Tag: Keith Whitley

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.

Paul Overstreet Joins the Country Music Hall of Fame

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

As a nine-year-old kid in Mississippi, Paul Overstreet was fascinated by Your Cheatin’ Heart, a 1964 film about Hank Williams’ life and career. The Hollywood treatment of Hank’s life sparked such a strong interest in writing and performing country music that Overstreet started entering school talent contests, played honky-tonks in Biloxi while still in junior high, and moved to Nashville after graduating from high school in 1973.

This fall, in a full circle moment, Overstreet will join his hero, Hank Williams, as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. In that hallowed rotunda in Nashville, Overstreet’s bronze plaque will hang alongside a significant number of artists who found radio success with his songs, including Kenny Chesney, George Jones, the Judds, Ronnie Milsap, Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker, and Keith Whitley. Overstreet wrote many of his biggest “career songs” with Don Schlitz, thus creating one of the most prolific and poetic songwriting partnerships in country music history.

Overstreet enjoyed a good run as a recording artist, too. He achieved a No. 1 country hit with “Baby’s Got a New Baby” (recorded with songwriters Thom Schuyler and Fred Knobloch under the band name S-K-O) in 1987, and with “I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love” (with Tanya Tucker and Paul Davis) in 1988. By 1991, he’d also notched eight consecutive Top 10 solo hits while signed to RCA. Many of them offer a relatable look at family life, with “Seeing My Father in Me” perhaps his most poignant release.

When Overstreet moved to Music City as a teenager, he didn’t even own a suitcase. (He just threw everything in a laundry basket, grabbed his guitar and some football jerseys, and headed north.) Now, at 71, he’s almost always on the go – he got the call about his Hall of Fame induction while on a sightseeing cruise in Southeast Asia. Good Country caught up with Overstreet via Zoom during a Caribbean beach vacation.

You’ve seen a number of people closely associated with your career go into the Hall of Fame, and now it’s your turn. What was your reaction when you learned that you were chosen?

Paul Overstreet: I have to tell you, it was a shock, actually, to me. I’ve been to a lot of the ceremonies because I always like to go. I watch people and I learn things, and I see people talking about their career. It’s always fun and interesting, but I never really thought I would be one of the people going in, just because I don’t have a manager or any of that stuff. I’m kind of solo as far as what I’m doing now, but through the years I had great publishers and people that I worked with and great co-writers. I was in the mix pretty good there for a long time.

Don Schlitz [a 2017 inductee] sent me a text message, telling me, “Man, you’re going to go through several phases here.” He said he and his wife were screaming and jumping up and down when they started doing the announcement, and heard them say that it’s a writer from Mississippi. He was so sweet about it, and just told me that you’ll go through some phases, and you can’t believe it’s happening, and all this stuff. That’s really kind of the way it was for me. I was just in amazement.

That must have been a great feeling to share that moment with Don.

It was, and it shocked me and my wife both when we got the news that he was gone.

Had you stayed close throughout the years and kept in touch with each other?

Well, we talked a lot. But after we’d written so many songs together, it just kind of started to… he got into another type of writing, and he was doing a lot of things like that, and of course I was, too. I was writing with a lot of different writers. You always wonder why writers that wrote so well together stop writing, and I really don’t know the answer to that, totally, with everybody.

I think there’s a period of time that you have, that an energy is there between the two. At some point it just wanes a little bit. I mean, you could probably still write, but we had such a magic. We kind of both knew when it wasn’t there. It’s no use trying to do stuff that just wasn’t happening. We never really said, “Let’s don’t write anymore.” We just kind of stopped writing. But I think a lot of writing teams might go through that phase.

You also had nothing left to prove. You had written so many incredible songs together, and you could part as friends. There’s something to be said for that, too.

Yeah. And you know, Don was very organized. He kept a little notebook, the kind with the little rings where you can’t move the pages around. They’re locked into place. He said to me one day, “Come here, I want to show you something.” We wouldn’t have known at the time we were writing, but he started flipping pages, and it was one No. 1 song after another. I don’t know if it’s five or six, but it was very consistent. We just kind of laughed and went, “Man, that’s great!” Looking back, it’s a great feeling to know we were hitting it.

After you moved to Nashville, it took nine years before George Jones had a hit with “Same Ole Me.” Did you have people encouraging you at that time, or did you have close calls?

Yeah, and it can be your friends or just people that go, “Man, that’s good. You need to do something with that.” Dolly Parton’s uncle, Bill Owens, was wanting to co-write with me and I wrote some songs with him. I had some songs [before that] and he kind of helped me put them together. We hung out a lot and he wanted to manage me up front, but you wind up finding your own path eventually. Having those people along the way is so valuable. They encourage you and tell you about the industry. I had to learn what publishing was, what a record company was. You go to Nashville, you don’t know all this stuff.

Did you get to interact with George Jones much at that time?

No, not too much. I was around him some, but mostly the Oak Ridge Boys. I was writing for their publishing company at the time. They had a relationship with [famed producer] Billy Sherrill and Billy had told them, “If you ever have a song for George Jones, bring it to us.” They thought that song [“Same Ole Me”] would be a good one for him, so they took it. Tony Brown had heard the song first, and Tony was like, “Man, we need to demo this.” And I was like, “We do?” [Laughs]

So we demoed it, and then the Oak Ridge Boys took it to George, and they said, “If y’all cut it, we’ll sing the backgrounds on that.” That was the first big national recording. I had some other recordings by Stella Parton. She had her own label and I had some songs on a couple of her albums, but they never were released as singles. The George Jones one was the first one I realized how much music meant to people.

This year is the 40th anniversary of Storms of Life by Randy Travis. When that album took off, did you notice a change in the kinds of songs that people were looking for, or wanted to record?

Yeah, because a lot of people were doing crossover country stuff during that time. You had Kenny Rogers, who crossed over into the pop world, and then Crystal Gayle started sounding a little more pop, and then it seemed like everybody was trying to cut those kinds of songs.

I just kept writing country. And along comes an artist that all he wanted to do was country. We had some songs that were right down that road. I had cut “On the Other Hand” at a session to get a record deal with. I didn’t have my record deal in place at the time, though, so Don [Schlitz] and his company pitched it to Kyle Lehning for Dan Seals to record. Kyle said, “I don’t hear it for Dan Seals, I hear it for this new artist I’m doing.” And I was resistant because I’m a new artist and I’ve got a cut on it.

Basically it was a God thing, I think. I heard a little Bible verse in my head one day: “It is more blessed to give than receive.” So, Kyle told me they were thinking that maybe if they sold 35,000 units that they’d get to cut another record, but that album they cut, they had no idea it was going to sell 5 million albums. [Storms of Life] just turned things around in the industry, because it was country. And I think our industry needs that now. It needs those country songs that are new, but they are of that chemistry. Our industry is all separated. It needs something to bring it back together.

How did you get the word “exhuming” to fit so well in Randy Travis’ “Digging Up Bones”?

That word… it’s hard to know how to even say that word. [Laughs] Just putting stuff in a song that’s really off the beaten path… It’s almost like you can talk to people in a language that everybody understands, and a dialect, but sometimes you can add things in there that are different from what you normally use, and it kind of educates as well as entertains. And it’s fun because you get to learn a new word. Don Schlitz learned a new word every day, just to increase his vocabulary.

Sometimes in Nashville, songwriters will write for a specific artist. Did you do that too?

You know, I never really had much success with that, because every time I’d sit down and try to write for an artist, it just seemed like it didn’t work for me. I always feel like the song is the star, and the song should be the most important part that you look for. But some people could write for certain artists and make it work. It wasn’t my thing, but I think as long as the song is great, it’ll lift the artist up as well. But if you’re just counting on the artist to make it a hit, I don’t think the song’s going to be that good. But who knows? It can be done a lot of different ways, I guess. Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time, and I think there’s a reason.

Luck plays a role, but the hustle and the showing up – that plays a role too,

I remember “Forever and Ever, Amen” was written after I’d been playing golf in the Music City tournament and I was tired. I’d played 36 holes and I got a call from Don saying, “I got a great idea for us to write.” I said, “You want to do it tomorrow?” He goes, “No, we need to do it now.” [Laughs] I knew better than to put it off. Songs are hot. Whenever the idea is there, it needs to be written.

Since this is for the Bluegrass Situation/Good Country, I did want to ask about bluegrass influences. Keith Whitley and Alison Krauss each recorded “When You Say Nothing at All,” and you had several cuts with Ricky Skaggs when he was on Epic. Was bluegrass an influence on your music?

Yeah, I love bluegrass. I would do a show with an acoustic flat-top picker and a fiddle player, sometimes I’d take steel, and we had an upright bass player who would go with us. I was doing these shows for this all-day event and we would go play right after lunch, when nobody else wanted to play. I’d go out there with just those musicians and it was great! It was more like a broken-down, front porch kind of thing, but we could kick it up.

I used to do some bluegrass things in my show, because I’d learn them from some of the bluegrass groups. Our band learned to play them and just have fun with them, because they always pumped up the night. And if I carried a banjo player with me, it blew people’s minds! I’m telling you, banjo players are great because when they go out there, people love it. It’s just an amazing energy that comes off that instrument.

When I first got to Nashville, the morning I drove there I had 650 AM on, or some radio station, and all they were playing was bluegrass. I was like, “Wow! This is really interesting.” And I used to do “Forever and Ever, Amen” as a bluegrass song. I’d go through it, and when we’re finishing it, I’d just kick it off, almost like “Rocky Top,” and just do it bluegrass, and people would freaking love it.

What do you like the most about this time in your life and career?

I think the beauty of it is I don’t feel pressure to do anything. Like you said, I have proven to myself that I know how to work, and I know how to work hard, because I did that for years. I sustained raising our kids and everything, and still kept doing what I love to do, so that was really nice. And I think now it’s a little bit of me time. I get to relax and do the things I like to do, being on the beach, just playing golf, or being around horses and being around rodeos. I love that stuff. So, I don’t feel pressure when I’m doing it now. I used to think, “Well, I better get back to town and back to work.” [Laughs] Now I can just work anywhere I am. I can write songs sitting on the beach, and I like that.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Braxton Keith’s Real Damn Deal is Country Through and Through

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After years of building up a fan base through high-energy shows and viral social media posts, nobody is more ready for Braxton Keith’s debut album than… Braxton Keith. Raised in Midland, Texas and living in Nashville, Keith is only half-kidding when he says he’s probably listened to the new project five thousand times. Now he’s eager to hear what everybody else has to say.

His fans won’t be surprised that Real Damn Deal sounds like country through and through. Released on Warner Records on May 15, the album picks up the momentum of Keith’s gold-certified 2024 single “Cozy” and the unlikely embrace of his reverent cover of George Strait’s “The Chair.” Although he was skeptical about re-recording it, Keith found that his take on “The Chair” is serving as a gateway for his younger fans into the trenches of classic country.

Keith co-wrote a majority of the songs on the new album, but also included compelling material by Country Music Hall of Fame member Roger Miller, Americana all-star Jim Lauderdale, and some of Music Row’s most creative writers – such as Jessie Jo Dillon, Tony Lane, Liz Rose, and Morgane and Chris Stapleton, among many others. In this interview with Good Country, Keith talks about discovering country’s legends through his grandparents, learning to love the English language because of dyslexia, and hearing those inescapable ’90s country comparisons.

On this album, “Under Them Neons” sets the scene of a night in a country bar. It has a reference to Keith Whitley in it, too. He had a bluegrass pedigree, as you know, before he became a country star. Did you ever get interested in bluegrass?

Braxton Keith: I would say I have always been interested in bluegrass. Now I, by no means, am a bluegrass picker or anything of that sort, but I’ve always been interested in bluegrass, for sure. It’s such an interesting form of country music, I’d say. Very intricate, and it’s really cool to just watch. In fact, “I Ain’t Tryin’” on this record is written by Brice Long, Carson Peters, and Will Jones, and Carson is a bluegrass picker. He plays in a bluegrass band [Carson Peters & Iron Mountain] and opens up for us every once in a while.

How did you get introduced to Keith Whitley’s music?

Keith Whitley’s probably always been in the background for me. But definitely through listening to whatever was on the radio, listening to my grandparents’ old records and stuff. Keith Whitley has definitely been one that I’ve known about for a long time. I would say him, George Strait, Marty Robbins, and Ronnie Milsap … all the deep divers that you got to go in and figure out yourself.

Is that what you did? Figured it out for yourself?

I just tried to figure out what I liked the best. 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. Some of their melodies are pretty insane that I was trying to emulate, longing to hear again, or to make new.

You say you were listening to your grandparents’ records. Were they vinyl records?

Yes, sir. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember sitting down and listening to Marty Robbins for the first time and Porter Wagoner. I remember hearing “The Carroll County Accident” and just thinking, “What is this? This is a whole different type of music that I’ve never even experienced before.” I think I was like 13, maybe even younger than that.

Every time we went over there, the Grand Ole Opry was on TV, or CMT was on at least, so we were always exposed to it. I guess I just didn’t realize what was going on until I got a little bit older. I got an iPod, and I think it was the Shuffle. It didn’t even have a screen. You just had to know what your songs were. That was the first time I really got interested in checking out music for myself. I didn’t have to listen to exactly what my parents were listening to anymore.

My mom was a big ‘80s rock person. She really didn’t like country music very much at all, because it’s very sad, she thinks. [Laughs] And my dad was listening to country music, but just whatever was on the radio. He wasn’t very specific in what he liked to listen to.

I’d read that your brothers were athletic, but you were not. However, you had musical talent. Is that accurate to say?

I would say, yeah. I tried to be athletic. I wanted to be, but they definitely had a leg up on me, on the sports and stuff. When I was a little kid we did this thing called Greater Midland Football League. From when you’re in third grade to when you’re in sixth grade you can go after school and do a football program. I never got to do that, because in third grade I actually figured out I was dyslexic. So, every day after school, I would go to classes and learn about the English language, which is probably why I ended up liking writing. So it all works out in the end. I was just a couple years behind when it got to football.

When you were learning about the English language, did you like to read too?

No. That was my big deal, that I struggled – I still do struggle – with reading. It just takes me a little bit longer and I have to really slow down and be thinking about what I’m reading to understand it. I like audiobooks a lot. Anything that I can do where I’m listening to somebody else read helps. But I would say I just liked writing. Before it was songs, I liked writing essays or whatever the assignment was. I’ve always liked writing. Coming up with my own stuff.

Did you play instruments during this time?

Yeah, absolutely. I played piano since I was in kindergarten, and I ended up playing for a while. I played for six to seven years and then I ended up quitting piano. I started piano because I loved Elton John. He was my big inspiration behind music when I was really young. I really wanted to learn “Crocodile Rock” and my piano teacher just wouldn’t let me do it. So I was like, “Man, I gotta go do something else.”

That was about the time I started picking up guitar, because my little brother was playing guitar at the time. So I was like, “Well, I’ll just go to lessons with him.” I started picking it up, got my first guitar, and never looked back. He doesn’t play anymore, but we started out together picking “Hotel California.” I remember us just sitting there for hours trying to get that thing down.

On this album, “Wind Blows” reminds me of how country music sounded in the ’90s. It reminds me of a Tim McGraw deep cut. What do you like most about “Wind Blows”?

I like the story it tells. You know, I grew up in Midland, Texas. And if there’s anything we know about Midland, it’s that there’s a lot of wind blowing in Midland. It’s kind of telling the story of how, when I lived in Midland, Midland was the end of the earth to me. There was nothing else there. And once I left, I never looked back. I went to Angelo [State University in San Angelo]. I’ve moved to San Antonio and Nashville, and we’re traveling all over all the time, just running and gunning. And the road keeps on going, you know? It’s cool to reminisce on the past, but my time in Midland’s gone and it ain’t coming back. That’s kind of what “Wind Blows” means.

Do you like it when people use the ’90s country comparison? Do you think that’s flattering? Or do you have an opinion when people say you sound like ’90s country?

I don’t have an opinion. The thing is, I don’t know if I’ve ever labeled it, which is funny to me. … You’ve heard the record. I would say it’d be very hard to pin that as ‘90s country. I would say that there’s some ‘90s elements in there, but there are elements from a lot of different dates in country music within that. I would just say we’re country, and we’re just trying to be country.

Well, you do start with a Western swing tune on this record.

Absolutely. Have you heard Jake Worthington’s new record? He has a song called “My Home’s in Oklahoma” and that one is a Western swing song. I heard that one after I’d been on a big Bob Wills kick. I just came back from Houston. Most of the rides that I do, I try to listen to different music every time. I was listening to a bunch of Bob Wills. When I heard that Jake Worthington swing tune, it was like, “Oh, son, we’ve got to have a Western swing tune on this record!”

So we called in Brice and Carson. That’s when Carson’s bluegrass magic came out. They ended up writing that beautiful “I Ain’t Tryin’” Western swing song. You couldn’t ask for a better song to start this record off. It’s upbeat, gets you in there. We’ve been ending the set with “I Ain’t Tryin’” lately, and it’s really fun. The crowds dig it. It’s a good one to just swing around to.

Did you ever get pursued to be on The Voice or American Idol or shows like that?

Not until after I was already pursuing this pretty heavily, and at that time, I was trying to stay away from those avenues. I’ve heard some nightmare stories about their contracts and how you are allowed to put out music after the show. And I just kind of knew where we were going. That’s the cool thing about being a Texas artist. There’s so many other Texas artists that are running around on the road, booking their own shows, that you can just learn from some of those guys. That’s basically what I did.

Jake Worthington [who was on The Voice in 2014] had a long talk with me about what he thought about TV and the way that it impacted his career. At that time in my career, I just didn’t think that it was necessary for me to do anything like that. I definitely think it helps put your name out there a lot more. But it also can have some hindrances sometimes.

How did you find the Roger Miller tune, “Am I All Alone (Or Is It Only Me)”?

I do believe Jamey Johnson was talking to William Beckmann one day and telling him, “Man, that’s such a great tune. You should cut that on your next record.” And then me and William ended up going and having a couple drinks, which turned into a bunch of drinks. And he was like, “Man, I listened to this song, and I’m kind of thinking about cutting it.” So I started listening to it. I was like, “Yo, are you gonna cut that song? Because if not, I’m cutting it. Like, I’m going to the studio tomorrow. I’m cutting it.” He was like, “Yeah, go ahead.” So we ended up putting it on the record. It’s one of my favorite songs to play live. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record. It’s such a beautiful song. Every time that I hear it, I’m like, “That is such a well-written song.”

Are there other songs on your record that you would like people to know about?

I would say the only other thing that we didn’t talk about is, there’s a Mae Estes collab on there, “Hurt by Heart.” I met Mae on the road about two years ago, like, less than 100 miles south of Canada somewhere, at a festival. She was singing and just blew me away. Her voice is so beautiful. She has such a great classic timbre to her voice that I knew I needed her on this record.

We’d been looking for a duet piece for a long time. Ended up writing “Hurt by Heart” [with Trent Tomlinson and Scotty Emerick] and pitched it to her. She came over to the studio one day, dressed and ready for a show that she had in Nashville somewhere. She cut her part in 10 minutes and then I spent the next two hours trying to make my part sound as good as hers. [Laughs] I just can’t brag on Mae enough. The audience that hasn’t heard Mae should definitely check her out. Her music is really good.

You’re surrounding yourself with good people. You got Mae Estes, William Beckmann, Jake Worthingon… It’s refreshing to see this new generation cheering each other on.

That’s the way you gotta do it, man. We’re all in this together. Everybody needs to be cheering each other on and helping everybody out. That’s the way I see it.

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Photo Credit: Benjamin Humphrey

Honky-Tonkin’ Country with a Bluegrass Approach

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For anyone cheering on the mainstream country return of classic roots musicianship, Spencer Hatcher is a name to remember. Joining the likes of Zach Top and even Billy Strings, he’s a new country artist with some decidedly old-school tendencies and a deep foundation in bluegrass.

Having dropped his debut EP, Honky Tonk Hideaway, in November 2025, the Virginia native planted his flag for two-stepping rhythms and hot-blooded twang. Hatcher got his start in a family bluegrass band; over six tracks, his rich Shenandoah Valley vocal stands center stage, flanked by boundless barn-dance energy and timeless emotional heft. But with a thriving TikTok fanbase and a steamy, slow-dancing debut at country radio (“When She Calls Me Cowboy”), his style goes beyond nostalgia. It marks a shift in possibility, with room for roots artists in the commercial country space.

Speaking with Good Country a few weeks into his first promotional radio tour, Hatcher filled us in on his bluegrass beginnings and why they will always be his baseline. Plus, he opens up about the mainstream return of roots country, TikTok-ing back when it was “a dancing app,” and where he sees his music evolving.

Lately it seems like the foundational stuff from bluegrass and classic country is making a mainstream comeback, and you’re part of that. Do you have any sense of what is driving it?

Spencer Hatcher: I think that it’s like anything, I do believe in a full-circle moment – everything comes back into style. In this case, I’m overjoyed that the traditional sound is coming back. I’ve always called that “real country music,” and that’s just the stuff that all my heroes played. Growing up, I didn’t even know what modern country music was. I thought George Jones was modern. I thought that Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings were modern, and then I found out that stuff was 30 years old 20 years ago.

You grew up on a farm in Virginia, right? Shenandoah Valley?

Yes, sir.

How did you get your country education?

A lot of it was just literally how I was raised. It’s what I lived by. I don’t know if everybody lives by what they sing, but I certainly do. I remember at a very early age, probably 6 or 7 years old, I learned how to drive a tractor and I’d be out in the fields every day working with my dad and running cows, and we had some goats. That’s just been my lifestyle. It’s what I love, still today. Growing up on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley right there at the Blue Ridge Mountains, and coming from a small town, that’s what home is to me. I had a lot of bluegrass around me, of course, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and a lot of old-style country music. So that’s what we listened to, and sang, and jammed to on Friday nights.

You had a family bluegrass band. What drew you all into that music? I mean, this would’ve been in the 2000s. It wasn’t really in fashion.

It’s a fair statement to say that, in the 2000s, bluegrass was probably at an all-time low as far as popularity goes. But in my hometown, you wouldn’t really know that. There were jams, and what attracted me to it was definitely my dad. I can remember my dad sitting there watching me and my brothers play, and he’d be either playing the guitar or playing the banjo and singing. Growing up, I wanted to be like my dad, and so I picked up the banjo at 12 years old and started playing that, and I was just absorbed in it. That was the moment that music really took me over.

I just wanted to play the banjo, and so that’s what I did for three years straight. Friday night wasn’t spent with my friends at football games. It was at the local jam session where the average age was probably 75 years old. … Then my younger brother Connor decided to pick up the bass fiddle and that was history. From there, we started a band and we started playing everywhere we could.

@spencerhatcher Burnt It! #foryou #foryoupage #country #bluegrass #music #brother @connor_hatcher00 ♬ original sound – Spencer

Early on, you and Connor made bluegrass and country life seem fun on TikTok and you ended up with a pretty big following. What made you want to start posting?

I’d seen some friends do it in college and I admired their confidence. I was never into social media. I had it, but I didn’t post. It wasn’t an interest I had. But after I graduated college in 2019, I decided to move back home in March as COVID had hit, and I said, “I’m going to go back home and see about just playing country music.” I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I had a business degree. I was maybe going to be a financial advisor or something, but music was what I wanted to do. It’s what I did all through college, too. I was in four bands in college, and I just had this infatuation with becoming a country performer. I wanted to add that into my bluegrass shows.

So, I did the only thing I thought I could, and I decided to turn on a camera and sing a song. It took about six weeks for me to work up the courage to finally post that video. … And the fifth one is the one that went viral. It only took five videos and it was insane.

Wow, that’s pretty fast. And I think it’s cool that something so modern as TikTok can have so much fiddle playing and traditional lifestyle on there.

Back then in 2020, TikTok was still a dancing app, and I hadn’t seen any [country lifestyle] stuff on there yet. I was like, “Well, I’m going to show people how we live around here and just be myself.” I would oftentimes just turn the camera on and just let it roll.

Let’s talk about where you’re at now. You’ve got this country career going and it’s a little different from the bluegrass stuff, right? I mean, do you see a difference?

Yes, sir. There definitely is. But I guess you could say [I take] a very bluegrass, old-fashioned approach. I play as many shows as I can, just like the guys in bluegrass do and always have. … Of course, yes, the music is different, but I do believe that you can hear some bluegrass influence in my country music. It’s real country music. What we do in the studio, we can directly replicate on stage, and that’s how it is in bluegrass music. That’s how I wanted my country music to be.

I’ve got a fiddle, I’ve got a pedal steel, I’ve got guitars. Every single show I still play bluegrass. And maybe the difference between country music and bluegrass is that country is a little bit more polished, a little bit more produced. But I don’t like a tremendous amount of production. I don’t have anything faking my songs like bass loops or autotune or anything like that. If you come to a show, you get what you hear online.

Honky Tonk Hideaway is your debut EP. What did you want it to be like?

There was definitely a lot of thought and planning that went into the EP. And the song itself, “Honky Tonk Hideaway,” was a very exciting song. I’ve been calling it a barn burner. It’s one that makes you want to get up and dance, and that’s one thing that I hold pretty highly at my shows. I want people to just have fun and dance and have a good time. They did back in the day – you watch Urban Cowboy and everybody’s dancing, everybody’s cutting up and having fun. I don’t know if that’s been lost over the years, but I know that at my shows, a lot of people feel like they can get up and be themselves.

Did you have much of a hand in the songwriting, or are these outside cuts that you fell in love with?

All of these songs right now have been outside cuts, because basically I came to [Nashville in] July of 2024 and it was immediately like, “We need to get to the studio, let’s start getting some music.” There have been songs floating around Nashville for 30 years and they’re just stacked up – things people wrote years and years ago. There’s a song that I’ve not released yet, but it was written in 2009, so for 16 years it’s just been laying in a folder and nobody’s cut it until I came to town. And I’m like, “Man, I love this. This is country music.”

That’s a lot of what these first couple songs that people are getting to hear are. But since I’ve been in town, I’ve been doing a lot of writing and we’re very excited about the songs that I’ve gotten to write. I think we’re going to see a lot more Spencer Hatcher songs coming in the future.

There’s a lot of gold out there that’s still yet to be mined, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean, it was amazing. My producers would reach out to some of the really big companies and say, “Hey, we’ve got a new artist in town that’s looking for songs like George Strait would cut, or Joe Diffie or Keith Whitley or Merle Haggard, so send us what you got.” And we would get these folders of 50 songs and you just go through it and listen and listen.

Tell me about the single, “When She Calls Me Cowboy.” It’s got some of that Keith Whitley thing going on, in my opinion. Why did you want that to be the first single at country radio?

To me, that’s a very special song. … If anything, I compare it to maybe a Conway Twitty song, because it’s pretty intimate, but it certainly isn’t a Conway Twitty song. … It’s very country, very traditional. I love the melody, I love the words, and it’s relatable. I would say a lot of people can relate to a song like that.

I was thinking the same about “Cold Beer and Common Sense.” I feel like everybody has been saying they wish for more of that these days. What’s the sentiment behind the song?

Man, that message is just so powerful and it’s one I wish the entire world could listen to and live by – and not necessarily the cold beer part. As far as common sense and everybody getting along, regardless of what side of the fence you stand on, regardless of your political party, that’s one thing a lot of people want – to make it about politics. It’s like, “This is not a political song.” You’ve got to listen to the words. It’s about no matter what your beliefs are, everybody should be able to sit at a table and laugh and have fun and get along. I’ve always believed that there needs to be so much more of that in the world. And that’s honestly why I’m in music, is because music spreads joy. It spreads smiles.

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Photo Credit: Riker Brothers

Jaelee Roberts Is the CEO of Super Lonesome Songs

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

I seriously love sad songs and it’s honestly so hard to keep this Mixtape short. Every time I think I’m done, I remember another song that deserves a spot. Some songs are perfect for those late-night lonely vibes, while others hit harder on a rainy day. I just think sad music has this special kind of beauty that happy songs can’t match. It’s dramatic, emotional, and somehow comforting at the same time.

Honestly, this Mixtape feels more like a mood diary than just a list of songs. Even now, I know I’ve left off some that should be here which means I’ll probably end up making a “Part 2.” At this point I might as well admit I’m the CEO of sad playlists. But hey – you can never really have too many sad songs, right? – Jaelee Roberts

“Desperado” – The Eagles

“Desperado” is a song that has grabbed me by my heart strings for my whole life. The melody alone just has that sad and lonesome feel that I love so much. A line in the lyrics that always jumps out at me is, “You better let somebody love you before it’s too late.” That grabs my heart in the best way.

“Marie” – Blue Moon Rising

The first time I heard this song it stopped me in my tracks. The way Keith Garrett sings it is absolutely the epitome of lonesome. The song is about a man struggling his entire life to make ends meet and finally he gets a glimpse of happiness through a woman he meets, Marie, and she and their unborn baby pass away. Townes Van Zandt’s lyrics paint a heartbreaking picture of poverty and loss.

“He Stopped Loving Her Today” – George Jones

George Jones is my all-time favorite and this is an obvious choice, but such an important one! This song has often been called “the saddest country song of all time” and I might just have to agree with that. A short explanation is that a man lost the love of his life and he was never able to get over her until he passed away – that’s when he finally stopped loving her. That is absolutely gut-wrenching, but I am obsessed with the song and love it so much.

“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” – Hank Williams

I am a huge Hank Williams fan and I have always listened to this song when feeling sad. The way his voice almost cries when he sings it just gets me in my heart and feelings every time I hear it. I am a bit of a country music history nerd and I study a lot about the lives of my heroes and learning about him and this song – the lyrics are so sad and hit even harder when you get into the story behind writing the song. He wrote it after he and his wife Audrey split up amongst his struggles with addiction… it’s heartbreaking.

“Are You Lonesome Tonight” – Elvis Presley

I have loved this song since I was a little girl. Elvis was my first love and I can remember this song being one of the first songs to ever make my heart feel sad. I was just a little kid and thinking, “Oh my goodness, is he okay?” The cry and emotion in his voice is so tragically beautiful and it’s a go-to sad song when I need to hear one. The lyrics are so sad. When you hear his voice say, “…And if you won’t come back to me, they can bring the curtain down…” it breaks my heart every time.

“Lonesome Town” – Ricky Nelson

The first time I heard this song I was hooked. The melody, the lyrics, his hauntingly sad voice made my heart hurt in the way you want it to hurt when listening to a sad song. I really love this song!

“Both Sides Now” – Joni Mitchell

This song is filled with the most beautiful imagery. It’s about viewing love one way and then having your heart broken and seeing love a different way – seeing it “from both sides now.” It’s such a perfectly crafted song and Joni’s voice is so sad and raw on this track.

“Let Me Be Lonely” – Jaelee Roberts

When I first heard this song I knew I had to record it. If you can’t tell, sad songs are my absolute favorite songs and this one hit me hard. I am so honored I got to sing this one. I love the way that it all came together with the way the fiddle sounds so sad and then accompanied by the crying steel guitar (my favorite sound in the world). I love the harmonies that the writers of this song, Kelsi Harrigill and Wyatt McCubbin added. It just completed the lonesome feeling. My favorite lyric in the song is the opening line: “Don’t come knockin’ on the door/ That smile’s not welcome here anymore.”

“Chasing Cars” – Snow Patrol

I actually first heard this song during a heartbreaking scene of one of my favorite TV shows and I remember feeling so sad. Every time I hear this song I feel like I’m in a sad music video. Lyrically, the song is just so great. I love the chorus when it comes in strong and says, “If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

“Manhattan” – Sara Bareilles

I am a huge Sara Bareilles fan and this song has always had a hold on me. It’s one of the first songs that made me want to play piano. Her voice and the piano work together to make such a beautifully sad song. The song is about finding love, sharing their lives together in Manhattan, and letting that other person have that special place when the relationship ends. The way it’s written is just genius, really.

“Weekend In New England” – Barry Manilow

The melody of this song is what first caught my ear’s attention and then Barry starts singing and it’s just so beautiful. I have loved this song since I was just a young girl and have always listened to it when I feel sad. It’s just a classic sad song and you cannot go wrong with listening to it over and over.

“Heartbreaker” – Dolly Parton

I can still remember sitting in the backseat of our car in the driveway at home – small enough that I wasn’t allowed in the front seat yet. My mom would turn on WSM and we’d sit there together listening to the Grand Ole Opry until it was over. I’ll never forget one night when Little Jimmy Dickens had just finished his segment and the Opry signed off. The DJ came on playing music and that’s when it happened – Dolly Parton’s “Heartbreaker” came on. In that moment, my world stood still. I had never felt so heartbreakingly sad from a song, yet so completely happy at the same time. It was the first time music truly hit me that hard and it’s stayed with me ever since. “Heartbreaker, couldn’t you be just a little more kind to me?” So, so good.

“Misery and Gin” – Merle Haggard

This is another song that I have loved as long as I can remember. The music and melody starts off and then you hear Merle’s voice come in singing, “Memories and drinks don’t mix too well/ Jukebox records don’t play those wedding bells…” What a perfectly sad scenario! Merle Haggard is one of my favorites and could sing anything and make it sound sad, which I love so, so very much. This song is so lonely, but so beautiful and the lyrics are everything a sad lonesome song should be.

“Cry In The Rain” – Jaelee Roberts

This song is so beautifully written. Penned by two incredible songwriters – Billy Droze and Chris Myers – it tells a sad story about being heartbroken over someone, but refusing to let them see your tears. Instead, you hide your pain and only let yourself cry in the rain. I really love this image – it’s sad, strong, and poetic all at once. To me, that’s what makes the song so special. I feel truly honored to have had the chance to record it and tell the story in my own voice.

“Between an Old Memory and Me” – Keith Whitley

Keith Whitley had a way of singing that made you feel every single word, as if he lived inside the stories he told in his songs. In this song especially, when he sings the line, “I don’t want to talk about it, why can’t they just let me be?” you can literally hear the raw desperation and aching sadness in the cry of his voice. It’s lonesome, it’s haunting, and it’s heartbreak wrapped in melody. I love this song with my whole heart – it’s everything I admire about Keith Whitley’s music.

Photo Credit: Ava Renee Photography

Zach Top’s TV Debut

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

If it seems like Zach Top has been everywhere lately, it’s because he has. Not only because he and his band are staring down a packed summer full of tour dates all across the country, but he’s also coming off of his first Academy of Country Music Award win – snagging the New Male Artist of the Year trophy while also being nominated for Album of the Year – and then immediately turning around to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The appearance was his late night television debut, after his stunner of a traditional country album, Cold Beer & Country Music, was released to widespread acclaim – from critics and audiences alike – just over a year ago in spring 2024. The project continues to build momentum and gain thousands and thousands of new listeners for the picker-songwriter-upstart.

Top and band performed “I Never Lie” on Fallon, certainly the viral hit sensation of Cold Beer & Country Music. Shortly after his television appearance, the track, which is already RIAA certified Platinum, topped the country charts, becoming the number one country single in the country (and Canada) according to Mediabase. It’s Top’s very first number one.

“I Never Lie” is a classic yet modern take on a well-known country songwriter trope, the “of course I’m not lying” or “opposite day” type of rhetorical device that’s been employed by country artists and songsmiths since the genre began. Top’s spin on this iconic sort of country song setup is almost divine in its execution, as evidenced by his audiences – from humble honky-tonks to packed rodeo arenas – shouting along with the song at the tops of their lungs each and every time it’s performed.

This will surely not be the last television appearance or country award for Top, who leverages his bluegrass family band upbringing and longtime idolization of heroes like Tony Rice and Keith Whitley to craft a style of Good Country that’s forward-looking and timeless at the same time. With a wink, a smile, a first-rate mustache-mullet combo, and a “Zach Top Hop,” this still-fresh country superstar is sure to continue making an impact all across roots music well into the future. From country to bluegrass and back again.

We hope you enjoy Zach Top’s performance of “I Never Lie” on The Tonight Show. Don’t forget to make your plans now to catch Top and his incredible band on their mighty summer tour, too.

Read our 2024 exclusive Good Country interview from with Zach Top here.

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An AKUS Primer: Alison Krauss and (Mostly) Union Station for Beginners

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

While you know better, there’s a wide swath of the music-listening world in which Alison Krauss is best known as former Led Zeppelin golden god Robert Plant’s duet partner. Yet, Krauss has had a wholly remarkable career going back nearly 40 years, in which she has exhibited profound collaborative instincts and abilities.

On the occasion of the release of Arcadia, her first album with Union Station in 14 years (as well as a reunion with the founders of her former longtime label, Rounder Records), we look back at some of Krauss’ career highlights in and out of Union Station.

“Cluck Old Hen” (traditional; 1992-2007)

We begin with a literal oldie, “Cluck Old Hen,” from the pre-bluegrass era, which demonstrates two things – that Alison Krauss has always revered the history, roots, and traditions of bluegrass; and that Union Station is one incredible ensemble. Recordings of this Appalachian fiddle tune go back more than a century, to country music forefather Fiddlin’ John Carson in the 1920s.

Krauss first released an instrumental version of the tune on 1992’s Everytime You Say Goodbye (her second LP with Union Station), and won a GRAMMY with the onstage version on 2002’s AKUS album, Live. But feast your ears and eyes on this 2007 performance at the Grand Ole Opry, with a pre-teen Sierra Hull sitting in.

1992 studio version: 

2002 live version:

“When You Say Nothing At All” (Paul Overstreet & Don Schlitz; 1994)

After a decade of steadily accelerating momentum, Krauss had her big commercial breakout with this AKUS cover of the late Keith Whitley’s 1988 country chart-topper. Krauss sang it on 1994’s Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album and it served as centerpiece of her own 1995 album, Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection. It reached No. 3 on the country singles chart and went on to win the Country Music Association’s single of the year plus a GRAMMY Award. You can hear why.

Whitley’s version:

“I Can Let Go Now” (Michael McDonald; 1997)

For any interpretive singer, the choice of material is key. And if the singer in question has Krauss’ range and chops and vision, some truly unlikely alchemy is possible. Among the best examples from the AKUS repertoire is “I Can Let Go Now,” a deep cut on Doobie Brothers frontman Michael McDonald’s 1982 solo album, If That’s What It Takes. Another amazing Krauss vocal in a career full of them.

McDonald’s version:

“Man of Constant Sorrow” (traditional; 2000-2002)

Before O Brother, Where Art Thou?, you wouldn’t have called singer-guitarist Dan Tyminski the unheralded “secret weapon” of AKUS. Nevertheless, he didn’t become a star in his own right until serving as movie star George Clooney’s singing voice in the Coen Brothers loopy, Odyssey-inspired farce. “Man of Constant Sorrow” was the hit in the movie and also on the radio, launching Tyminski to solo stardom.

Resonator guitarist Jerry Douglas especially shines on this version from 2002’s Live, recorded in Louisville – you can just tell everyone in the crowd was waiting for the “I bid farewell to old Kentucky” line so they could go nuts. Tyminski would have another unlikely hit in 2013, singing on Swedish deejay Avicii’s “Hey Brother.”

O Brother version:

“New Favorite” (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings; 2001)

Kraus sang on the GRAMMY-winning O Brother soundtrack, too, alongside Gillian Welch. It will come as no surprise that the Welch/Rawlings catalog has been a recurrent favorite song source for her. One of Krauss’ best Welch/Rawlings selections is “New Favorite,” title track of the thrice-GRAMMY-winning 2001 AKUS album. Though it’s edited out in this video, the album-closing version concluded with a rare in-the-studio instrumental flub, followed by sheepish laughter to end the record. Perhaps the AKUS crew is human after all?

“Borderline” (Sidney & Suzanne Cox; 2004)

The story goes that the first time Krauss was on the summer touring circuit, she’d go around knocking on camper doors at bluegrass festivals to ask whoever answered, “Are you the Cox Family?” Once she found them, she didn’t let go, and the Coxes became some of the best of her collaborators and song providers. Along with producing their albums, Krauss covered Cox compositions frequently; “Borderline” appeared on 2004’s Lonely Runs Both Ways, another triple GRAMMY winner.

“Big Log” (Robert Plant, Robbie Blunt, Jezz Woodroffe; 2004)

When Krauss first sang with Robert Plant at a Leadbelly tribute concert in November 2004, it seemed like the unlikeliest of pairings. But here’s proof that they had more in common than you’d expect, with Krauss covering a solo Plant hit from 1983. She sang “Big Log” on her brother Victor Krauss’ album, Far From Enough, which was released earlier in 2004.

This video pairs the Krauss siblings’ version with Plant’s original 1983 video, directed by Storm Thorgerson.

“Dimming of the Day” (Richard & Linda Thompson; 2011)

Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson is one of the finest instrumentalists of his generation as well as a brilliant songwriter, especially with his former wife and collaborator Linda Thompson. This stately, bittersweet love song dates back to their 1975 duo LP, Pour Down Like Silver, and Linda sets the bar high with a stoic yet emotional vocal. Krauss more than lives up to it on the 2011 AKUS album Paper Airplane, which also offers another great showcase for resonator guitarist Douglas.

Richard & Linda’s version: 

“Your Long Journey” (Doc & Rosa Lee Watson; 2007)

Krauss isn’t just a spectacular lead vocalist, but also an amazing harmony singer, one of the few who can hold a candle to Emmylou Harris. Retitled from the Doc/Rosa Lee Watson original, “Your Lone Journey,” this closing track to 2007’s grand-slam GRAMMY winner Raising Sand has Krauss’ most emotional vocal harmonies with Plant on either of their two albums together.

Doc Watson’s version:

“Heaven’s Bright Shore” (A. Kennedy; 1989, 2015)

All that, and she’s an incredible backup vocalist to boot. “Heaven’s Bright Shore” is a gospel song Krauss first recorded as a teenager on 1989’s Two Highways, her first album billed as Alison Krauss & Union Station (and also her first to receive a GRAMMY nomination). It’s great, but an even better version is this 2015 recording in which she’s backing up bluegrass patriarch Ralph Stanley alongside Judy Marshall.

AKUS version: 

“The Captain’s Daughter” (Johnny Cash & Robert Lee Castleman; 2018)

The late great Johnny Cash left behind a lot of writings after he died in 2003, some of which were turned into songs for the 2018 tribute album, Forever Words: The Music. None of his songs ever had it so good as “The Captain’s Daughter.” This superlative AKUS version fits Cash’s words like a glove.

Continue exploring our Artist of the Month coverage of Alison Krauss & Union Station here.

Alison Krauss & Union Station figure prominently in David Menconi’s book, Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music, published in 2023 by University of North Carolina Press and featuring a foreword by Robert Plant.

Photo Credit: Randee St. Nicholas

MIXTAPE: Brit Taylor’s ‘Kentucky Bluegrassed’ Inspirations

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

I grew up deep in the hills of the Appalachian Mountains in Eastern Kentucky where, I’m pretty sure, that on a quiet, cool, foggy morning after the rooster crows, you can hear the faint strumming of a mandolin or banjo echoing through the hollers. My home was near the famed Country Music Highway, Route 23, and that set the bar high for me, even at an early age. With local artists such as Patty Loveless, Loretta Lynn, Dwight Yoakum, The Judds, Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley and songwriters like Larry Cordle, later joined by artists like Chris Stapleton and Tyler Childers, there was always an incredible standard of music and songwriting to strive for. It also encouraged me, because if it could happen for their hillbilly asses, then why not mine?

Kentucky Bluegrassed is a sister record to my sophomore album produced by Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson. My husband Adam Chaffins and I, along with an incredible crew of pickers (Rob Ikes, Stuart Duncan, Seth Taylor, Matt Menefee, Dominick Leslie) reimagined five songs from the Kentucky Blue album and added three new songs, to boot. Although Kentucky Blue and Kentucky Bluegrassed are kin, they have their own unique personalities and can stand separately as two distinct independent projects. Kentucky Bluegrassed is exactly what the title implies. It is “grassed” versions of some songs from the Kentucky Blue record.

I’ve never claimed to be a grasser, but I’ve always loved the genre. A lot of my favorite country acts growing up either started with bluegrass music and went to country or started in country music and went to bluegrass. My favorite country artists always drew from bluegrass inspiration and instrumentation and blurred the lines of country and bluegrass music. This Mixtape is comprised of songs that I grew up listening to and that inspired the sounds and writing on Kentucky Bluegrassed. – Brit Taylor

“Pretty Little Miss” –  Patty Loveless
(Songwriters: Traditional, additional lyrics by Emory Gordy Jr. and Patty Loveless)

It’s 2006 in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and I’m standing side stage at the Mountain Arts Center waiting for my cue to prance out on stage in an old, ugly vintage dress, silly hat, and no shoes. I always picked Patty songs to sing, whether they were bluegrass or country. I loved them all. During this particular summer show season of the Kentucky Opry Junior Pros, I chose to sing Patty Loveless’ “Pretty Little Miss.” There’s something raw and painfully beautiful about the way that Patty Loveless sings. She feels every note and you feel it with her.

Patty is a wonderful songwriter and a hell of a song hound. She surely knew how to sniff good songs out, and Patty and Emory (husband/producer) knew exactly what to do with them when they found them. Whether she writes the song or finds a great song to sing, she knows how to empathize with the song’s character and you can hear it. Unlike some of her more heart-wrenching songs (like my personal favorite, “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am,” written by Gretchen Peters), “Pretty Little Miss” is funny and fun, plus she wrote it! And she sings the shit out of it. Patty Loveless, like Dolly Parton, knows how to get into character and have fun.

“Busted” – Patty Loveless (Songwriter: Harlan Howard)

Written in 1962 by one of my favorite songwriters of all time, Harlan Howard, this song has been recorded and re-recorded. From Johnny Cash and the Carter Family to Waylon Jennings to Ray Charles and more, this song has been done again and again for good reason. In 2009, my queen Patty Loveless comes along and grasses the hell out of it. Each interpretation of this song is different from the last in pretty drastic ways. That’s one of the things I love about music and production. Music is like water, it can literally fit into whatever mold you want to pour it into. You just have to have some imagination. It’s songs like this that inspired me to write and record my song, “Rich Little Girls.” And it is artists like Patty Loveless and producers like her husband Emory Gordy who inspire me to not be afraid to reimagine a song completely different from its original presentation.

“Truth No. 2” – The Chicks (Songwriter: Patty Griffin)

This entire album is an inspiration for Kentucky Bluegrassed. The songwriting is impeccable as are the production and the playing. The album is full of incredible songs by writers like Darrell Scott, Tim O’Brien, Marty Stuart, Patty Griffin, and others. The tracks could have easily been recorded on a Chicks traditional country record, but I love that they decided to do them this way. I love the melody of this particular song and the extended intro with the fiddle hook. I also love the space in this song. They didn’t fill every “hole” with a lick. They let the song breathe. These are definitely concepts we were mindful of when recording Kentucky Bluegrassed. Where can we let it breathe? What’s the signature lick here and who’s playing it? Heavy on the dobro and fiddle, please.

“I’m Gone” – Dolly Parton (Songwriter: Dolly Parton)

No one can tell a story quite like Dolly. This whole record – Halos & Horns – is a lesson in storytelling. Dolly is always an inspiration. Her ability to connect with her audience through her lyrics, honest stories, and light-heartedness will always be something I strive to do in my own music. This is one of those records that I remember begging my mom to take me to the Walmart in Prestonsburg to buy!

“Big Chance” – Patty Loveless (Songwriters: Emory Gordy Jr. and Patty Loveless)

Lyrics in Patty’s “Big Chance” such as, “Looka here mama, looka here daddy/ This is my true love, we’re gonna get married/ Ain’t a gonna hem-haw, ain’t a gonna tarry/ This is my big chance, we’re gonna get married/” are what inspired me to be confident in my own Appalachian dialect, enough so that I put words like “sworpin’” in my song “Saint Anthony,” regardless of if other people were going to understand it.

“Marry Me” – Dolly Parton (Songwriter: Dolly Parton)

I love the perspectives and simplicity in songwriting on both “Big Chance” by Patty and “Marry Me” by Dolly. The character in Dolly’s song sounds like she might be 13-years-old, hollering to her folks about how she’s gonna run off and marry this new feller! I love that the character sounds so young and also like she just met the boy yesterday. It just lends itself to sweetness and innocence with a light-hearted humor.

I wanted a song about getting married on my bluegrass record simply because my heroes had them on theirs. I love the personality and the very matter-of-fact, bossy lyrics of these songs – and that’s what Adam Wright and I were going for when we wrote my own song, “Married.”

“A Handful of Dust” – Patty Loveless (Songwriter: Tony Arata)

This is another one of those songs that has been recorded again and again by multiple artists and for good reason. It was first recorded by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris in 1993 and then by Patty Loveless on her 1994 country album. Then she cut it again on Mountain Soul II where she grassed it! Charley Worsham and Lainey Wilson also just released their own version of the song. I honestly couldn’t pick a favorite version if I tried. It’s hard to mess up a song this great. I chose this version for the playlist because it’s grassed and very much an inspiration for grassing several of my own songs.

I realize I have a lot of Patty Loveless songs on this playlist, but that’s because she is honestly who inspired Kentucky Bluegrassed the most. I listened to her songs on repeat growing up and still find myself doing so today. If you have heard Kentucky Bluegrassed and are now listening to these Patty songs from the Mountain Soul records, you will definitely hear some similarities. Rob Ickes, who plays Dobro, and Stuart Duncan, who plays fiddle, who were on both Mountain Soul records also play on my Kentucky Bluegrassed album.

“Don’t Cheat In Our Home Town” – Keith Whitley, Ricky Skaggs
(Songwriters: Ray Pennington and Roy E. Marcum)

Both Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley are from near the Country Music Highway in East Kentucky, and you can hear the hillbilly twang in their voices, especially when they’d sing together. This song is wonderful. The harmonies just kill me. If you want a lesson in singing bluegrass harmonies – hell, any harmonies for that matter – this is the record to listen to and learn from. When people tell me they don’t like bluegrass, I always tell them they just haven’t listened to the right records yet. This is one of the first albums I send them to. The self-deprecating lyrics along with the simplicity of the music with its quirky upbeat instrumentation might seem to be a contradictory songwriting and production combo, but that’s just one of the unique and beautiful things about bluegrass music that I love so much.

“Rank Strangers” –The Stanley Brothers (Songwriter: Albert E. Brumley)

My Papaw Hillard Anderson introduced me to bluegrass music when I was just a kid. Truth be told, he liked to put on a Stanley Brothers 8-track tape, drink a little too much Crown Royal and have himself a good cry – or maybe just raise some hell. One of the two. Man, I miss him. When I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, I got us tickets to go see Ralph Stanley at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg. I picked him up over on Beaver Creek in my little red Mustang and off we went. I think my driving scared him to death. But it was all worth it when we got to see Ralph sing and play. I was able to charm my way backstage because the volunteer door people already knew me from my singing at the Kentucky Opry. I got my Papaw a picture signed by Ralph Stanley himself.

Papaw passed in 2009. I sang to him and strummed my guitar as he died. I wish he could have been here to hear this record more than any record I’ve ever made. But I know he’s got a front seat in Heaven. When I recorded Kentucky Bluegrassed, I took two of my Papaw’s old, scuffed-up Stanley Brothers 8-tracks tapes with me. I set up a little hillbilly altar with the two tapes, some tigers eye, Kentucky agate, clear quartz, and other crystals, a rabbit’s foot, some incense, and a glass of bourbon. I wanted to make sure he knew he was welcome there with us. He was there. I could feel it.

“You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” – Patty Loveless (Songwriter: Darrell Scott)

I’ll probably spend the rest of my life trying to write a song this good. Nothing captures where I’m from as much as this one does. It just sounds like East Kentucky. It sounds like the coal mines. It feels like home. The first version of this song that I heard was by Patty Loveless on her first Mountain Soul record. I try to sing it sometimes, but it hits pretty close to home. By the last verse I’m normally in tears. My Papaw was a coal miner, and my husband’s father was a miner, too. Growing up, coal mining was about all there was to do for work around home. So hearing this song just always hits hard.

I hope you enjoy this playlist of tunes that inspired Kentucky Bluegrassed, from the songwriting down to the instrumentation. Songs like these will never grow old or sound dated because they’re too original. They don’t chase any trends of the times. They just are what they are.

Photo Credit: Natia Cinco

LISTEN: Chris Jones & The Night Drivers, “Step Out in the Sunshine”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Chris Jones & The Night Drivers
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Step Out in the Sunshine”
Album: Pages In Your Hand
Release Date: October 6, 2023
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “Ralph Stanley’s early 1970s Clinch Mountain Boys lineup of Roy Lee Centers, Jack Cooke, Curly Ray Cline, Keith Whitley, and Ricky Skaggs was a golden era for his band, in my opinion, and in my mid-teens their music was a major influence on me as I was just getting serious about playing music. The gospel album they did, Cry From the Cross, was and remains my favorite bluegrass gospel album of all time. It inspired my lead singing and guitar playing, and without consciously trying to do it, I learned to sing the baritone harmony part from Jack Cooke.

“I still have and cherish the original LP that I bought when I was around 15, though the jacket is a little battered and my name is written in brown magic marker on the back — because, you know, other kids in high school were likely to try to steal my Ralph Stanley records. I wanted to record a song from the album that I hadn’t heard anyone else do and that hadn’t become a Ralph Stanley standard, and so I was drawn to ‘Step Out in the Sunshine.’ We rearranged it slightly to fit our sound but it remains a tribute to the Stanley original.” – Chris Jones

Track Credits:
Chris Jones – acoustic guitar, lead vocal
Marshall Wilborn – bass
Mark Stoffel – mandolin, harmony vocal
Grace van’t Hof – banjo, harmony vocal

Photo Credit: Sandlin Gaither

WATCH: Adam Chaffins, “Who I Am” (Live)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Adam Chaffins
Hometown: 10 years+ Nashvillian (Eastern Kentucky native, from Louisa, Kentucky)
Song: “Who I Am” (Live)
Album: Some Things Won’t Last
Label: Chaffins Music

In Their Words: “A lot of my influence as a songwriter comes from torch songs. Keith Whitley sang a lot of them, like ‘I’ll Be Your Stepping Stone’ with J.D. Crowe & the New South. Songs of eternal pining for a love. ‘Who I Am’ is a torch song with a lot more brutal honesty to the torcheé. I started playing this version supporting John Hiatt on the road in 2019. It’s as bare-bones as a song can get.” — Adam Chaffins

Photo credit: Melissa Stillwell