Tag: Good Country

When Harmonies Run Deep: An Essential Roots Music Tradition

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Since Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent began singing together as Dailey & Vincent in 2007, they have awed fans in many ways: through their musicality, their sincerity, and their professionalism. But most of all, it’s about their duet singing.

It’s the way their voices blend and weave, so closely it can be hard to distinguish one from another. It’s the way their so-tight harmonies set up a vibration that makes the world tilt a little bit when they reach the high notes. It’s the way we sigh after they stop singing, because all’s right with the world.

Although they aren’t related, Dailey & Vincent do the bluegrass phenomenon of a “brother duet” like nobody’s business. They capture the familial force that Grammy-winning bluegrass artist Laurie Lewis describes as delightfully “making the hair on our arms and legs stand up.”

With Dailey & Vincent as our Artist of the Month, we thought we would peek into the history and tradition of brother duets and other harmony-driven duos that led to this great contemporary partnership.

Two Brothers and Two Instruments

For bluegrass journalist, songwriter, performer, and teacher Jon Weisberger, the term “brother duet” refers to something very specific: “A brother duet is basically a guitar and a mandolin and two guys, and they could be brothers, like the Monroe Brothers or the Blue Sky Boys [Bill and Earl Bolick] or even the Delmore Brothers.”

But many of the early duos later added more musicians. “They became something else, in this sort of organic process … because they wanted to have a fuller sound and they wanted to be competitive on the radio…”

“This brother duet thing existed before bluegrass,” Weisberger continues, “and then it became part of bluegrass. Such that modern folks like Michael Daves and Chris Thile … are doing a lot of the original-style singing, with just two instruments. It says something about the vitality and the attractiveness of that style.”

Weisberger notes that Dailey & Vincent recorded Gillian Welch’s “By the Mark” with just their voices, a guitar, and a mandolin. There are many other similar examples in country, old-time, and other folk formats, but the style is still beloved – and common, thankfully! – in bluegrass today.

Brothers in Tone and Timing

For many, a brother duet has to do with the spine-tingling effect of very tight harmonies, in which every note matches up in every way. Laurie Lewis, who has taught harmony singing extensively and is known for her many duet recordings and performances, talks about it this way.

“It’s easy for brother duets or sisters to blend, because they grew up pronouncing all their words the same way, because they’re from the same place and the same family,” Lewis explains. “So, they’ve got a big leg up that way.

“The shape of a vowel is the most important thing to get right when you’re trying to blend with somebody. And consonants, you know, when you start or end the note. It’s placement, as well – where you place the tone: is it forward in your face? Is it back in your throat, or somewhere in between?”

Members of family bands and sibling duets often have the same vocal timbre – “high and lonesome,” in some cases, or deeper and more mellow in others. But, Lewis said, the brother effect can work even with singers whose voices have different qualities.

“Take Carter and Ralph Stanley, who sang so beautifully together and had really different voices. Carter’s was smooth,” she points out, while Ralph always had that rougher mountain quality.

Insights From Singing Brothers

Eric Gibson remembers when he and his brother Leigh first got the harmony buzz as teenagers. “We were working in the calf barn and I’d been listening to Jim & Jesse sing ‘Are You Missing Me?’ … I started singing it, and Leigh was maybe 10 or 15 feet away from me, when he hits the tenor. And I looked at him, and I just felt it, like, ‘What did we just do?’”

The Gibson Brothers have won national awards for vocal recordings, for songwriting, and for gospel albums. They both love using a horse racing analogy to achieve the brother duet sound. Leigh notes that in many duets and other harmony forms, the lead singer is out front, in volume and style. In contrast, Eric quotes Tim Austin as saying, “Your brother duet is like two racehorses. There’s not a lead horse out there with the harmony back here. They’re both fighting for position.”

Like horse racing, it takes discipline, and keeping the harmonies tight. “You have to stay on the straight and narrow.” The tenor singer has to follow the lead singer, and neither can add too much individual style.

Leigh adds, “You have to give some of yourself. If I wanted to throw our vocal thing into chaos, I’d start singing for myself rather than for the two of us.”

“It’s about really listening and even watching your duet partner,” he says, “how they’re shaping words, how they’re closing off a vocal sound, if it’s happening quickly or it’s a slow close off of that vowel sound.

“Listen and pay attention. I think that’s the best advice I could give anybody.”

Brothers by Birth

For a beautiful collection of brother duets drawn from some of the best and least-known brothers, visit the Gibsons Brothers’ 2015 album, Brotherhood. The liner notes are an engaging mini-history of brother harmonies.

Here are just a few of the other brothers who set the stage for the duets we hear today – and popularized or debuted many of the songs we still sing and love.

The Monroe Brothers

Let’s start with the Monroe Brothers. Bill, the father of bluegrass, began performing with his brothers Birch and Charlie (the uncles of bluegrass?) in the 1920s. Birch left the group when the other two accepted an offer to host their own radio show. The very popular partnership of Charlie on guitar and Bill on mandolin only lasted four years, because they both wanted to be the boss. Charlie continued assembling bands with musicians like Lester Flatt, Ira Louvin, and Curly Seckler. As for Bill, he launched a new genre of music that bears the name of his home state and his band, the Blue Grass Boys.

The Delmore Brothers

Alton and Rabon, the Delmore Brothers, grew up in a tenant farming family in Alabama. Grounded in church music, the Delmores distinguished themselves with their versatile songwriting, leading to membership in the Grand Ole Opry in 1933, extensive touring with Arthur Fiddlin’ Smith, and later with Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis. They are acknowledged as pioneers across country, bluegrass, and rockabilly circles. Songs like “Blues, Stay Away From Me” and “Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar” remain standard bluegrass fare. Alton’s autobiography, Truth is Stranger Than Publicity, is a hoot and a half.

Blue Sky Boys

Bill and Earl Bolick first appeared on radio in 1935, when still in their early 20s. They later chose the name the Blue Sky Boys after Western North Carolina, Land of the Blue Skies. Steeped in gospel, their first recording, “Sunny Side of Life”/”Where the Soul Never Dies,” was such a big hit they earned the name “the New Hillbilly Kings.” They recorded 100 songs, both religious and secular, before joining the service. After the war they found they disliked newer music trends and they stopped playing entirely for a time when their label asked them to add electric guitar. The brothers played on and off, particularly at folk venues, until the late ’60s. Rounder Records pulled them out of retirement in 1975 for a bluegrass and folk tour.

The Lilly Brothers

Bea and Everett Lilly, the Lilly Brothers, performed on mandolin and guitar, influenced by the mountain music they heard in their home state of West Virginia. Their first local radio appearance was in 1938, and they later earned a spot on the venerated WWVA Jamboree. With Tex Logan and Don Stover – a configuration that would last 18 years – they moved to Boston, where they were welcomed in the folk scene. They are credited with bringing bluegrass to the Northeast, influencing musicians like Peter Rowan and Bill Keith. In Country Music: The Rough Guide, author Kurt Wolff quoted Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee Joe Val as saying, “Those guys hit on like a bombshell. Nobody’d ever heard anything like that before.”

The Louvin Brothers

For many, the Louvin Brothers set the standard for brother duets. They began their duet career in the 1940s, continuing until 1963, when Charlie broke off from Ira for a solo career. Their harmonies were stunning, influenced by the shape note singing they grew up with, and their prolific writing and recordings left us with so many of the songs commonly heard in today’s bluegrass world. Their old-time religion permeated their work, as well as the life of the tormented Ira, who professed devotion while battling his demons. Emmylou Harris said, “There was something scary and washed in the blood about the sound of the Louvin Brothers.” The cover of their album Satan is Real is an apt visual representation of that thought. It is also the name of Charlie’s autobiography. Another great source is the Cocaine & Rhinestones episode on the Louvins.

Jim & Jesse

Jim & Jesse McReynolds from Colfax, Virginia are lauded as much for Jesse’s mandolin style as for their duet singing. Many of bluegrass’s most accomplished musicians passed through their band, the Virginia Boys, including Vassar Clements, Allen Shelton, Vic Jordon, Carl Jackson, and Glen Duncan. Their versions of songs like “Are You Missing Me” are mainstays of bluegrass jams, while they ventured into the folk rock world with “Paradise.” Jesse would later host a tribute to Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, too. Jim died in 2002 at age 75, ending what Wikipedia calls their 55 years performing together “the longest active professional brother duet in country music history.”

The Everly Brothers

Contemporary musicians from Graham Nash to Paul Simon have cited Don and Phil Everly’s duets as inspirational. Their harmonies were intricate, tight, and gorgeous. Coming from a country music background, they became hit pop stars, with “Bye Bye Love” in 1957. While many of their most popular songs were written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, the brothers were also prolific songwriters. They have been widely recognized by the music industry, from membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to a #33 ranking in Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest artists of all time. For an excellent review of their often tumultuous careers and relationships, pick up Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story by Barry Mazor.

Sisters, Mothers and Daughters

Family bands featuring female singers have been popular for decades, even before the Carter Family blasted from radio stations in the 1930s. But sister duets have been less prominent than their brotherly counterparts. We can speculate that’s because, historically, women were less likely to venture out on their own, and because they were less welcome at the front and center of bluegrass and country.

But when these women stepped up, they truly shined.

The Whites

Sisters Sharon and Cheryl performed for decades with their father, Buck White, as the Whites. But it is their duet singing that ranks with the tightest and tingliest of any brother duo. Buck, a mandolinist and piano player, encouraged his daughters to take up music. The three recorded extensively beginning in 1972 and recorded “Keep on the Sunny Side” for the Grammy Award-winning O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. After Buck’s death in 2025, Sharon and Cheryl continue to perform, sometimes with Rosie, another sister, adding a high harmony. They have received highest honors in both the country and bluegrass fields, with more than 40 years as members of the Grand Ole Opry.

Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Kate and Anna McGarrigle were acclaimed Canadian folk singers and songwriters. Often passing the melody back and forth, it could be difficult to tell when one voice ended and the other began. Their harmonies were delicious. Linda Ronstadt had a big hit with the McGarrigles’ song “Heart Like a Wheel,” and Maria Muldaur, Emmylou Harris, and Judy Collins also covered their songs. Kate died in 2010.

The Judds

This mother/daughter duo certainly had the blood-harmony duet thing going big time with perfectly executed, soaring vocals. In a Cinderella-like story line, Naomi and her daughter Wynonna went from living on welfare to auditioning (in terror, as they described it) before a room full of recording executives – who signed them immediately. Within two years of the 1983 audition, they recorded the first of eight consecutive number one singles and received their first of five Grammys. Their family story is both fractious and inspiring.

More Essential Duets

Nowadays, it often seems the most common examples of high quality duet singing come from non-siblings, from chosen family, from lifelong musical partners. Turns out “blood harmony” is possible without the biological ties. (But of course it is.) Some of the best examples of the form are singers unrelated to each other.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard presented a side of duet singing that was at once sweet and gutsy. Although from very different geographic and social backgrounds, the pair came together through the Baltimore folk community in the 1970s. They sang with intense sincerity, performing older and traditional tunes and presenting Dickens’ heart-rending (and sometimes snarky) originals to the world. They were some of the first women to front a bluegrass act and are widely acknowledged as inspiring groundbreakers.

Ricky Skaggs & Tony Rice

In 1980, Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice released what has become an iconic duet recording, Skaggs & Rice. Its content draws on traditional and pre-bluegrass tunes recorded by earlier brother duets. In fact, Weisberger points out, the album cover illustration, featuring the two men in uncomfortable-looking suits, is modeled after a Lilly Brothers photo. Skaggs and Rice taught us how two voices with starkly different qualities could blend, with sibling-like effect.

Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley

Skaggs and his wife, Sharon White, both sing in a high range, blending beautifully and adding intensity to everything they sing. And with his piercing tenor, Skaggs has the ability to create a brother sound with just about anyone. His partnership with Keith Whitley was equally natural, as they started singing together as teenagers in Kentucky. They began touring with the Stanley Brothers when they were both 16. In essence, they grew up together, as did their vocal blend.

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum

Laurie Lewis is another who can turn any duet into sibling-style harmonies. She and Tom Rozum have sung together for decades. Lewis said that in addition to working hard on their timing and pronunciation (the word “yours” was once problematic), they have the advantage of remarkably similar vocal ranges for a male and female. When they are both “in the head voice, you can really hear the tension in our voices,” an exciting aspect of their duets, she said.

Laurie Lewis & Kathie Kallick

Since the earliest configuration of Good Ol’ Persons, Lewis and Kathy Kallick have sung together, including producing two duet albums. Lewis said, “We have really different timbres to our voices. But we sometimes get confused as to who was singing which part on our old recordings. ‘Wait, is that me or is that Kathy?’” Lewis’ duet album, And Laurie Lewis, showcases her skill in joining voices with so many of her old friends.

The Johnson Mountain Boys’ Dudley Connell and David McLaughlin

Eric Gibson remembered terrific harmony singing by Dudley Connell and David McLaughlin in the Johnson Mountain Boys days. That revered group won the very first IBMA Award for Album of the Year (for At the Old Schoolhouse) and were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2020. And since his days in the Johnson Mountain Boys, Connell has shown he, too, raises any duo to the level of glorious sibling sounds. Some examples are with bandmate Lou Reid in the Seldom Scene and his two duet albums with Don Rigsby.

Emmylou Harris & … Almost Everyone

The Gibsons both mentioned Emmylou Harris’ stunning ability to create tension and beauty in sibling duet style with so many. Examples range from her earliest recordings with Gram Parsons through all her singing partners in her band, including Ricky Skaggs and Rodney Crowell, and when she introduced a young country audience to the material of the Louvin Brothers on recordings such as “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” “When I Stop Dreaming,” and “Every Time You Leave.” Her 1990 duet album pairs her with male singers. In 1999, after the success of the Trio albums with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, she and Ronstadt recorded Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, showing off the perfection of two beautiful singers who love to sing together.

Dailey & Vincent

Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent both grew up performing in family bands. Jamie started singing with his family at age 3, and by age 12 had mastered bass and banjo. For nine years, he sang lead vocals with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, a band noted for their excellent voices and superb harmonies.

An article in Entertainment News said the Vincent children “were practically raised on harmony” from their youngest days in the Sally Mountain Show. For nine years, Vincent sang the baritone parts with Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder. The two men’s early training, the discipline gained from playing with exceptional band leaders, plus their perfect-for-bluegrass voices created a glorious blend of heartfelt harmony and musical excellence.

Their first album, released in 2008, was met with a flurry of enthusiasm. It earned the duo six IBMA Awards – including Album of the Year – plus two other nominations that year. They have continued to receive dozens of awards from bluegrass, country, and gospel organizations, as well as three Grammy nominations as a duo and two wins between them during their time with other acts. Their 10th album, A Beautiful Life, was released earlier this year.

Explore more of our Artist of the Month content on Dailey & Vincent here. Enjoy even more bluegrass duos here and country duos here.

Lead Image: The Louvin Brothers from Pictorial Press.

It’s Time to Induct Dolly Parton Into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Country superstar Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, and the entire world is mourning a beloved musician, singer, songwriter, and picker – and the bluegrass community has lost one of its most prominent global ambassadors.

Born in 1946, Parton enjoyed a resplendent and diverse musical career that spanned seven decades, beginning in her beloved Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, where she grew up steeped in “old-timey” and “mountain music.” She would go on to be inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (despite her objections to the latter honor), as well as the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2005 she was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and in 2006 she received the Kennedy Center Honors. Parton would garner 11 Grammy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy (and more than 50 additional nominations), three Emmy Awards, 13 ACM Awards, 10 CMA Awards, four IBMA Awards, and many, many more accolades and trophies – including two Academy Award nominations and an honorary Oscar.

While Parton is known as an artist and songwriter – reportedly penning more than 3,000 songs in her lifetime – she enjoyed a well-rounded career in many fields, in the arts and beyond, starring in films, writing and producing stage shows, plays, and musicals, producing films and TV, publishing and writing books, bringing food and home goods lines to market, planning a chain of truck stops – and being “Dreamer-in-Chief” of Dollywood, her namesake theme park in her home county in East Tennessee. In the most recent days of her life and career, Dolly was a truly ubiquitous celebrity and cultural figure, not just in the USA, but around the world.

It would be nearly impossible to overstate her influence not only in country, roots music, and Americana, but in bluegrass, too. Parton was a devoted proponent and picker of bluegrass over the course of her entire career; she released more than a handful of decidedly bluegrass albums out of her dozens of LPs. Two of them, The Grass Is Blue (1999) and Heartsongs: Live From Home (1994), are often regarded as two of her best releases of all time – especially The Grass Is Blue, reportedly touted by members of her own team and inner circle. And bluegrass touches and influences would show up across her body of work, including in her original musical and her film and TV projects. Even more old-time and mountain music threads have been woven through her musical output than straight-up-and-down bluegrass has, with bedazzled mountain dulcimers and autoharps and tin whistles just as common in her videos and stage appearances as her trusty rhinestoned guitars and banjos.

At the turn of the century, Parton released The Grass Is Blue as well as Little Sparrow (2001) and Halos & Horns (2002), partnering with iconic bluegrass and country label Sugar Hill. The albums arrived at a tumultuous and fraught time in Parton’s career, when daytime television talk shows and tabloids seemed to be her business (and music’s) bread-and-butter. She and her management successfully leveraged the sounds, aesthetics, and cultural signifiers of bluegrass with this trifecta of albums – which were musically excellent, though critics regarded some of them with mixed opinions – to yet again employ a “rags to riches” storyline, as she had her entire career.

At this relative low point of visibility in her career, experiencing a sort of commercial and pop cultural lull, bluegrass was there to spark the resurgence that would bring Dolly not only back into the mainstream, but would lay the foundation for the peak of her cultural magnitude in the 2010s and 2020s. It’s a storyline – a trope and an archetype – she had inhabited across her career, from the little “one room cabin” Tennessee mountain home to Hollywood and her white “limozeen.” But just like those earliest days of her young life, as a youngster singing into a tin-can microphone she fashioned with a stick on her front porch, bluegrass, old-time, and mountain music have always been at the core of Parton’s success and her broad appeal.

Her collaborations with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, especially Trio (1987) and Trio II (1999), boast perhaps the most superlative bluegrass recordings Dolly ever cut, and they are certainly the most well-known. Although The Grass Is Blue listens as more traditional, straight-ahead bluegrass and is adored by ardent fans, the Trio albums had much larger audiences. Trio included “Those Memories,” written by Alan O’Bryant (Nashville Bluegrass Band) while Trio II credited Del McCoury (“I Feel the Blues Movin’ In”), Harley Allen (“High Sierra”), and the Seldom Scene’s John Starling (“He Rode All the Way to Texas”) as songwriters. To this day both McCoury and O’Bryant joke about their Trio cuts being their biggest hits – and McCoury will giggle as he admits he never wants to sing “I Feel the Blues Movin’ In” again after Dolly had done it. Parton’s voice always typified the ever-elusive “high lonesome sound” of bluegrass, as coined by its proverbial father, Bill Monroe, but especially so with her sharp soprano combined with the powerful belt of Ronstadt and the soft patina of Harris’s voice.

Both Trio albums have all-star bands as well, including (but not limited to) Herb Pedersen, Mark O’Connor, John Starling, and Ry Cooder (Trio) and Starling, O’Connor, Carl Jackson, David Grisman, Roy Huskey Jr., Edgar Meyer, Larry Atamanuik, and Alison Krauss (Trio II). That’s right, Krauss – in 1999 already a multiple Grammy winner with two RIAA Gold records – was a side musician on the project, playing fiddle on four of the tracks. Heartsongs also had an incredible and vast roster of bluegrass greats lending their talents: Alison Krauss, Carl Jackson, Huskey Jr., Suzanne Cox, Rhonda and Darrin Vincent, Ronnie and Rob McCoury, Randy Scruggs, Ron Block, Adam Steffey, Jerry Douglas, Viktor Krauss, and more.

On 9 To 5 And Odd Jobs, a concept album of working class songs built around “9 To 5” and released in late 1980 just before the eponymous hit film, Bobby and Sonny Osborne can be heard joining Dolly on the vocal trio on “Hush-A-Bye Hard Times,” while Sonny lends banjo elsewhere on the LP, too. Parton’s White Limozeen (1989), a cosmic crossover journey from the mountains to the discotheque and back again, was produced by Ricky Skaggs – who played guitar and mandolin on the project – and featured Béla Fleck performing its striking banjo parts, like on the delightful opening track “Time for Me To Fly.” Little Sparrow, The Grass Is Blue, and Halos & Horns have similarly deep, impressive, and virtuosic credits as the Trio projects and Heartsongs, covering vast swathes of the bluegrass scene in the ‘90s and aughts. All of your favorite bluegrassers have picked with the queen.

Parton had a habit of surrounding herself with the best in bluegrass, in the studio and on stage. On morning and late-night television appearances, or during awards show performances, Dolly would be surrounded by pickers like Sam Bush, Chris Thile, Jim Mills, Bryan Sutton, Barry Bales, Stuart Duncan, and many more. Whether promoting Heartsongs, The Grass Is Blue, Trio, Trio II – or even going far back into her career, in its earliest days – Parton brought bluegrass and its influences and textures to many millions on TV. And still many more millions all around the world with her recordings, songs, and collaborators.

It seems everyone agrees that, despite her stratospheric level of fame, Parton is remarkably down to earth, present, and accessible. Taking a sample of her many features on songs by bluegrass artists demonstrates this. An international superstar, she would still – over and over – offer up her talents and time to guest with bluegrass artists on their own recordings and releases.

“Heartbreaker’s Alibi” by Rhonda Vincent is a downright craveable modern bluegrass rager, with Parton and Vincent sharing vocal duties and harmonizing effortlessly as they loop, swirl, and embellish around each other. That would not be the only time the pair would collaborate. Parton has gone on the record more than once to gush about bluegrass singer-songwriter Claire Lynch, who sang background vocals with Dolly on The Grass Is Blue and Little Sparrow. It’s clear she’s a true fan and inhabitant of this music; Parton has also been featured on songs by the Grascals, Carl Jackson, Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, Reneé Fleming & Béla Fleck, Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, and oh-so-many more. Her live television performance of “Mule Skinner Blues” with Bill Monroe is one of her most iconic videos and appearances; it’s perhaps equalled only by her reprise of the track on The Grass Is Blue – and her lovely, giggling ad lib on that recording, “I’m a lady mule skinner.”

Her many forays in and through bluegrass were never seen as interloping, and the bluegrass community would respond with near unanimous support. (Which, for bluegrass, ought to be easily rounded up to “unanimous,” with how opinionated and divided its fans can be.) Parton has been nominated for awards by the International Bluegrass Music Association six times in her career since 2000, when she won Album of the Year for The Grass Is Blue. She was also nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year then (and in 2001), but lost both years to, remarkably, Rhonda Vincent. In 2000, she appeared at the annual IBMA Awards show – hosted by her longtime friend and collaborator, Marty Stuart – in Louisville, Kentucky. Audience members, fellow nominees, and performers present that night speak about how kind, funny, and accessible she was then, too. Parton laughed and joked with Stuart at the lectern after performing a track from The Grass Is Blue, clearly right at home among her bluegrass family.

Parton has also won three IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year awards and most recently two Gospel Recording of the Year trophies for “In the Sweet By and By” (2022, with Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle, Bradley Walker, and Jerry Salley) and “Sacred Memories” (2017, with Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White). It’s notable that, despite all of these bluegrass bona fides and accolades, and the universal love felt for Dolly in the bluegrass community – professionally and otherwise – that she’s not been awarded a Distinguished Achievement Award by the IBMA or inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. One anonymous IBMA elector commented that, to their knowledge, she had not yet at any point even made the ballot for what’s regarded as bluegrass’s highest honor.

If Parton were to be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, she would join Bill Monroe as the only inductees in history to be honored by the Bluegrass Music, Country Music, and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. She is certainly deserving of that honor. While some would argue the Distinguished Achievement Award from IBMA would be a better fit, with its broader scope, it’s indisputable that Dolly Parton meets the criteria for induction into the Hall. The basic standard, the first measuring stick of the IBMA and its panel of electors by which to measure eligibility, reads thusly: “Candidates should be judged according to their contribution to the advancement of bluegrass music and the indelibility of that impact.” Indelible describes it, doesn’t it?

Dolly Parton’s impact goes still beyond her recordings, her network of pickers, her global reach, her awards, and her media appearances. She’s also been an economic driver of her own on a regional and national scale, with Dollywood booking dozens of bluegrass acts each year for their shows, festivals, and special events. It’s a rite of passage in bluegrass to perform at Dollywood, and the bluegrass and country on offer at the park by touring regional and national bands is always first rate. Bands and acts like Della Mae, Willow Osborne, Blue Highway, Sierra Hull, Flatt Lonesome, the Grascals, Hillary Klug, Dailey & Vincent, Doyle Lawson, the Boxcars, and innumerable others have played gigs at Dollywood. Plus, the park employs pickers and musicians for their entire season, local or traveling, to perform daily, some strolling the grounds with their banjos, and others in theatrical shows, revues, or straight-up string bands.

Dolly and her thousands of songs are essential to the bluegrass canon – and the greater American roots music songbook, too. Go to almost any bluegrass show, festival, or jam around the country and you’ll hear folks play her songs. “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” “Wildflowers,” “Silver Dagger,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” and “Smoky Mountain Memories” are just a few of her essential originals fully adopted and absorbed into the bluegrass lexicon. It’s quite the feat to be a songwriter, let alone a successful one, let alone so prolific – but to have your songs regarded as folk songs and also accepted as bluegrass standards? An even rarer feat.

Much ado is made, at length and at regular intervals, about bluegrass as a trend, or bluegrass “having a moment,” or the various bluegrass inflection points in pop culture or commercial music over its near century of history. Folks point to Old & In The Way as the best-selling bluegrass record of all time – until O Brother, Where Art Thou?, of course. Or they point out the astronomical success of Alison Krauss & Union Station, or the huge ticket sales of the post-O Brother Down From the Mountain Tour. Nowadays, we all look to Billy Strings as a harbinger of what’s possible and an indicator of how far the ceiling has been raised on bluegrass’s upper reaches.

From Deliverance or The Beverly Hillbillies, to Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers or Kesha jumping on stage with Mountain Grass Unit, to Billy Strings selling 40,000 tickets in one weekend in one city or Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival packing more than 500,000 fans into Golden Gate Park each fall, bluegrass has its “moment” often. Over and over. On a nearly predictable cycle, listeners and fans pour into this community, finding music they’ll love for the rest of their lives.

Meanwhile, Dolly Parton, one of the most recognizable figures in the entire world – and in the entire history of popular music and commercial music – had been earnestly, consistently, and subtly, despite the rhinestones and false nails and blonde wigs piled to the sky, bringing bluegrass to the masses. Among the many wildflowers she’s grown in the Smoky Mountain meadows of her career, we often lose the old-timey, mountain music, bluegrass “forest for the trees.” Parton had been a proselytizer for bluegrass for more than 70 years, before she even knew she was, and certainly, by the time she reached fame, deliberately and intentionally spreading the bluegrass gospel for the rest of her life.

Dolly Parton’s contributions to bluegrass – as a singer, a musician, a producer, an artist, a performer, a stylist, a storyteller, and as a songwriter – are vast, varied, and essential to this genre. Her love of bluegrass validated the form, and her commitment to propagating and perpetuating the music was one of the most “bluegrass” things about her. With her passing, bluegrass has lost perhaps its most consistent and beloved global ambassador.

Below, go back through the BGS archives and continue to explore Dolly Parton’s rich impact and influence on bluegrass:

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

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From The Grascals, Mary Bragg, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

From stalwart bluegrass groups to stellar singer-songwriters, You Gotta Hear This!

To start us off in our weekly roundup of premieres and new music, singer-songwriter Mary Bragg is announcing a brand new upcoming album, Secrets To Strangers. Coming October 16, the project will be released by Single Lock Records; an apropos first single, “What Do I Do,” boasts a guest appearance from Single Lock’s John Paul White. Below, watch a brand new music video for the track, a passionate, soulful Americana song that’s existential, yes, but also aspirational. The production is a lovely vehicle for Bragg’s poetic and insightful lyric-smithing.

For a bit of country string band twang, check out a new song and video from the Talking Hearts, an absolutely stacked genre-blending group based in Boston. “You Didn’t Make Me Cry,” written and sung by fiddler Rachel Rosenberg, is a danceable ’90s-style track that turns a bad situation into a great song. Isn’t that what country does best? The Talking Hearts also include Dan Bui, Alex Formento, Mike Harmon, Zach Meyer, and Sophie Wellington filling out the rest of the band.

Two beloved veteran bluegrass groups unveil new music today, too. GRAMMY nominees the Grascals have a brand new album, Not That Gone, that’s available everywhere today. To celebrate, we’re sharing “Farmer’s Blues,” which features Marty Stuart guesting on the song contributing mandolin and vocals. It’s a track written by Stuart and the mighty, legendary Merle Haggard. Deliciously lonesome, it’s one perfect for taking your sweetie out to the dance floor for a waltz. Or, if you’re posted up at the bar alone, for a tear in your beer. Then, the iconic Lonesome River Band are launching a new single, “Walking Back to Bluefield.” Straight-ahead bluegrass kicked off by Sammy Shelor’s sparkling banjo, it’s a traveling song with just a bit of a crooked beat to keep you marching in time. Though it was written about Vermont, as Jesse Smathers explains to BGS, the Southeastern-based LRB plot the journey back to Bluefield through North Carolina and the Virginias for their rendition instead. (And yes, that’s bluegrass Telecaster shredding it up on there!)

Don’t miss Ella Hooper’s new single, too. Or shit might go down! “When The Shit Went Down” is Good Country all the way from Australia, where Hooper is a treasured musician, artist, and personality. With a splash of surf rock and a dash of Laurel Canyon, it’s a perfect song to queue up on your driving playlist next to “You Didn’t Make Me Cry” and “Walking Back to Bluefield.” Hooper’s upcoming album, Overnight Success, is a love letter by the singer-songwriter to country and Americana. You can hear the love, for sure. There’s also a honky-tonk tune from the Roseline, with “Tooth and Claw” adding an unexpected country texture to the Lawrence, Kansas-based band’s new album, 86 Gumption, released today. When you can drink a beer to a song that takes its title from a Tennyson poem, that’s reason enough to kick off the weekend early. There’s plenty to enjoy in our weekly roundup – You Gotta Hear This!

Mary Bragg, “What Do I Do” Feat. John Paul White

Artist: Mary Bragg
Hometown: Swainsboro, Georgia
Song: “What Do I Do” Featuring John Paul White
Album: Secrets To Strangers
Release Date: August 7, 2026 (single/video); October 16, 2026 (album)
Label: Single Lock Records

In Their Words: “This song comes from wrestling with uncertainty in those moments when you can’t tell what’s real anymore. When you don’t have the answer, so you let yourself sit in the question, reverberating like an existential broken record. How did we get here? What can I do about it? I wanted the song to feel like an honest conversation about the state of the world and an angsty call to action for all of us. Is our failure inevitable or can we change the narrative?” – Mary Bragg

Track Credits:
Chad Gamble – Drums
Zac Cockrell – Bass
John Paul White – Acoustic guitars, vocals
Jay Gonzalez – Electric guitar
Sol Philcox-Littlefield – Electric guitar
Ben Tanner – Organ
Mary Bragg – Vocals, songwriter

Video Credits:
Alex Berger – Producer
Jacob Anderson – Director of Photography, editor

The Grascals, “Farmer’s Blues” with Marty Stuart

Artist: The Grascals
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Farmer’s Blues” with Marty Stuart
Album: Not That Gone
Release Date: August 7, 2026 (album)
Label: Billy Blue Records

In Their Words: “I was scrolling on TikTok and a video of Marty Stuart and Merle Haggard singing the ‘Farmer’s Blues’ came on, and the song instantly grabbed me that it would be a perfect fit for the Grascals on our new album. Everyone in the band was on board with recording it, which got us thinking it would it be really cool to have Marty join us in the studio to be a special guest. We were thrilled when Marty agreed, and having him sing harmony and play mandolin makes this version even more special. He also shared a great story about writing and recording the song with Merle. Marty said Merle listened to it and told him, ‘This is a great song, but it would be better if that one word was changed to work instead of walk.’ They changed the lyric from ‘I walk the fields’ to ‘I work the fields,’ and it’s amazing how one simple word made such a meaningful difference. Knowing that story gave us an even greater appreciation for the song and its history. It’s a real honor to record a song from two legends like Marty Stuart and Merle Haggard, and to have Marty himself be part of our version of ‘Farmer’s Blues’ is something we’ll always be proud of.” – Jamie Johnson, The Grascals

Ella Hooper, “When The Shit Went Down”

Artist: Ella Hooper
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Song: “When The Shit Went Down”
Album: Overnight Success
Release Date: August 5, 2026 (single); October 2, 2026 (album)
Label: MGM

In Their Words: “This song is pretty truthful, pretty unvarnished, hence the use of my plain language in the chorus. I feel like I’m opening up my journal here, and most of my lyrics do start as a journaling practice – one the best things I’ve ever done for my mental health. When I showed this song to Clare, my producer who’s since become a good friend, it was a bonding moment. She got emotional and I got emotional. We both knew it would be tricky but worth it if we could find the right way to share this perspective. It was tricky because heavy subject matter can so easily get overcooked and feel heavy-handed; we wanted to capture the relentlessness, the motion of what I went through. A sonic version of ‘show me don’t tell me.’ The beautiful band on this track just got it, too—especially Jon Estes on bass and Lauren Horbal on drums. When they laid down the rhythm bed it unlocked the right amount of sway and bounce, which let me be more impassioned with the vocals, ’cause I knew it wouldn’t be ‘Too Much.’ My Dad was actually the most finely attuned listener and critic, and his voice is always in my head when I’m recording saying things like, ‘Don’t put a hat on a hat’ and ‘Trust the listener.’ Our love language was music so it feels pretty rewarding to incorporate and honor them in my music now.” – Ella Hooper

Track Credits:
Lauren Horbal – Drums, percussion
Jon Estes – Bass
Trevor Bahnson – Acoustic guitars, electric guitars
Jordie Lane – Electric guitar, organ
LOLLIES – Synths, background vocals
Ella Hooper – Vocals, songwriter

Lonesome River Band, “Walking Back to Bluefield”

Artist: Lonesome River Band
Hometown: Floyd, Virginia
Song: “Walking Back to Bluefield”
Release Date: August 7, 2026
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “‘Walking Back to Bluefield’ was penned by a favorite singer-songwriter of mine, Bob Amos. I’ve been a fan of Bob’s since his days with Front Range. I was listening through material for us to record and this immediately perked my ear up. Its ‘backstep’ and reel-like melody are as catchy as its lyric. It does stick with the classic bluegrass pattern of the happiest-sounding songs having a lonesome lyric. The fella in this song is down on his luck and has a long way back home to Bluefield after losing his job and love interest. However I can’t help but smile while singing about it.

“Being in Vermont, Bob wrote this song with different geography in mind. However, we had a neat discussion how the song could easily be referring to locations within a few hours from where Lonesome River Band is based in the Southeast. He’s losing his job at a Burlington, North Carolina, textile mill and making his way back home to Bluefield, West Virginia. I hope everyone gets a kick out of ‘Walking Back to Bluefield’!” – Jesse Smathers, lead vocalist, guitarist 

Track Credits:
Sammy Shelor – Banjo, harmony vocal
Jesse Smathers – Acoustic guitar, lead vocal
Mike Hartgrove – Fiddle
Adam Miller – Mandolin, harmony vocal
Kameron Keller – Upright bass
Rod Riley – Electric guitar

The Roseline, “Tooth and Claw”

Artist: The Roseline
Hometown: Lawrence, Kansas
Song: “Tooth and Claw”
Album: 86 Gumption
Release Date: August 7, 2026

In Their Words: “‘Tooth and Claw’ may be the most traditional country song we’ve ever recorded and is certainly a bit of an outlier on this album. I’ve always wanted to include a classic honky-tonk heater on an album but never quite had the… gumption hehe. The spritely arrangement is juxtaposed by the pure despondency of the lyrical content. Fun facts: The phrase ‘red of tooth and claw’ should actually be ‘red IN tooth and claw’ which appears in the famous Tennyson poem. I sang it wrong and that’s on me. Also, there’s a very special guest appearance on pedal steel – Mr. Lynn Piller, who is our drummer’s dad! Multi-generational jams!” – Colin Halliburton, The Roseline

Track Credits:
Colin Halliburton – Acoustic guitar, vocals
Bradley McKellip – Electric guitar
Heidi Gluck – Bass, keys, vocals
Jim Piller – Drums
Lynn Piller – Pedal steel

The Talking Hearts, “You Didn’t Make Me Cry”

Artist: The Talking Hearts
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “You Didn’t Make Me Cry”
Album: Memory Lane
Release Date: August 4, 2026 (single); October 9, 2026 (album)

In Their Words: “I always tell people going through a hard time that if they write a country song about it they’ll probably, even instantly, feel better. It’s the musical version of turning lemons into lemonade – you start out with a bad situation and end up with a great song. I wrote this one after a fateful weekend trip to NYC to visit someone who (surprise!) did not turn out to be who I thought. That’s the thing about romance from a distance. The distance can make it easy for someone to hide behind lies, but, once discovered, it’s also easy enough to leave ’em behind. At the time, I was just strumming it alone on guitar in my one-bedroom apartment, thinking things over. ‘You Didn’t Make Me Cry’ came to life as a ’90s country-style anthem when I brought it to this magical crew, my best buds and musical soulmates.” – Rachel Rosenberg

Track Credits:
Rachel Rosenberg – Fiddle, lead vocals
Zach Meyer – Mandolin, harmony vocals
Sophie Wellington – Guitar, harmony vocals
Alex Formento – Pedal steel
Dan Bui – Upright bass
Mike Harmon – Drums

Video Credits:
Pat Piasecki – Director, editor, camera
Chris Dempsey – Camera

Photo Credit: The Grascals by Laci Mack; Mary Bragg by Alex Berger.

Lily Meola is Lucky to Be Living This Life

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For the cover of her new album, Lily Meola wanted to lie across a lily pad, but not just any lily pad. Something like the gigantic Victoria amazonica, which has enough structure beneath it to support the weight of a person. After searching the internet and calling botanical gardens around the world, she happened upon a place in Tennessee that allowed her to achieve her dream.

It’s an apt metaphor for Meola’s debut album, Lucky to Be. The Hawaii native has found support in her adopted hometown of Nashville through the likes of Jamey Johnson, who appears on the new album, and through performances at CMA Music Festival and the Grand Ole Opry. Meola draws from all eras of country music – one of the songs, “Daisies,” is inspired by ERNEST’s “Flower Shop,” while “Tumbleweeds and Chewing Gum” is a duet with Willie Nelson. Lukas Nelson, a longtime family friend, also lends his voice to the charming “Mar Vista.”

Meola earned a national breakthrough on America’s Got Talent in 2022 with her original song, “Daydream,” which was written as a way to show support to her struggling friends as well as to grieve her late mother. While writing the new songs for Lucky to Be, the Maui native learned that you have a one-in-400-trillion chance of being born with your exact genetic makeup.

“That sounds like such a wild statistic, right? You’re like, ‘Where did they come up with that?’ But it really stopped me in my tracks and made me think about life differently, and approach the record so differently,” she says.

BGS caught up with Lily by phone a few days before the release of Lucky to Be.

Let’s start with the song “Lucky to Be.” There’s that opening line, where you’re recalling a moment of seeing the shooting star through an airplane window, which I think was a real-life moment for you. So, what were you thinking about when you wrote that song?

Lily Meola: Honestly, that song has so many different little meanings and moments in it. Yeah, that first line – actually, each line – in the song is a real life-moment. I was actually on my way to Nashville to write. At the time I didn’t live here, but I spent a lot of time here over the last 13 years and it felt like a second home to me. But I had been away for a while and I didn’t have a record out.

I was like, “Okay, am I doing the right thing?” There’s always like a little bit of… I wouldn’t say doubt, but I’m always looking for signs that I’m on the right path. On the flight, I looked out the window. It wasn’t even like I was staring out the window. I just looked for a second, and this shooting star went by. And I knew. I was like, “Okay, this is a good sign. I’m still on the right path.”

That’s got to feel good to know you had a little bit of validation that high up in the air.

Yeah, exactly. I didn’t know if that was even possible. It’s just a wild experience to see it, so that’s the first part of the verse, and the next part of the verse actually ties into the first line as well. I lost my mom in 2020 to cancer and I try to look for the signs and everything to keep communication with her alive, if that makes sense. And so it was like a sign from her. … The next line is [about] this palm tree buried with some of her ashes at a special beach on Maui, and even though she’s gone, how lucky was I to be able to have such an incredible mom for so many years?

The whole song is just kind of looking at the bright side of the wildness of life and the next line is, “how lucky are we to feel chaos and peace and everything in between.” … Whatever it is we’re going through in life, whether it be the good, the bad, the ugly, it’s all just part of this experience and journey of being a human. Regardless of it all, we’re all just lucky to be here in the first place, and I think that we lose sight of that within our everyday hustle and bustle of life. And so it was a good reminder for me. I struggle with depression, and I needed that reminder in that moment, that this is all just a part of the journey.

Where do you get your drive to keep forging ahead? Where does that motivation come from?

That’s a good question. It’s literally just a part of me, I guess. I’ve been playing shows since I was 10 years old and I haven’t really looked back. I just had one foot in front of the other and kept going. I have a lot of things I’m interested in in life, but it’s what feeds my soul, and I’m addicted to it, I guess, in a healthy way! [Laughs] I don’t think I could really do anything else, because of how special it feels, and how natural it feels to me.

What were your gigs like when you were 10 years old?

I got my first gig at 10 and it was before a movie at a film festival. And then I just started getting little gigs here and there. I had a weekly cafe gig in my teens. I had a bar gig on Friday nights. I’m from Maui, which is a small island, and so I just kind of popped around all the different places that you could perform and did little shows. Then I did conventions, like Toyota would come and they’d bring their whole company. Anyway, it just evolved and I just kept doing it. Different events, private events, parties. I’d walk around with my little sound system everywhere. [Laughs]

Not a typical teenage life in Hawaii, playing corporate gigs. That’s a cool story.

Yeah, it is, and I loved every minute of it, and I think that’s what kept me going. I’m truly obsessed with what I do. I love every aspect. I love to write, I love to record. I love to perform. I think maybe the only part I’m not that interested in is the business side. [Laughs] So, you find the right partners for that, but I just love what I do and I can’t imagine a life where I’m not doing it.

How did you connect with Willie Nelson?

It’s a small island, and he lives there, and our families are friends. So they came to my gig, and he sat in and sang “Crazy” with me. After the gig, he handed me a napkin and it had a few songs written on it and he was like, “If you’d like to record any of these, let me know.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, of course.” We ended up recording some stuff, but what we had done that day was corrupted. There was some situation that happened with the sound board that made the files unlistenable and unusable. So we’re not going to be like, “Hey, well, you want to come back and do that again?”

So fast forward a couple years, he was making his duets record, To All the Girls…, and he invited me to come and do a song with him. I flew out to Austin and we recorded “Will You Remember Mine?” It’s a song that he wrote, and one of the songs that was on the napkin, I’m pretty sure. Then he took me out on the road with him to promote that record and it was just incredible. It was the best experience ever, and I’m so grateful to him and his whole family. They’ve all been so lovely to me, and taken me under their wings, and showed me that I could love what I do even more. It’s been a beautiful journey with them. I’m forever grateful.

“Tumbleweeds and Chewing Gum” feels like a really full circle moment on my record, coming back to honoring how grateful I feel for that time. His voice is just so, so sweet on it, and his guitar playing is just one of a kind. And having a perspective on a song like that, from two different people in very different parts of their lives and careers, it makes the song have so much more depth to it, and meaning for me.

He’s the perfect voice for that song, because tumbleweeds and chewing gum are gonna be around forever, and the music of Willie Nelson is gonna be around forever, too.

Yeah, exactly. There’s all these things in life that’ll stick around, but we’re here for just a moment. And we might as well do what we love, because it’s gonna end at one point. The line in it that resonates with me the most is, “You and me will turn to dust and all our shiny things are gonna rust, so love me just because.” It’s so true, and we forget that.

I watched your video for “Never Want This to Change,” and I was thinking, have I ever heard Jamey Johnson sing harmony before? I can’t imagine he does that very much, but he sounded great. What did you like about hearing your voices together?

Oh, Jamey is just… I use this quote for his voice: “It’s as if God has favorites.” There’s something to it where it’s so soulful, but it’s gritty, and also feels like you’re getting a warm hug at the same time. Does that make sense? [Laughs] I love him, and he’s been a friend of mine for many years. I’ve always wanted to do a song with him. We did something years and years ago for a Christmas record he did. This song just felt perfect for his voice, and I’m just so happy that he’s on it.

Some people think you have to suffer for your art. Have you ever bought into that theory, that you have to suffer in order to be a great songwriter?

No, no, I don’t think so, but I do think that without darkness, how can you fully appreciate the light? There’s definitely songwriters out there that haven’t had tragedy, but they’re just poetic and it’s a part of their being. But when I write with someone who shares a similar experience, or has been through something hard in life, the songs are just different. There’s an understanding there, but I will say, when I write with someone who hasn’t, it also brings out a light-hearted side of me, as well.

There’s a line on the album that says, “It’s lucky I’m crazy for you,” and later you’re singing, “you’re lucky enough to find you and I,” and of course the album title is Lucky to Be. So I get the sense that feeling lucky is more than just a line in the song for you, and I wondered what makes you feel so lucky these days.

It’s just an accumulation of everything, all the things I’ve been through. All of those lyrics just naturally ended up in the songs. I just pinch myself daily that I get to live this life and do what I love. Again, that statistic made me really think about life and understand how lucky I really am.

Photo Credit: Jimmy Fisco (lead image); Bailey Roberts (alternate images)

Good Country Catch-Up: Tucker Wetmore, Jo Dee Messina, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When we’re listening to new country music, we love it when a singer’s personality shines through. It’s even better when we have a chance to catch up with them over the phone or a Zoom call, ready to hear about their inspirations and aspirations.

Since we’re now over halfway through 2026, it seems like a good time to revisit five of our favorite Good Country interviews so far this year. It’s our first ever Good Country Catch-Up:

Braxton Keith

The Texan singer-songwriter’s brand of country – and his new album, too – is another fine example of the current thriving neo-traditionalist scene. If you like Keith Whitley, George Strait, and Ronnie Milsap then Braxton might be right up your alley.

“I really was attracted to these older artists because of the storytelling, but also they have a technical skill about their writing – and their melodies,” he says.”Some of their melodies are pretty insane that I was trying to emulate, longing to hear again, or to make new.”

Read More

Jo Dee Messina

After more than 10 years, the pop country icon returns with an excellent new album, Bridges. Whether taking a narcissistic partner to task, warning about the dangers of self-medication, or setting the record straight on scripture, the triumphant singer-songwriter explores life’s complexities with a signature mix of grit and hard-fought joy.

Speaking about the lead single, “Some Bridges,” she explains, “With that song, we were in the writers’ room, and somebody brought up the idea that you can’t be burning bridges. But what if they’re meant to burn? What if that bridge leads you to pain and abuse, or to a job that sucked the life out of you? Forgiveness is for us, we’re not built to carry the weight of unforgiveness, but you can forgive from the other side of the bridge.”

Read More, and check out our list of 10 of the Best Jo Dee Messina Songs here.

Hudson Westbrook

A new EP, a platinum No. 1 hit, and a commitment to sounding “different than everything else” are driving the fresh-faced star’s success. The smash “House Again” is an emotionally complex ballad rooted in the experience of a kid watching the fallout of their parents’ divorce. Plus, Westbrook has developed a rootsy R&B side to his music, too.

Looking forward, the Texas native says, “I have like 120 songs and a lot of them are pretty good. I’m not saying they’re all for me, but I finally did what I should have done and that was sit back, find my key, find the way I like to write, really be intentional about what I’m writing. I wrote a song called ‘Nowhere Bound’ that is probably one of my favorite songs. It’s like, I never stop in any city and don’t ever slow down.”

Read more

Tucker Wetmore

There’s more to ask Tucker Wetmore about than women, whiskey, and blondes versus brunettes. Peel back the layers and you’ll find a thoughtful, hard-working artist rooted deeply in faith and family with a careful sense of public image, monitoring how and what he presents. While building his brand as a new artist, he’s learned the value of saying no.

“I account for my faith in pretty much all the decisions I make,” he says. “If I could give advice to any artist coming up – and I’m still making my way there – my biggest piece of advice is, ‘Say no to things that don’t feel right or don’t make you look like you.’ … At the beginning it’s really hard to say no to things, because you want every opportunity there is. But now I’m saying no to a lot more, saying yes to the correct things, and trusting my people. They know who I am and what we all want to build together, and it makes it a little easier.”

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Stephen Wilson Jr.

A 46-year-old former microbiologist and Golden Gloves boxer, Stephen Wilson Jr. native stands out with probing lyrics and an experimental sound to match. He grabbed an unlikely spotlight with the 2023 album søn of dad, then grew his audience with a magnetic live rendition of “Stand by Me” on the CMA Awards last year. In 2026, his song “Gary” touched a nerve among audiences who appreciate and admire the people who don’t do fancy, but do get things done.

Speaking about the story behind the song, Wilson says, “I was driving down a highway and I saw a memorial billboard sign and it said ‘in memory of Gary,’ and there was a picture of a boy who was probably 16 years old. It was just really heartbreaking. I could feel the sadness and the heartbreak and the family’s plea to keep this boy alive in any way possible. … I couldn’t help but say out loud in the car, ‘Dang, there ain’t a lot of boys named Gary these days.’ That’s where my brain started subconsciously turning Gary into a subspecies of human. And then honestly, the song just fell out.”

Read more

Photo Credit: Tucker Wetmore by Chase Foster; Jo Dee Messina by Madison Sharp; Braxton Keith by Benjamin Humphrey.

Suzanne Cox & Brandon Ratcliff Follow Their Inspiration

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When mother and son Suzanne Cox and Brandon Ratcliff first began posting vertical videos to social media singing harmonies and cover songs together, they were just doing it for fun. Virality hadn’t entered their minds at all. In fact, Ratcliff had almost sworn off the internet, or using social media to advance his artist or songwriting endeavors anymore. Meanwhile Cox had been asking herself, “Am I retired? Does anyone want to hear me sing?”

From their very first videos, the answer was an obvious and resounding yes. The denizens of the internet were apparently starved for Cox’s voice – but of course they were, haven’t we all been? – and were ravenous in their discovery of Ratcliff’s own talents in musicianship and songwriting. Song after song, clip after clip racked up thousands of likes and views, dozens and dozens of new followers (including quite a few celebrities), and built an organic momentum neither artist had ever seen in their music-making careers so far.

Cox, in her late 50s, and Ratcliff, in his early 30s, have both enjoyed numerous successes and accomplishments in roots music. The Cox Family won GRAMMY Awards and IBMA Awards and appeared on the iconic O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and are routinely named as one of Alison Krauss’s major influences in bluegrass and harmony singing. They are legends. Ratcliff has had record deals, prominent co-writes, his own solo releases, and been on the Nashville singer-songwriter hustle for more than a decade. But the energy behind their mother-son partnership has been unlike anything either have experienced before.

It’s no surprise, though, viewing their many popular videos or listening to their debut EP, Mother/Son Volume 1, released back in April. There’s something special here that can’t just be attributed to blood harmonies or genetic predisposition or God-given talent or “right time, right place.” There are aspects of each of these inputs throughout their current sky-bound trajectory, but the end result is certainly greater than the simple sum of its parts. And it’s landed them on the Grand Ole Opry, while continuing to garner even more views/followers Looking toward the future with excitement, they still let their inspirations and their audience guide them.

BGS sat down with Cox and Ratcliff at a coffee shop in Bellevue, Tennessee, on an afternoon dotted with sprinkling rain to talk about letting go of expectations, where they’re at now, where they’re headed next, and how badly the roots music world had been missing the inimitable voice of Suzanne Cox.

@therealbrandonratcliff I am weary, let me rest #obrotherwhereartthou #gospelmusic #acousticcovers #family #harmony @Suzanne Cox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

I wanted to start by going back to the beginning. Making music has been a lifelong thing for y’all. Your exposure to the music of your family, it being a part of the household. It’s a little bit like “chicken or the egg.” Obviously, y’all singing and being together and making music together would be a part of your family since forever. But I imagine there was a transition point when it went from being like, “We’re mother and son and we sing together,” to being, “Oh, there’s something here that maybe we should pursue.”

Suzanne Cox: I’ll have to let you tell that, ’cause you tell it very well, what happened.

Brandon Ratcliff: Thank you. When we started this really, none of [the business side of things] was on our minds. I keep telling people, “This whole thing has been a happy accident.” This has been a rare thing for me, and I don’t know if this is the same thing for Mom and them [the Cox Family], ’cause it was a different time. But for me, everything I’ve done in Nashville – for the most part, in the business – has felt a little bit like my dad always says, “Pushing a rope up a hill.” [Laughs] It’s like I’m putting so much effort into making something happen. And this [duo] thing kinda felt, for the first time ever, like we were constantly playing catch-up to what was reacting just naturally. Which has been very fun and has made us move very fast.

SC: Oh, it’s like we cannot keep up.

BR: We put something out and all of a sudden it starts working incredibly well and the next thing you know we’re like, “We gotta go record this. What are we doing? We’re late already.” That has been very exciting, fun, refreshing. The other thing is, too, having this kinda direct-to-consumer thing, where you post a video online and it resonates with people – which by the way, just even that was a surprise to us. Mom and I have talked for years about doing a project together or something. But it was mostly just for us. It was just for fun.

SC: “Someday.”

BR: “Someday we’ll do this thing. One day…” [It started when] I was back home for the holidays and we were together anyway, and singing and hanging out like we always do. I was like, “Hey, if we’re gonna sing anyway, we should just post some of these online.” Like, why not? And again, totally not thinking about the outcome. Never once considering–

SC: He was kinda done with TikTok for a little while.

BR: I was holding on loosely with the internet in general at this point. I told Mom right before, “Look, I’m not giving up on the internet, but I’d kinda let the idea that the internet would be my path to success [go].” I was like, I’ll still post, but I’m gonna try not to think about if this is gonna make my career. This was the first time I was kinda letting go of that outcome situation, and then we posted – the first thing, it was a song I was singing on the way over to her house. And it was [sings Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”], “Trailers for sale…”

SC: We were probably in Louisiana.

BR: “King of the Road.” I was singing it while I was riding the roads back there. And it did pretty well [online]. Better than most videos I had posted at that point. I was like, “Oh, this is cool,” but nothing gangbusters. But then the next one we did was a song that Mom sang on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie, “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest).” Yeah. We just got out there, started singing it.

SC: In front of an old vintage truck.

BR: Sang it five times in front of this old drilling rig truck. I posted it, forgot about it. My daughter’s third birthday party was later that afternoon, so I had to rush back over, get set up. All of a sudden family starts showing up and I’m getting texts from my cousins and people at the house are going like, “Dude, your video’s going viral.” I got no service out there in Louisiana.
It’s like I’m off the internet. Once I post, I’m done. So I get back on there and, sure enough, I’ve never gotten flooded with so many [notifications]. I open my phone up and it’s about to crash. It’s 400,000 views, 500,000 views. And I’m like, “What the…? This is crazy!” So then I tell Mom shortly after that, I gotta go back to Nashville.

And this, to your point, is where it starts going, “Oh wow, this is something.” This is resonating. There was one week where Rosie O’Donnell and Joe Jonas followed me and started reposting my videos. And it just keeps coming, all these people – Emily Ann Roberts, Ashley McBryde. It just kinda kept growing. Then it was immediately obvious to us and then everybody we were working with – like my producers and songwriter friends – something’s happening. The whole thing’s been like this, just accident after accident–

SC: [Smiling] Which I don’t believe is an accident.

BR: No, it’s divinely orchestrated, for sure. Very divine. The hand of God is all over this stuff.

SC: Brandon’s been at this [a long time], I [have been] for 52 years. And not really doing as much [lately], really at a point in my life where I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing in this new season. And even in prayer: “God, I’ve had a great career.” And I just thought, “Is it a time where I’m just a wife, a mother, and a grandmother?” Which is the best job. I love it. No regrets on that. No regrets. I was at a point before this all happened of just trying to figure out what my new season is. “Does anybody want to hear me sing anymore?” Still love to sing, but just had a lot going on. I had a real hard time. My husband got really sick in 2021. … And it put a lot of age on us both.

BR: Honestly, I think for us both, this season really came [while] we were both in a season of surrender. This openness – “What could happen? What God may do…”

SC: We answered quickly.

BR: It made the soil fertile for this real, raw passion – a just-living-life kinda thing. And I think it came from that season of surrender.

SC: And I was totally fine with that. I felt a calmness in that.

I hear you both communicating not a sense of giving up, but of letting go. Of realizing, “Maybe this isn’t something I need to clutch so tightly anymore.” And there is a freedom in that letting go.

SC: Yep. I agree. And also for it to be such a connection with other people. And that it resonates with people. And I love – I wasn’t reading any of the comments or anything and finally they called me and said, “Mom, you need to read these. You need to see some of this.” It’s just been such a wonderful thing to read what people say. Even if it’s, “My mamaw’s favorite song.” Or, “I bet you she can cook some good meals.” “Can I be adopted?” I just love that.

I think what stood out to me immediately is there’s something here that feels totally distinct from the Cox Family. Fresh and bright and sparkly in so many ways. But also, I was there on TikTok, y’all were on my FYP when that first video blew up. And I, like so many people who grew up with your voice, Suzanne, realized in that moment how starved I was for it. And then to see the world, all of us who did grow up with your singing have that same reaction – and then so many people who didn’t, too, have that moment of, “Who the hell is this?!” That was special to watch happen, even from the outside. Would you have ever believed people were waiting around for you to “come back”?

SC: No, I would not. And like I was telling you, a lot has gone down the pipe since then. It was a lot of heartache that I’ve gone through. We lost our dad in 2019 – so a lot of different issues. So yeah, at some point I was just thinking, “Does anybody ever even want to hear me singing?” I did. I went there. “Do I wanna hear myself sing anymore?” It wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t like I’m bawling in the bathroom or anything.

But we all have those thoughts.

SC: But we do! And it can get to your confidence, because you think that’s something in the past. For me, it was a good run [back then], and it’s been quite a gift for me to hear [the response now].

@therealbrandonratcliff I feel like I’m in a creaky old pew right now #sunday #hymns #hymnfortheweekend #motherson #familyharmony @thesuzannecox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

There’s something encouraging in how you’re speaking about yourself, because, to me, to somebody on the outside – you’re one of Alison Krauss’s favorite vocalists of all time! Suzanne Cox has the same sort of existential doubt that anyone might have. “Does my voice matter? Does the music I make matter?” And if we could all remind ourselves that’s just being human, we all have that ebb and flow.

SC: That’s right.

I think for so many of the hundreds and thousands of us, we never would have imagined that you would have that sort of doubt.

SC: It’s a little different these days. A lot of people have said, “Is she in retirement now?” I don’t know! Am I? I didn’t say it, but just life happens. As women, too, we wear just as many hats as a man does–

Even more.

SC: You’re a mother, and you’re a grandmother, and you’re fixing problems. I wasn’t heartbroken. I had a life that was good and felt good, I felt a peace about it. But I am delighted to be able to have a new song in my heart.

BR: And for me it wasn’t a shock, of course, because like you’re saying–

SC: Yeah, he’s always been so encouraging– him and his brothers.

BR: I grew up hearing mom sing and always knew she had a world-class voice. I used to hear mom all the time growing up, and me and dad would talk about it. I’d talk about it with my brother. It was like, “If anybody could hear this…”

SC: This might be when you were clueless. [Laughs]

BR: If anybody could just hear Mom singing around the house! And this kind of points to what we’re talking about again, this free space. If you could hear her sing just around the house, when she’s just messing around, you’d be like, “This woman is insanely good at singing.” It’s amazing, and almost even better than anything you hear on a recording.

SC: I feel so uncomfortable with y’all saying that. [All laugh]

BR: But to your point, though, this is a universal thing. I think this is true of a lot of us. That “dance like no one’s watching” mindset. When you don’t care, and you loosen up–

First take magic.

BR: Yes!

SC: If you’re like my sister, there was a lot of them that she did was her scratch vocal. One take!

BR: I tell Mom this all the time, and you learn this over and over with the internet, because posting online, there are diminishing returns the more you polish it. … We do have a tendency as creative people, as performers, to be perfectionists. Nothing’s ever good enough. We’re our worst critics. We all have a little bit of deep insecurities or impostor syndrome.

One of the things I love most about roots music – whether bluegrass or country or Americana or folk – is it’s always asking us to let the imperfections be. That’s why this music is so good. Because you can’t ever get a banjo in tune. Because the music has pocket. Because when you’re singing harmonies with somebody, maybe sometimes you are singing a dissonant note, or you’re singing a flat seven instead of something that’s diatonic, because “that’s how it goes.” Even though it’s got a little ugliness in it. The internet wants everyone to be perfect, but roots music is never perfect.

SC: Yep. Never perfect. Like you said, that’s what makes it really special.

@therealbrandonratcliff Can’t wait for @unclebsdamnedoleopry with @heyuncleb and the gang! April 28th we are honoring #continuum with some insanely talented artists and musicians by singing through some classics from the goat @johnmayer #motherson #cover #harmony #johnmayer @thesuzannecox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

I love how you guys are making cross-generational music in so many ways. But one of the ways that evidences itself is that I think this is some of the more “outside” or progressive music I’ve ever heard you sing, Suzanne. You’re really playing with genre in a really interesting way. Whether you’re singing a John Mayer cover or it’s “Far Side Banks of Jordan,” I love seeing how these sort of modern, more pop sensibilities are coming into the music. Then you also how the Cox Family vocal stylings have always had a modern crispness, modern licks, runs, and turns of phrase. How are you thinking about genre and playing with that?

SC: I don’t know. I’ve told Brandon this, I’ve never been one of those [tradition hardliners]. I know you say our sound [was traditional], but Daddy, from the get-go, we were doing [all kinds of styles]. He was very open. We started out old traditional country. We used to do old hayrides before we went into the bluegrass scene. But he introduced us to Don Reno & Red Smiley, plus Merle [Haggard] and Loretta Lynn. I’m getting a lot of people saying [I sound like] Loretta Lynn. She was a hero of mine, so I see that. Of course, Dolly [Parton] and Patsy Cline. But [Daddy] was really open to [different styles], so I was already at a point where I love what I love.

If I can make it sound like me, that’s what I wanna sing. So [the Cox Family] opened up for the Counting Crows. And did Eagles songs and “Blue Bayou.” We listened to classical and anything that we liked – Kenny Loggins, Loggins and Messina. … I’ve done Marvin Gaye, on that last album… It was good that he encouraged us to be able to be open.

BR: I feel like for me – and again, I wouldn’t have probably said this five years ago. I would’ve probably taken some real credit for this and been like, “I think it’s ’cause of me!” I’m young, whatever. But I think that, now, as I get older and I kinda look at the context of my life and what they did and everything, and how she raised me growing up, I kinda think it’s a natural downstream effect. Outside of just how she raised me on music, I grew up in the late ’90s, early 2000s, so I grew up listening to everything. She raised me listening to everything, like Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates, all the stuff she grew up on. But then Backstreet Boys and the rock groups of the ’90s, Sugar Ray – it was just all over the place.

SC: And Don Reno & Red Smiley. [Laughs]

BR: There’s still a box set of Merle Haggard in my truck right now. I’ve listened to all these kinds of things. I grew up with a very diverse listening, and then I was in the iPod generation, so there was the shuffling music. …

I think when we sing something, even as off the beaten path as it is, I think you just innately are you, and I am innately me. It’s fate, we’re mother-son. We kinda have similar tendencies, to notes and a choice of a run here or not there. I think that’s kinda what gives it that common thread. You can take a hard rock song or you can take an old country song, and as long as it’s me and you singing it…

SC: Sometimes it’s a challenge, too. In a good way! …

BR: But whenever I blend with Mom, it’s like I’m learning how to take the thing that I do that’s really distinct and interesting about myself, but also shed some of the other solo stuff to match with her. Because it’s me and Mom, it kinda changes the alchemy of the song a little bit in a really cool way.

One practical impact of you both being at this point in your careers – Brandon, you have already done two or three or four laps around Nashville, trying to get into the scene in the same way most folks do. Suzanne, you had this vibrant career and were asking yourself, “What now?” So, for both of you to then be able to be like, “Actually, we know we don’t have to do it the ‘Music Business’ way. We know we can just do it the way that we’re gonna do it.”

SC: Exactly. I told Brandon, “I’m 59 this year. And at this age you start relaxing a little bit more.” I could relax a little bit more, my son would say. [Laughs] But I’m learning so much, and I don’t think you can [avoid that]. I don’t think people give up. And I feel like I can still learn a lot. I’m learning from my child, I’m learning from this industry. But we always want to be unique.

BR: That’s one of the cool dynamics about being mother-son. We found a niche, I believe, too. … I’ve seen both sides. In the 12 years I’ve been here, it was the old world one minute and then everything was new. I’ve kinda gotten acclimated to this. And I’m always telling Mom, “It’s really funny we share these stories.” ‘Cause there’s stuff to learn from both eras. I’m always telling Mom, “That thing that you see as messy or weird or, ‘Oh, that was embarrassing,’ I go, ‘That’s when I and everyone else see you shine. You’re funny, you’re smart, you’re incredibly talented.'”

That’s something about this new world, the internet world, that is so different from whenever they were coming up. Where everything was kind of media-trained and scrubbed and, “Let’s shave the edges off.” Whereas now I’m telling Mom, “No, that is the goal.” When you are just yourself and I happen to catch it, that’s the thing that people light up for.

In a world where more and more, when you go on the DSPs and you hit shuffle, you might be hearing AI music, having those moments of real humanity are so important. Maybe it’s imperfect, but it’s real and it’s raw. You see so many videos online that are like three singers in a kitchen harmonizing together “impromptu.” You go to the comments and everyone’s saying, “We can hear the auto-tune.” Audiences know what’s real and what’s fake.

SC: Which is fascinating that you say that, because a lot of people have said, “Oh, there’s no way this is just in your backyard.” [Both laugh]

BR: TikTok has a great reverb, if you only knew.

SC: I think it’s funny.

I want people to think I’m tuned when I’m not!

BR: Exactly. [Laughs] I think people are jaded. I think they’re paranoid – to your point about they’re getting fed so much phony stuff. They don’t know what’s real anymore. That’s one of the encouraging things about the world we live in, I think it is increasing the demand for real human authenticity. That is a positive side of this pendulum swinging. People are fed up with this “sounds too perfect” trend. It’s indiscernible from a robot.

Even to the point that there was a girl who commented on this video we did, I posted a backstage video of us at the Opry. She said, “There’s no way this wasn’t studio-recorded before.” I’m sitting here going, “I’ll take it as a compliment.” ‘Cause I felt like I was all over the place in that video! But thank you for thinking that.

I think people are telling on themselves with a lot of the hand-wringing over what to do about AI. Of course I agree, we should be very careful with how we’re proliferating this technology and protect creators’ rights, but also AI is never gonna be able to do what Suzanne Cox’s voice does, right? And I’ve not yet heard a convincing AI bluegrass banjo player. I don’t think it’s coming for our jobs! I hope that what we’re all doing is real and human enough that AI will never come for these jobs.

SC: When they’re all in the coloring book, inside the lines, we’ll color outside … and the rest of us. We’re gonna color outside the lines. …

BR: I’ll say, I think the one thing I’ve learned from this whole experience is there are no rules.

SC: Yeah, exactly.

BR: This whole idea that you gotta post this many times, you gotta do this, you gotta do that… Blah, blah, blah. People will tell you, whether you’re talking about the internet or anything else, they’ll tell you there’s a certain math to it. I’m like, “Man, I don’t know anything about what I’m doing.” My guesses have gotten better, but I’m still clueless. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that you have to follow the pace of your inspiration. As soon as you start doing it because you feel obligated, you’ve already lost.

Photo Credit: Chase Hentges

What Does “Outlaw” Really Mean?

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Editor’s Note: Each issue of Good Country, our co-founder Ed Helms shares a handful of good country artists, albums, and songs direct from his own earphones in Ed’s Picks.

Creekbed Carter Hogan
Creekbed Carter Hogan

An exciting emerging voice in indie and country, singer-songwriter and fiction author Creekbed Carter Hogan will release his second studio album, PEASANTS REVOLT!, on July 24. Toggling smoothly between twanging Americana and cozy indie-folk, it’s a collectivist country album tackling some major timely issues – war, labor rights, the climate crisis, queer survival, and the isolation of individualism. Carter reminds us all what being “outlaw” can really mean, in country and beyond.

Fantastic Negrito
Fantastic Negrito

Three-time GRAMMY winner, Fantastic Negrito doesn’t always make country music, but the music he makes is always Good Country. A genre-blender of the highest order, Fantastic Negrito (given name Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz) is most often typified as a blues, soul, and Americana artist. But as his new live collection Alive! – out now – can attest, his albums and live shows boast just as many truly country moments as well. And, dare we say, it’s sounding pretty “outlaw” to us, too. If you know his story, you know it’s a fitting descriptor for this roots music renaissance man.

Robert Earl Keen
Robert Earl Keen

REK may be “retired,” but we’re certainly beyond happy that, indeed, “The Road Goes On Forever.” Earlier this month he released a special 25th anniversary reissue of his seminal 2001 album, Gravitational Forces, with Lost Highway Records. Available in limited edition forest green vinyl, it also features brand-new album notes penned by his daughter, Clara Rose. And that’s not all, next month Lost Highway will reissue Ready for Confetti for its 15th anniversary, as well. (That one will be available in limited edition confetti vinyl!) It’s time to add a couple more essential records to the collection, isn’t it?

John R. Miller
John R. Miller

Speaking of outlaw, here’s a fella that does it all on his own terms. West Virginia-raised Americana singer-songwriter John R. Miller released his latest album, The Great Unknowing, in physical formats more than a month ago and now it’s available everywhere you listen to music digitally, too. It’s this sort of mindset that permeates his writing, giving his music a strong sense of community, place, connection, and folklore amid the grit and gristle of his authentic, worn-in sounds. There’s quite a few reasons he gets compared to folk songwriting luminaries like John Prine.

Waylon Wyatt
Waylon Wyatt

Get on the ground floor of this quickly rising country artist now, because he’s going places! Arkansan Waylon Wyatt’s highly anticipated debut album, Dustpiles, was just released last week. His 2024 EP, Til the Sun Goes Down, was a sensation, amassing more than 225 million streams and launching his career into the stratosphere. His streams – and view, like, and follower counts on social media – continue on almost vertical spikes driven by his catchy, thoughtful songwriting and his limitless Arkansas charm. You can read our just-published Good Country interview with Wyatt here.

Listen to this issue of Ed’s Picks in one YouTube playlist here.

Listen to the full Ed’s Picks archive playlist here.

Want more? Check out our recent Basic Folk episode with Lizzie No and Kimaya Diggs about compilation album Outlaws’ Almanac that ponders the same questions – what is an outlaw and who gets to be an outlaw? 

Photo Credits: Creekbed Carter Hogan by Emily April Allen; Fantastic Negrito courtesy of the artist; John R. Miller by Larry Nieheus; Robert Earl Keen by Patrick Dunn; Waylon Wyatt by Cole Silberman.

Waylon Wyatt Leads a New Generation of Country Stars

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a raw, gut-wrenching approach to songcraft, Waylon Wyatt is quickly becoming an essential voice in the new generation of Americana artists. Emphasis on “new generation.”

A 19-year-old from the tiny West Arkansas town of Hackett, Wyatt has parlayed a razor-wire vocal and songs written to honor the memory of a lost brother into rising acclaim, first via social media and then on country’s biggest stages. Already a fan of Zach Bryan, Wyatt opened two shows for the superstar at London’s massive BTS festival in Hyde Park in 2025, and since then he’s continued growing.

Gritty anthems to love like “Arkansas Diamond” have been met with massive streaming number and a pair of duets with fellow red-dirt riser Bayker Blankenship set the pace for more singles to come. In June, the young talent was performing as part of CMA Fest when his friend and hero Wyatt Flores invited him to make his Grand Ole Opry debut. And the instinctive songwriter has made huge creative leaps as well.

On his debut album Dustpiles that released on July 17, Wyatt seems to unburden his soul a little more on each craggy, sun-baked, acoustic anthem. But with a long list of big-name collaborators like Ian Fitchuk, Carter Faith, Joe Becker (Sam Barber), Tofer Brown (Tim McGraw, Old Dominion), Anderson East, and Brett Truitt, his signature style is more honed than ever.

Waylon Wyatt spoke with Good Country about where his tunes come from, and where rising fame has him headed.

Tell me a little about home in Arkansas. What’s life like in Hackett?

Waylon Wyatt: Hackett, it’s a map dot for sure. It’s pretty easy to overlook. There’s nothing too crazy. We don’t have any stoplights in my town so I guess you could say it’s pretty go, go, go. But it’s a small town and it’s very homey and I love how peaceful Hackett is. My first time going to Nashville, I was not ready for how just lit up everything would be.

I’m very glad to be where I’m from. Growing up in Arkansas is just a blessing and a half because you have so many people that are so encouraging. I mean, I didn’t grow up with any bullies in my life or anything like that. I had more supporters than I did haters. So I would say that I was pretty well backed up during my whole development of trying to find a career path, especially by my parents. I say they are my biggest fans, but they also are my biggest humblers. My family in general is very good at keeping me grounded and making sure that I don’t get no big head.

You said family’s a big part of your life and I know that’s true, because when I saw you at Basement East [in Nashville], you talked about how you got started after losing your brother. Can you talk a little bit about why that inspired you to start in music?

Yeah, of course. So when I was about eight or nine years old, my brother ended up taking his own life and that just kind of threw me off for the longest time, because I just questioned why. I didn’t really have the knowledge or idea of why that come to be, what was the reason behind it, that kind of stuff. I mean, I was young, so it just didn’t make sense. I’m still kind of figuring those things out. Even now, I’m still questioning as to what directed that to happen. But growing up with it there was kind of a hole in my life, a hole in the family amongst us all, because he was the oldest brother of my family.

Later on, I got into music through learning guitar, because my older brother was a guitarist. He was a musician. He was a good one at that. Wasn’t as much a singer. I don’t think he could carry a lick of a tune whatsoever, but he was a guitarist. When I was younger, I had this fake little electric guitar that if you plucked it, it would make guitar sounds and we would call it our little jam sesh. I would be with him while he was playing and I’d act like I was playing and just riffing off each other. But I like to think that we’re still having our jam sessions now. When I get up on stage and I sing the one song that I wrote directly for him [“Phoning Heaven”], it feels like he’s in that room with me. I think it’s such a beautiful thing that even though it was such a misfortunate and depressing thing that happened … it led me to this music career and to shed light on that for other people that need to hear such things.

I’m sure he’d be very proud of you and how far you’ve come. Is your style kind of close to what he was doing? What kind of music was he into?

Oh man, he was a rocker. I wish I could rock like he did. He was just amazing at riffing.

So were your parents super into outlaw country? Is that why they named you Waylon?

Yeah, my dad was super big into outlaw country. My mom, she’s big into bluegrass and, weirdly enough, heavy metal. That’s her two things. But he was the giver of names. Also, my little brother, his name is Jesse – as in Jessi Colter – and Cole, like Cole Younger [of the James-Younger Gang]. Jesse Cole. My name’s Waylon Wyatt, like Waylon Jennings and Wyatt Earp. It’s just all kinds of things.

That’s cool. Also though, your style is very raw in that acoustic folk-country vein that definitely reminds me of artists like Zach Bryan. Did he make an impact on you?

Oh yeah. I mean the reason I wrote my song called “Arkansas Diamond” was due to a song by Zach Bryan called “Oklahoma Smoke Show.” Oklahoma and Arkansas being so close together, I was like, “Arkansas needs a song about a girl.” And that’s why I started writing that song. It was definitely [the] fuel behind my lyricism, the way he writes his music and the way he depicts a picture through his lyricism as well. His song, “Something in the Orange,” I’m sure that it kind of sparked up my idea of writing “Everything Under the Sun.”

Then I guess it came full circle last summer. You ended up opening for him in London, right? Two nights in Hyde Park and like 70,000 fans each time. What’s going on in your mind in that moment?

I was just kind of bewildered by the fact that I’m all the way in Europe. I mean, I loved that I was playing this thing, but I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that I was in Europe and I was like, “This is so crazy.”

Yeah. If you thought Nashville was overwhelming, then I’d say London was probably that times a hundred, right?

Definitely. Yeah, it was absolutely insane. The people there were so incredible just to hear talk. I get told I have an accent and I don’t think I do, but those people definitely have an accent. … It was a fun time and I can’t wait to be back. We’re going to be hitting that market later this year too. Not Hyde Park, though.

Tell me a little bit about Dustpiles. This is the album debut. What do you love the most about this thing?

So the reason behind this is just the nostalgic feeling of finding love and losing said love and then rediscovering love. … The reason I love it so much though is just because it’s my biggest work to date and I’m so proud of it because it was putting myself out there, working with other songwriters and other producers that I hadn’t yet gotten to know. There was some that were just not the best hang sessions, and there was some that I’d be like, “All right, I’ll be with you till the day I die,” kind of thing.

It was just the idea of getting out of my comfort zone. But the main theme behind Dustpiles specifically is I was writing this song for my girlfriend saying whatever we go through in life, I want to make sure we become so secure with each other that in the end, we can just be two piles of dust. It’s kind of an eerie sound to it, but it’s basically meaning just finding that one that you love so much you see growing old with each other.

That’s an interesting way of looking at something beautiful, and then it’s also got a bit of a darker side.

Definitely. I don’t know why. I could be the happiest man on earth and I’ll still find a way to write a gut-wrenching lyric.

You’re wrapping up a headline tour pretty soon. That’s a big step to come early in your career. So how’s it going?

So we’re wrapping up the Everywhere Under the Sun Tour pretty soon, but we’ll be starting the debut album tour – my first world tour, Dustpiles World Tour – and I’m super stoked about that. We’re going to be hitting Europe and Australia on this leg. Touring’s been insane. It’s just been crazy. Before even doing all of this, the furthest I’ve been out of home-state was just to the state over, Oklahoma. That’s the furthest I had been. And now I can say I’ve been to Australia, I’ve been to Europe, I’ve been to Scandinavia. That’s probably in Europe, too. I don’t know. But it’s just insane the places I get to go now doing these shows and the people that come to my show and for some reason know the lyrics. I still can’t believe it. I have to preach myself every day I wake up just to see if it’s the reality I’m living right now.

Especially headline shows. I get to act myself and show my true self to the people. I love that so much. And doing these festivals too, one of my favorite things is doing festivals just because I have such an early slot in the day that I get my show over and then I’m just seeing a bunch of other concerts. I’m like, this is awesome. Not only am I seeing a bunch of concerts, but I’m seeing them backstage. So I’m closer to the artist than anybody else.

Speaking of festivals, CMA Fest was a big moment, right? You ended up getting invited to make your Grand Ole Opry debut from your buddy, Wyatt Flores. The look on your face was just utter shock, kind of bewilderment. So what was going on in your head, and how’s it feel to make this Opry debut?

I’ll tell you right now, it was such a big deal. Had it been anybody else, it would’ve been a big deal, too. But being Wyatt, it was the biggest deal it could have been just because Wyatt Flores happens to be the very first live show I ever got to witness. It was at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was such a big deal because I had never been able to go to a live show before. We didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t have a lot of time on our hands to be able. My dad does his own construction company. My mom, she’s a mail carrier, so they’re always gone and out doing their own thing. And we kids were just kind of stuck at the house.

His agents had reached out when I had slowly started making waves on the TikTok and that’s how we got the ability to go to a show. And sometime down the line, I met him in a VIP lounge and the first thing after talking to him he gave me his phone number and told me, “If you ever have trouble on the road, just call me and text me.” And later that year, too, I had opened for him for a few shows and then later down the line also we put a song out. So it was just kind of like a gradual circling of each other.

It was also connecting the dots just from him. I think Turnpike [Troubadours] told him [about his Opry debut], so it was one of his idols telling him, and it was my idol, too. Just kind of passing on the torch. I’ll tell you right now, I was doing my best to not tear up. I’m not a very emotional man – except in my lyricism – but there that day I was gutted and I was trying my best not to cry. I took my glasses off because the sun started going down and I told him right in the mic, I was like, “Yep,” then “Thanks for coming!”

Photo Credit: Cole Silberman

Watch Carly Pearce Sing With Molly Tuttle and Dan Tyminski on Harmonies

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Award-winning and critically acclaimed country star Carly Pearce has unveiled the latest single from her upcoming album, Honest Woman, and the track should be of special interest not just to country fans, but bluegrass lovers, too. “What If You Loved Me,” available today on streaming platforms and via an accompanying performance video (watch above) features Dan Tyminski and Molly Tuttle on harmony vocals and mandolin and clawhammer banjo, respectively. It’s a lovely song of longing daydreaming and Pearce’s lead vocal shines bolstered by such talented and artful harmony singers.

“What If You Loved Me” is built on an absolutely classic country trope, the “opposite day” paradigm, asking seemingly simple but actually huge and daunting questions. It immediately recalls songs like Dolly Parton’s “The Grass Is Blue,” Zach Top’s “I Never Lie,” George Jones’ “She Thinks I Still Care” or “Just Someone I Used to Know” written by Cowboy Jack Clement, wherein the speaker says exactly what they want, dream of, hope for, and love – but by pointing out the opposite of each. Pearce’s incisive song is a lovely iteration on this age-old country theme, singing:

What if up was down and down was up
And you were the sad one
And I already found somebody?
What if I didn’t love you
And what if you loved me? 

It’s a heart-wrenching plea, the lonesome pining in the lyrics ratcheted to extremes by delicious, buttery three-part harmony. With Pearce on rhythm guitar, Tuttle picks up an open-back old-time banjo and frails along while Tyminski pulls limitless emotion from his mandolin with tremolos and tender licks. Both of these bluegrass pickers are accomplished multi-instrumentalists, serving any and every song and context in whatever way they need.

“Bluegrass is such a cherished part of who I am as it’s where I got my start,” says Pearce via press release. “To record a song that honors my roots with two artists that I have deep respect and admiration for is not only a special moment, but very emotional. 10-year-old Carly who grew up singing in bluegrass bands would be over the moon to know she has a song with Dan and Molly (as is present-day Carly!). This is the perfect moment in my career to show fans this side of my heart.”

It’s easy to trace the bluegrass influences through Carly Pearce’s country career, as the genre has been an important part of the Kentucky native’s creative life all along. But it’s especially apparent lately, with this collaboration with Tyminski and Tuttle, another track on Honest Woman featuring Tyminski as well, and Pearce’s recent CMA Fest appearance that featured Tuttle, Ricky Skaggs, young mandolinist Shay Morgan, and members of Skaggs’ band, Kentucky Thunder. Their performance of “From Now On” was a hit at Nissan Stadium and on the CMA Fest broadcast on ABC, too.

Bluegrass and country have always gone hand-in-hand, but with excellent songs such as these, artists like Carly Pearce help remind of their inseparable connection. Pearce’s brand new album, Honest Woman, will be out August 28 and her Honest Woman: Up Close Tour beings in September.

Photo Credit: John Shearer

River Shook Is as Disarming As Ever

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After more than a decade fronting various alt-country bands – most notably the Disarmers – River Shook is now breaking out on their own.

The new chapter officially launched June 26 with the release of Shook’s self-titled debut. It’s stripped back instrumentally, but still features the same blunt songwriting and gritty vocals that longtime fans of the singer have come to know and love. As such, its 10 songs take listeners on a rollercoaster of emotions balancing equal parts sorrow and joy, ultimately reminding that we’re all stronger than we give ourselves credit for.

“This album is extremely dichotomous,” says Shook. “One constant is a theme of being able to hold two very contrasting emotions at the same time, which can be hard for many people and takes a level of self-awareness that I think we should all aspire to.”

Bringing the record to life was Shook’s bandmate and life partner, Blake Tallent, and together they produced the project inside their North Carolina home. That decision came after unsuccessfully shopping demos to record labels, then leaning on the guidance of friend and esteemed producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Mavis Staples), who stressed to them the need to build everything around the vocals.

“When he said that, my brain immediately went back to the times where we’ve made Disarmers records where I felt like vocally I was competing with the band and had to force my singing overtop of everything else,” explains Shook. “But with this album we wanted to figure out the vocals and build everything else around them. When we started recording we acted as if it was a demo, just me with an acoustic guitar, a mic and a click track in my ears. There’s still the rock ‘n’ roll people know me for, but it’s a lot more nuanced because we really wanted to make the vocals the North Star of this project. When I listen back to it now, I’m amazed at how natural my voice sounds – there’s no straining to break through the noise like before.”

Ahead of the album’s release, Shook caught up with Good Country to talk about disbanding the Disarmers, recording the new project exclusively at home with Tallent, why they opt to be so up front with pain in their songwriting, and more.

When did you first start planning for this solo project, and why was it important for you to effectively “kill off” the Disarmers before doing so?

River Shook: The Disarmers were together for about 10 years, but the last couple years of it we were dealing with the situation where we had all of these tours booked and my guitarist at the time, Eric Peterson, had to take a leave of absence because he was having some arm issues that were preventing him from being able to play. That started this weird cycle of having to bring in sub musicians and soon after everything fell apart. Our bassist ended up leaving followed by our drummer, leaving us in this mode of band-aid fixes since we had so many shows already on the books. We were so busy that we didn’t have time to even really be intentional about who we were bringing in, it was just a matter of “can they play the instrument well and are they available?” – there wasn’t any time to reflect.

I was also getting really burned out, and on top of that I’m a very introverted person, so it was really hard for me to get used to new people. Couple that with the fact that sometimes we would have people in the band that we just weren’t meshing with made it start to feel weird. I was constantly trying to hold together this thing that was determined to fall apart. Then in December of 2024 my other longest-running band member, Jack Foster – who had drummed with me for three or four years at that point – called me shortly after Thanksgiving and told me he could no longer commit to the band. Instead of the knee-jerk reaction that we’d all been having every time a band member left, I just decided to let go and move on. It wound up being a massive weight off my shoulders.

At the same time, I knew I [was] not quitting music, because it’s such a huge part of who I am, I just realized it was time for that chapter to come to a close. Immediately I began thinking about what’s next, not in a hectic or frantic way, but in a way that felt extremely liberating and inspiring. [I was] immediately inspired – like, I can take this wherever I want to.

You talking about feeling liberated has me thinking of the album’s opening track “Free At Last.” Was that your way of declaring you’ve broken free of what has weighed you down?

That’s absolutely what it felt like. That song is actually a reference to sort of a parallel storyline that was occurring at the time. I had to cut my parents off for a while, which is very hard to write a song about. Most people can’t relate to that, but I felt like if I can write this song about a divorce, that is something that so many people can understand. That – coupled with the fact that the Disarmers ending was very much a divorce in its own way – made this a song that I wanted to use to remind people that getting out of your shit is really hard to do. However, the freedom to do and pursue what we want on the other side is absolutely worth going through that heartache.

Speaking of your parents, you also sing about your up-and-down relationship with them on the record’s closing track, “Loving Me Is Like Rolling A Big Old Rock.” What was it like rehashing some of those memories and examining how your relationship has evolved with them over time?

I was working through a lot of stuff with all the songs on this record and trying to be more honest with myself about my childhood and my teen years, which were rough. I know my parents meant well and were coming from a good place, but it was a very controlling and authoritarian household where I experienced a lot of religious and gender-based trauma. In their minds I was born a girl, so I was only supposed to exist to be a wife, mother, and housekeeper. They’ve since come a long way with their beliefs and don’t think like that anymore, which I’m grateful for, but the damage had already been done.

More recently I was at a point where I [was] grappling with all this stuff as an adult and going to therapy to try to come to terms with it all. Therapy is a great tool, but it can only get you so far. There’s so much work that you have to do yourself and that’s part of what writing this record was, it was me therapizing myself. It was me having very honest and frank discussions with myself about what happened and what I need to do to have a healthier perspective of all of the bad things that I’ve dealt with.

So “Loving Me Is Like Rolling A Big Old Rock” is supposed to feel kind of mischievous and fun because it is touching on such heavy topics that unfortunately I think a lot of people can relate to. When most people become parents for the first time they’re not prepared, because their parents weren’t prepared to be parents either – it’s a tale as old as time.

You and your partner Blake Tallent produced this album yourselves inside your home studio in North Carolina. What led to that approach, and is it something you’d ever done before?

The first four Disarmers records were studio albums, but with my side project, Mightmare featured the only other record that I’ve made at home, although that was a completely different situation. That entire record was me, a MacBook with GarageBand, and a Scarlett Focusrite [interface] – it was very DIY. When I wrapped up the Disarmers, I had demos that our manager was shopping around. We were getting some interest but nothing more, and it got to a point where the timeline that I had with our touring schedule required that we release this in spring of 2026. That’s when we started making the record at home between just the two of us.

Blake is a killer multi-instrumentalist, so much so that it blows my mind. He lived in Nashville for a long time and still has a house on the east side. When he lived there he was producing records, playing instruments, and even mixing – he’s a fucking weapon! Our original goal with this record was to have a whole band on it and to capture it at Sonic Ranch, since that place has been on my bucket list for several years. When the things that you want don’t work out, you can get lost in the defeat and your emotions or you can notice it as an opportunity to do something else, and that’s how we chose to approach it. I’m so grateful that [Blake] was fully on board.

The Disarmers had a couple fly-out dates at the end of June 2025 and by July 1 we were hunkered down in the house and started making the record using Pro Tools. Blake taught me the basics of Pro Tools so that while he’s playing drums or bass, I can be running the session and he doesn’t have to multitask. It was also nice not running into that “too many cooks in the kitchen” issue, because both of our creative visions were 100% aligned. I can’t think of a single disagreement we had in the studio, which simply does not happen. Having a creative partner who’s also your life partner and being in alignment together on a project of this magnitude was incredible, and I think because of that our synchronicity really shines through on this record. It sounds very cohesive without any kind of dissonance or struggle.

How long has Blake been playing with you?

He joined the band as a sub in June of 2022, then we were seeing each other by August and fell in love on our first European tour together, completely unexpectedly. The story of how we met is told in “Running to Georgia.” It was a combination of crazy coincidences and planets aligning for us to have even met in the first place.

That’s funny, because the first time I listened to that song I assumed it was about you trying to get away from someone. How exactly did y’all find each other?

The Disarmers were playing the El Rocko Lounge in Savannah in October of 2021. When I walked in the venue I saw him across the room and immediately thought, “That’s my person!” It wasn’t like it was love at first sight or a sexual thing, it was just this acknowledgment and recognition. Then he walked over to me and held his hand out and said, “Hey, I’m your sound tech” and I was so embarrassed. [Laughs] I thought I’d made a terrible mistake, but then I ended up going out to a bar after the show to meet another friend who happened to be in town on tour and Blake was there. We wound up having this great night of hanging out with friends and talking, but the next day I was so depressed because I thought I’m never gonna see this person again.

Then a few months later we needed a guitar sub and my manager emailed me out of nowhere saying there’s this guy named Blake Tallent who knows all the songs and is available for all the dates, and my jaw hit the floor. It was destiny.

That’s lovely. I’m so glad you found your person!

The next song I wanted to ask you about is “Wildlands,” which was your first single as a solo artist but isn’t included on this album. Why is that?

“Wildlands” was a separate thing. When we made the record, the only instruments that Blake didn’t play were banjo and pedal steel. But immediately after we made it, he got a pedal steel and stated that he wanted to do it himself next time – which he did when we eventually recorded this song. At the time we were talking with a label and everyone involved was 99% certain that we were going to sign with them, but it ended up being an absolute fiasco. Initially we planned for the song to be a single leading up to the album singles, but when this label deal fell through I realized we had no option other than to self-release unless we wanted to move the album to the fall. At that point I’d already put a band together and promised people jobs so that wasn’t going to happen, but I still really wanted to get the song out since I knew fans were hungry to hear what this new project is gonna feel and sound like.

In that sense it was like revenge putting this out. I didn’t know if we were going to find another label or distribution partner – or what-the fuck-ever – but [“Wildlands” was] going to be a standalone thing, which I think was very symbolic. In the end, that single is 100% independent – I own the masters, the publishing, and the songwriting. We were very fortunate to find a distribution partner for the record, but I think that song is really special and has its own thing going on.

In lieu of not landing a record deal you released the album under your own imprint, Blackberry River. Mind telling me about the origins of its name?

I’ve been working on a memoir … When you’re having to really rethink your childhood and the things that occupied your time– one big thing for me was summer, because winters in Western New York are absolutely brutal. It’s like six months of winter and gray sky, so spring and summer have always been my favorite seasons. My favorite thing about summer was our backyard, which was pretty big and had these amazing blackberry bushes that my older sister and I would go out to with baskets to fill up while also eating them right off the bush. The wild nature of blackberries – not as a thing that’s an agricultural commodity, but something that is just literally wild and free – is something I relate to so deeply. So Blackberry River is just a nod to my 8-, 10-year-old self that was barefoot running through the yard with purple blackberry hands. [Laughs]

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

I learned that less is more sometimes and that I can be a very hyper-focused type of person, which sometimes means I need to step back and take in the bigger picture. I’m just now developing the ability to step back and see things more as a whole than as individual parts. Doing that gave me a lot more perspective on how to make this album really shine.

Photo Credit: Jillian Clark