This is one of the more serious – and important – conversations I’ve had so far on Only Vans and I was lucky enough to get to have it with two good friends. Brendon Anthony is the newly named VP of Big Loud Texas and a brilliant fiddler. Jon Randall is a hit songwriter, producer, and co-founder of Big Loud Texas. We talk about things like the Texas music scene, the politics of live music, product versus legacy, and the impact of AI.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

Here is another Only Vans recording in front of a live audience at MusicFest at Steamboat in Colorado. Thank you so much to John Dickson and everyone at MusicFest for making this happen!

Today I am joined by two amazing human beings that I’ve known for over a decade (and a half…?), Brendon Anthony and Jon Randall. Brendon Anthony has recently been named the Vice President of Big Loud Texas, which is a record label that was founded by Randall and Miranda Lambert. It is a branch of the Big Loud record label that has artists such as Lambert, Hardy, and Hailey Whitters to name a few. Before that, Brendon was the director of the Texas Music Office and was instrumental in the creation of BMI Texas and the Texas Music Incubator rebate program, which supports music venues in Texas with over $20 million in tax rebates. We talk about a lot of other great things Brendon has done for Texas music and music-friendly communities, and even I was fascinated by it and learned something new. You can also find him playing fiddle on stages with people like Pat Green!

Jon Randall, co-founder of Big Loud Texas, has some hits you may know as a songwriter, including “Whiskey Lullaby,” “Tin Man,” and many of your favorite new Hold My Beer Volume II tracks by Wade Bowen and Randy Rogers. His producer credits are equally impressive: Dierks Bentley, Parker McCollum, Miranda, Jack Ingram, Pat Green – you get the picture.

These two guests are funny, down-to-earth, approachable, and they truly care about art in the midst of a time I’ve been referring to as “The Wild West” of music. When Jon also called it “the Wild West,” I almost fell off my chair with validation. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this episode!

Thank you so much again to Jon and Brendon and to Dirt Trail Entertainment for sponsoring these very special and very cold MusicFest episodes. Thanks to our show sponsors, Hand Drawn Pressing & CH Lonestar Promo, too!

Find our Only Vans episode archive here.

Dierks Bentley Shines with Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on CMA Awards

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

A big night for country music ended up being a big night for bluegrass as well when Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes joined country star Dierks Bentley on the CMA Awards stage for a show-stopping performance. The quartet, backed by Bentley’s band (including the evening’s winner of Musician of the Year, Charlie Worsham) played a rousing rendition of Tom Petty’s “American Girl,” a huge single for Bentley this year from the compilation album, Petty Country.

Bentley has released plenty of ‘grassy and string band tracks across his career, especially on his 2010 album Up on the Ridge, and he is close friends with many bluegrass musicians and legends. He used to haunt the World Famous Station Inn in Nashville well before his fame and recognition – and well after, too. He’s even gifted commemorative hit records to the bar (which still hang on the walls today) and he’s appeared at the divey listening room dozens of times. He’s also a friend of the McCoury family and has collaborated with Del and sons on multiple occasions. In addition, he’s brought Tuttle and her band Golden Highway out on the road as an opening act repeatedly, and he guested on Keith-Hynes’ now GRAMMY-nominated album, I Built a World.

Tuttle even shared an image to social media from a past MerleFest where Bentley can be seen braving the North Carolina rain to catch her band’s mainstage set in the very front row of the VIP section. It’s no surprise that he would tap Hull, Tuttle, and Keith-Hynes for the CMA Awards, even if the context feels a bit out-of-left-field for diehard bluegrassers.

“American Girl” was truly a highlight of the star-studded awards show, which despite more than a few perceived flubs and snubs highlighted plenty of Good Country, Americana, roots music – and yes, bluegrass! Here’s to plenty more primetime television moments in the future highlighting incredible bluegrass pickers such as these.