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“The Voice” will return for its 27th season next spring, with new additions to its coaching team. Original coach Adam Levine will reclaim his red chair, alongside new coach Kelsea Ballerini and returning coaches Michael Bublé and John Legend.

Ballerini, a multiple Grammy Award-nominated, multi-platinum artist and Grand Ole Opry inductee, is no stranger to “The Voice,” previously serving as season 16 battle advisor and filling in as coach during season 20, both instances for Team Kelly Clarkson. When she released her debut album, “The First Time,” she became the only female country artist to hit #1 with the first three consecutive singles from a debut album. Since then, she has had seven #1 singles and five back-to-back Top 10 entries on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.

Levine, a multiple Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum artist and proven cultural force, is making his comeback following his 16 consecutive seasons as a coach on the show. The Maroon...

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Viewership for NBC’s inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards was up 16% from the 2022 People’s Choice Awards in delayed multiplatform viewing, TheWrap can reveal exclusively.

While genre-focused ceremony initially brought in 3.90 million total viewers according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day figures, total viewership for the NBC-hosted awards show grew to 4.3 million after three days of viewing across platforms, exceeding that of the People’s Choice Awards, which aired on both NBC and E!

The same can be said for the ceremony’s rating in the key broadcast demographic among adults 18-49, as the People’s Choice Country Awards roped in a rating of 0.31, according to live-plus-same-day figures, which rose to a 0.36 rating in delayed multiplatform viewing.

Additionally, content surrounding the awards ceremony reached 25 million users users across linear, digital and social platforms,...

When he was three years old, Jerry Douglas heard the groundbreaking banjo licks of Earl Scruggs on the turntable each morning during breakfast at his childhood home in northeastern Ohio.

“And we’d hear the Flatt & Scruggs [Grand Ole Opry] radio show on Wsm if there was clear weather between Ohio and Nashville,” Douglas, a staple of today’s bluegrass, tells Rolling Stone. “Flatt & Scruggs was a big deal in our house. But, Earl’s banjo playing was the first thing I ever heard that I wanted to do — nothing...

Jelly Roll is quickly ascending to the highest heights of the country music world, and 2023 marked a significant turning point in the phenom’s rise to superstardom. With the release of his new album last month, Whitsitt Chapel, it’s the perfect time to walk readers through the country music sensation’s unique rise to the spotlight.

But who is Jelly Roll?

Jelly Roll, real name Jason Bradley DeFord, born December 4, 1984, is a Nashville-born musician who has spanned genres, starting from hip-hop, transitioning to rock and now dominating the country music world. Coming from a middle-lower-class background, he was the youngest of four children.

His father worked as a meat salesman, while his mother battled addiction and mental health issues. He was nicknamed Jelly Roll by his mother as a child and stuck with it. Jelly Roll had numerous encounters with the criminal justice system until a profound moment in...

Dolly Parton started pursuing stardom when she was about 10 years old. Her Uncle Bill would take her all over to perform at and audition for various venues. Even as a young girl, the “Two Doors Down” singer had a passionate drive to ensure her dreams came true. That’s why when she met Johnny Cash at the age of 13, she couldn’t help but take her shot.

Dolly Parton met Johnny Cash after a show

​​One night, Parton and her Uncle Bill went and watched Cash perform at the Ryman in Nashville. After the show, the two waited for him in the parking lot, hoping to introduce themselves to the star.

“It was late and I was getting sleepy,” Parton wrote in her 1994 memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “I kept saying to Bill, ‘Come on, we can meet him some other time.’ Then a man stepped out...

When Brandy Clark launched a country-music recording career in 2013, there wasn’t any template to follow for an openly gay artist in Nashville. Despite co-writing hits like Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow,” Clark heard loud and clear the industry’s subtle messages that she wouldn’t be supported as an out performer. Even Chely Wright, who had big radio hits in the Nineties, had been forced to wait years and change stylistic directions before she came out publicly.

“One of the things that was hard for me to grasp was...

The three women of Chapel Hart don’t get to visit their Mississippi hometown as often as they’d like, but their tour bus driver recently presented them with an offer they couldn’t pass up. They could either take the short route to their destination or add an extra hour and go through Poplarville.

“Our bus driver was like, ‘If we go up [interstate] 59 I could pull off and y’all could stop at Wards in your hometown. We were like, ‘59!’” the trio’s lead singer Danica Hart says.

The group,...

When people think of American Idol, they often think of names like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Adam Lambert, Katharine McPhee, and others. Interestingly, not all of these well-known contestants actually won the competition. For some, the exposure from Idol was enough to skyrocket their careers even higher than those of the people who took home the grand prize. Here are eight American Idol contestants who became more successful than the winners of their seasons.

Jennifer Hudson | Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Jennifer Hudson, Season 3

Hudson is among the most famous American Idol contestants, and she wasn’t even a Top 3 finalist. She was eliminated from the Top 7 during season 3. Fantasia Burrino later won the season.

After Idol, Hudson built a lucrative career in music, film, and theater. She currently has three albums and more than a dozen movie credits, including Dreamgirls and Respect. Hudson is also an Egot winner and...

Every couple of months, at a venue somewhere in Michigan – the Old Town Playhouse in Traverse City, say, or the State Theater in Bay City, the singer Judy Harrison will head backstage to her dressing room, and begin her transformation.

She fixes her make-up. She puts on a black fringed top, a black skirt, big belt and cowboy boots. Over her own long, light hair, she places the short, black wig she bought from a professional wig store in town, and runs her fingers through its faint waves.

“The wig is truly the thing that takes you there,” Harrison says via video call. “The very first time I did this, I walked out with the wig on, and I don’t know if the band knew who I was. I was so different to them, it was like they weren’t even looking at Judy.”

For four years now, Harrison...

Ashley McBryde has offered the first glimpse of her post-Lindeville era mere days after a thrilling two-night staging of that collaborative album at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter released her new song “Light On in the Kitchen” on Friday, expressing her admiration for those who looked out for her and pledging to pay it forward.

Unlike the character-driven songs on Lindeville, “Light On in the Kitchen” is centered around a simple conceit of offering a safe place where hard-won wisdom is abundant. With its gentle, brushed drums and light shadings of mandolin,...

Tivoli, NY – Kaatsbaan Cultural Park is pleased to announce a Bluegrass Concert by powerhouse acoustic duo Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley on Friday, February 24, 2023 at 7pm. Tickets are 30 general admission. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kaatsbaan.org/2023-events.

15-time International Bluegrass Music Association Dobro Player of the Year Rob Ickes and Tennessee-born guitar prodigy Trey Hensley are known for their white-hot picking, stone country vocals with soul and world class live musicianship. Together, they meld blues, bluegrass, country, rock, and other string band music of all kinds to form a signature blend of music that defies restrictions of genre.

About Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley

Take a 15-time Ibma (International Bluegrass Music Association) Dobro Player of the Year and a Tennessee-born guitar prodigy who made his Grand Ole Opry debut at the age of 11, and you have Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley, a powerhouse acoustic duo that...

Thanks to the example set by her, country music is a different business for women because of Loretta Lynn, according to artists like Brandi Carlile. While reflecting on Lynn’s legacy, Carlile noted that some of her friends in the industry seemingly paid it forward to her from the kindness they’d received from the icon. And she wanted to share her gratitude for that.

Loretta Lynn (seated), Tanya Tucker, and Brandi Carlile (right) | Jason Kempin/Getty Images for for Essential Broadcast Media, LLC Loretta Lynn formed friendships with women in country music

Much is evident about Lynn in how so many reacted to her death. After she died, her friends and fellow country music artists turned to social media to honor her life with stories of her kindness.

“Today, my world changed, and it will never be the same again. My hero [Loretta Lynn] got her wings, and it’s been a day filled with tears.

After a summer where many music festivals felt anticlimactic and unfulfilling (Was standing on dirt or gravel for hours on end ever fun?), AmericanaFest 2022 delivered one of its most satisfying and diverse weeks in the history of the Nashville event. While the festival suffered a major blow with the loss of its de facto home base, the Cannery Complex, to the city’s aggressive development, artists and bands found new venues at which to play and friendly audiences eager to experience something fresh. Here’s the sounds, parties, and places that moved us.

Back in June, Luke Combs posted a photo to Instagram of himself wearing a T-shirt for the band 49 Winchester. It was a mark of validation for the Castlewood, Virginia, group, a sign that their brand of country, folk, and soul was breaking through and finding fans — including one who just happened to be the biggest star in country music.

But a little more than two years earlier, 49 Winchester were just a bunch of scruffy Southern Appalachian musicians hoping to gain traction on the musical road to somewhere, anywhere. At their...

Jeannie Seely was a 12-year-old girl in rural Pennsylvania when she first heard Kitty Wells’ song “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” It was 1952, and Wells’ unlikely hit was climbing the charts on its way to making country music history. That August — 70 years ago this month — it became the first single by a solo female artist to reach No. 1 on the country charts, and a bellwether for women in the industry.

“I was absolutely thrilled, of course, to hear another girl was a big thing, because there...

Long after the music faded out, she can still hear the hateful words. The year was 1969, and Linda Martell hoped to become one of country music’s breakthrough acts. She had a single on the charts, an album on the way, and the backing of a Nashville industry player. The next step was to play live, and her newly hired booking agent secured a gig in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, to work out her stage show.

Martell had a warm smile, a stylish beehive, and a way with country phrasing, as heard on that hit single,...

Last year, Lifetime announced that Jewel would star in a biopic of June Carter Cash. Now we have video evidence that Ring of Fire is real! In this clip, we see Carter join her first husband, Carl Smith, onstage at the Grand Ole Opry for a folksy comedy bit and a song. (Here's the real Carter and Smith doing a different but similar number.) The jury's still out on Jewel's acting abilities, but the singing and outfits seem festive enough.

Nashville, Tenn. — Gordon Stoker, a member of The Jordanaires vocal group that backed Elvis Presley, died Wednesday. He was 88.

His son, Alan, told The Associated Press that Stoker died at his home in Brentwood, Tenn., after a lengthy illness. Stoker, who was born in Gleason, Tenn., got his start playing the piano on Wsm radio and its signature show, the Grand Ole Opry.

Alan Stoker said his father was just 15 when he started playing professionally. He joined the Jordanaires as a piano player, but then became tenor vocalist. The group was already well known for their gospel singing when Presley recruited them to perform on his recording of "Hound Dog," in 1956.

The Jordanaires originated in Missouri and came to Nashville, where they backed Red Foley on a segment of the Opry called the "Prince Albert Show," according to John Rumble, senior historian at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Jack Greene, one of country music's most distinctive song stylists of the 1960s, died Thursday at home in Nashville of complications from Alzheimer's disease. The longtime Grand Ole Opry star (a member since 1967) was 83. Greene was born January 7, 1930 in Maryville, Tn. Greene moved to Atlanta in the early 1950s, forming his own band, The Peach Tree Boys. He came back to Tennessee by the end of the decade, settling in Nashville. In 1961, a chance meeting with Ernest Tubb led him to be invited to join his band, where he served as a drummer (and sometimes

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Country singer Carl Smith has died at the age of 82, reports BBC News. The 'Hey Joe!' star, who was previously married to June Carter Cash, passed away at his home in Tennessee on Saturday. He rose to fame during the 1950s and achieved a string of chart singles, including 'Are You Teasing Me?' and 'Back Up Buddy'. The singer, who was a member of the Grand Ole Opry country radio programme, married Carter in 1952 and they had one child together, Carlene Carter. The pair divorced (more)...

"A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline" is a warm, funny and entertaining musical suitable for the entire family. The story follows her rise to stardom from her hometown in Virginia, to the Grand Ole Opry, Las Vegas and Carnegie Hall. Filled with country and pop standards, including "Walking after Midnight", "Sweet Dreams", "Crazy" and "I Fall to Pieces", the show has been a consistent hit across the nation. Told through the eyes and ears of radio DJ and comedian, Little Big Man, this show is a delight for country music fans and non-fans alike.

Florida Studio Theatre brings back the popular summer hit Always...Patsy Cline for a special two week limited engagement. Patsy Cline was the original cross-over sensation with her acclaimed hit "Walkin' After Midnight" in 1957 (#2 on the Country Charts and #12 on the Pop Charts) and followed in the early 60s with "I Fall to Pieces," "Crazy" and "She's Got You." These songs and 24 others will pay tribute to the one-of-a-kind Patsy Cline. Cline's rise to legendary stardom is told through personal letters shared with her best friend and biggest fan, Louise. From her performance at the Grand Ole Opry to her tragic death in 1963, Patsy Cline will "always" have a place in country music and with music enthusiasts across multiple genres.