Today is a good day to appreciate George Strait—it’s his birthday (May 18th, 1952) and he’s still actively performing. Here are 7 solid reasons people feel thankful for that:
When BlackHawk burst onto the country scene in the mid-’90s, fans couldn’t get enough. Their harmonies were so smooth that radio programmers compared them to country’s answer to classic rock supergroups. Songs like “Goodbye Says It All” and “Every Once in a While” became instant heartbreak anthems, turning the trio into arena-packing stars almost overnight. […]
In the early ’90s, Nashville executives didn’t know what to make of The Mavericks. They weren’t polished cowboys. They didn’t sound like anybody else on country radio. And frontman Raul Malo looked more like a rockabilly outlaw than a standard country heartthrob. Somehow, against every prediction in Music City, the band exploded into one of […]
Nashville insiders still whisper about the night Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn nearly walked away from each other before they became the hottest duo in country music. In the late ’80s, both men were struggling solo artists with more unpaid bar tabs than hit records. Friends say the pair couldn’t have been more different. Brooks […]
Before the nickname, before the Hall of Fame, before Nashville knew exactly what to do with him, Tom T. Hall was just a Kentucky kid with a notebook and a sharp eye for the way people really live. Born May 25, 1936, in Olive Hill, Kentucky he wasn’t handed a fast track. He worked for […]
Hank Williams Jr. overcame his father's shadow, reinventing himself from tragedy into an outlaw country icon.
George Strait, the 'King of Country', built an enduring career through authenticity, consistency, and a catalog defining the genre.
He’s the kind of man who doesn’t just sing a song, he owns it and on May 4, as Randy Travis celebrates his 67th birthday, it’s impossible not to tip your hat to a voice that didn’t just define an era of country music, it reshaped it. For those of us who grew up with […]
David Allen Coe was never the polished poster boy of Nashville and that’s exactly why his shadow looms so large over country music. While the industry was busy ironing its shirts and softening its edges, Coe kicked the door in with a snarl, a story and a sound that felt too real to fake. In […]
Let’s talk again about Merle Haggard and this time we’re giving some proper respect to Big City, one of the finest albums ever cut by a guy who actually knew what a hard day’s work felt like. First reason: his past—no fairy tales, just facts.Haggard was born in Bakersfield in 1937, and his early life […]
Alright, you want the real, ranked brisket tour of Houston and you want Luling Bar-B-Q on Richmond included. I’ll give it to you straight—no fluff, no tourist traps. Numbers don’t lie. Alright, that’s your Houston brisket hit list. If you try them all, congratulations and you just had a graduate-level course in brisket and you […]
Alright, let’s talk about Alan Jackson—yeah, that guy. The one who didn’t need fireworks, skinny jeans or a PR team of twelve to prove he belonged. You wanna know why he’s on the Mount Rushmore of country music? I’ll tell you, because while everybody else was chasing trends, he was busy being country. What a […]