Basden (Photo: Jason Myers)
Sandbox Entertainment Group Names Jake Basden President
SANDBOX ENTERTAINMENT GROUP has named JAKE BASDEN Pres. of the company. The news comes just two weeks after BASDEN announced he was stepping down after almost 12 years at BIG MACHINE LABEL GROUP, where he was SVP/Communications (NET NEWS 1/17).BASDEN ...
CMA Celebrates 2022 CMA Touring Awards Winners, With Kenny Chesney's And Luke Combs' Teams Winning Big
The COUNTRY MUSIC ASSOCIATION (CMA) presented industry honors from 2022 at its CMA TOURING AWARDS MONDAY night (1/30), at MARATHON MUSIC WORKS in NASHVILLE after two years of the event ...
Best known for his Top 10 hits on Arista Nashville in the mid-2000s (“Alyssa Lies” and “Livin’ Our Love Song”) singer/songwriter Jason Michael Carroll is back with another radio-friendly song, “Pass It On Around.” An independent release, the song is competitive with anything being released by the majors these days, and the “backwoods fun on a Friday night” theme is universally relatable. Carroll’s voice is still dirt road country, lending authenticity to lyrics about “lawn chairs circled up by the creek bank / Ribs smokin' on the grill, buddy we ain't / Messin' round, gettin' loud / Not shuttin' down ’til the sun come creepin’.” In the song’s storyline, the work week is over, so it’s “time to get our drink on / Yeah, pass it on around / Crank a jam by the fire after sundown.” Carroll further sets the scene with lyrics about “peach shine iced down in the Igloo” on a night that promises to “get a little crazy.” This is the first major release since 2016 for the retired Marine, still a busy touring artist with a new band on the road. “Pass It On Around” is the leadoff to a series of new songs he plans to release this year, all leading to his first full album in seven years, due in the fall. Said Carroll, “Everything I do is focused on the fans who never once slowed up. Every song, every show, and every new chapter I dedicate to them. I’m so excited for them to hear what’s next!”
Chris Janson’s latest single (and first for new label home BMLG Records) is two minutes and 42 seconds of feel-good sunshine. The lyrics reflect Janson’s happy marriage to wife Kelly, along with other personal touches, including a reference to their beach home along Florida’s 30A. In fact, it was in that home where Janson penned the song, working remotely alongside Nashville-based collaborators Ashley Gorley, Brad Clawson, and Mitch Oglesby. The single starts off with every man’s wish list (“I want a tracker boat on a big blue lake / And a brand new truck in my driveway / Lotto ticket worth a million bucks / And a bigger one on the wall / I want my boy's ball team to win / Waylon on the radio again”). But then, it takes stock of what’s really important. As Janson’s baritone details in the chorus, “At the end of the day / There's just one thing I can't lose / If you're by my side / I’m better than alright / Baby, all I need is you.” The sentiment is not only sweet, it’s true to Janson’s brand as a family man who exudes good vibes. Says Janson of the song, “There are so many things we all want. We’ve all gotten caught up in the biggest buck of the season, the newest Chevrolet, or whatever’s caught our eye, and that’s half the fun of living. But when you strip it back, when you look at what really matters, it comes down to that one ride-or-die person who believes in you and your dream, no matter what happens. I’m blessed because my person is my wife, my manager, and my best friend.”
Cole Swindell’s new single, “Drinkaby,” is three minutes of pure, uptempo fun. The song takes the time honored Country music theme of getting over an ex in a bar and elevates it to a clever new level, not only with a title meant to evoke the word “lullaby,” but with a bridge that’s actually reminiscent of one. “Hush little cowboy, don't you cry / Bartender's got you some whiskey on ice / And if that whiskey ain't a big enough pour / Drink another and another 'til you lay down on the floor,” Swindell sings. Elsewhere, the song name checks Merle Haggard and multiple brands of spirits (Jack, Jim, Patron, and even apple pie (presumably the moonshine)), all helping out a guy who’s “sadder than a steel in a Country song.” Swindell says his new single is “a breakup song, but it’s a fun, uptempo breakup song. A lullaby may help you fall asleep, but a drinkaby, hopefully, helps you get over that ex that you’ve been trying to get over … I just picture it being a show opener someday.” Written by Jon Pardi, Jordan Schmidt, HARDY and Hunter Phelps, it’s one of three new tracks included on Swindell’s April 28 “Stereotype Broken” release, a deluxe version of his 2022 “Stereotype” set. "Drinkaby" had its world premiere debut today (1/27) across all iHeartCountry stations.
The follow up to Jelly Roll’s first #1 Country hit, “Son Of A Sinner,” is an equally stunning, powerful song that’s the embodiment of a “one listen record.” In “Need A Favor,” the song’s narrator speaks directly to God, first acknowledging that his shaky spirituality finds him praying only when he needs something. In the first verse, he cops to his shortcomings, singing, “I know ‘Amazing Grace,’ but I ain't been livin' them words / Swear I spend most Sundays drunk off my ass, than I have in church / Hard cover King James only been savin' dust on the nightstand / And I don't know what to say by the time I fold my hands.” But while noting “who am I to expect a savior,” he asks for a miracle anyway, singing to God in the bridge, “I owe you more than one, and beggars can't be choosers / But I'll pay for all I've done, just please don't let me lose her.” Written by Jelly Roll, Austin Nivarel, Joe Ragosta and Rob Ragosta, the lyrics will make listeners lean in to follow the story, then rock out and sing along by the end, as Jelly sings, “Hangin' in there, just barely / Throwin' up prayers, like Hail Marys / If you're still there, Lord, spare me / Oh my God, oh my God, hail Mary” and the succession of “amens” that follow. Jelly says the song is “about talking to God in that darkest moment. That moment that we've all had where we've hit our knees and asked him for the biggest favor of our life knowing that we haven't talked to him in a while.” In an 
Hitmaker Thomas Rhett is back with a new single that’s a lovely ode to a faithful, understanding partner who has cut him more slack than he deserves. In “Angels Don’t Always Have Wings,” Rhett sings that he’s “a mess of a man with lessons to learn,” but his love has made him a better person, and he’s expressing his gratitude in a way anyone who considers themselves flawed is likely to relate to. In some of the song’s best-written lines, he sings, “For too long, I didn't know what I had, but dang, these days I do / If I make it to heaven, it'll be by a hair / But one look at you and I'm there.” Penned by Thomas Rhett, Julian Bunetta, Jaten Dimsdale and Josh Thompson, the song really hits its stride in the sing-along chorus: “You shoulda slammed the door, changed the lock and said adios / To my selfish heart, tore it apart and left me alone / Don't know why you were patient, and wasted good savin' on me / Maybe angels don't always have wings.” Unsurprisingly, the singer definitely had wife Lauren in mind in the writing room, and calls the finished project “my favorite song from the album. I wrote it from a personal perspective, but I think it will resonate with a lot of people. It’s about how none of us are perfect, and how lucky we are to have those people in our lives who show up and love us despite our flaws. I often look at my wife and think she’s truly an angel, for the love and grace she shows me every single day.” Previously titled simply “Angels,” the track first appeared on Thomas Rhett’s most recent album, “Where We Started.”
Tempo, attitude and a touch of sass characterize the new single from Danielle Bradbery, “A Special Place.” Long underrated as a vocalist, Bradbery gets the chance to really show off her considerable chops in this revenge song, cleverly framed around a hotel setting. The opening lines set the scene, where, “The room is hot and the pool is cold / The TV ain't got HBO / And the water pressure's always low / And the minibar is empty.” But this hotel isn’t real. Rather, it’s simply the address of the “special place in hell” where someone who did the singer wrong can check in, but they can’t check out. As she sings in the chorus, at this “zero star hotel / Don't worry 'bout your stay /‘Cause I've already paid.” That’s as cold as the pool! Songwriters Maren Morris, Sasha Sloan, Shane McAnally and Jimmy Robbins double down on the hotel theme in later lines about an absent concierge and a poorly lit hotel bathroom, where the disgraced new guest can “take a long look” at themselves. Bradbery manages to unspool the whole vengeful story in under three, radio-friendly minutes. She calls the song an “anthem” that is “basically just about those people that have screwed you over … It could be about any topic, really, which I love. I love songs that are very flexible like that and any listener can point it to their own story. It could be about a relationship, somebody that you used to work with, just anybody that has been that type of person in your life … It’s not a song that’s in your face. It’s a mature way of saying, ‘Hey, you did this to me, so I’m going to move on and let everyone else take care of you.’” Watch a “behind the song” video 
Easton Corbin applies his classic Country vocals to this song about knowing you've met your soulmate the moment it happens. Written by Corbin, Adam Craig, Shane Minor and Wade Kirby, the song is based on a true story. As Corbin explains, "Me and my buddies were writing, and one of them started talking about how he met his wife, and as soon as he seen her he knew he was going to marry that girl. We all kind of looked at each other and were like, 'Man, that's probably the title for the day!'" It's a relatable theme to anyone who's ever experienced love at first sight, or is still hoping to. In the first verse, the singer meets his future Mrs. while she's pouring shots of rum at a birthday celebration where, "She took my hand and said we're dancin' / When they played her favorite song / We didn't stop 'til everybody else was gone." After that, he's a goner, as he explains in the chorus, "I'm gonna change her name but she don't know it yet / She's what I've been prayin' someday God would send / I ain't never been the same since we first met / I'm gonna marry that girl." From there, he fends off concern from his mother, who urges him to take it slow, and from his friends who are sick of hearing him talk about her smile, and caution him, "You've only known her a little while." But his resolve is exposed in the song's bridge, where he sings, "I'll pick the perfect ring / I'll pick the perfect time / Ask her if she'll have me for the rest of my life." Like we said, he's a goner! "Marry That Girl" is the second single from Corbin's appropriately titled new album, "Let's Do Country Right," releasing on January 20th
A feel-good song about a teenage romance, Dustin Lynch’s new single, “Stars Like Confetti,” uses evocative lyrics to vividly paint the scene of a pair of young sweethearts’ date night in the back of a rusted Silverado Z71 parked on a dirt road. The couple is in love, and “a few beers shy of freedom” as they look up at the sky, where “Heaven's puttin' on a show” of shooting stars. As Lynch sings in the chorus, “I don't remember what the radio was playin’ / I was hangin' like the moon on all the words your lips were sayin' / All I know is there was magic in that Chevy / Baby, you were glowin', God was throwin' / Stars like confetti.” The couple knows they shouldn’t say it’s forever, but they “say it anyway.” Sweet! The 3:14 mid-tempo song has already been added to Apple Music’s “Country Risers” playlist. Written by Josh Thompson, Thomas Rhett and Zach Crowell, the single is included on Lynch’s fifth studio album, “Blue In The Sky,” released last February.
Nope, it’s not last year’s Sam Hunt hit of the same name. Chayce Beckham’s “23” is a revealing, deeply personal song about battling an alcohol problem that started young, and had him living a sober lifestyle by 24. The 2021 “American Idol” winner is brutally honest as he shares his story in this moving, mid-tempo song. It started with a father about whom Beckham says, “Lord, he was mean,” and an uncle who “taught me how to drink” at 17. Becoming a professional musician who played bars and “drank for free,” exacerbated matters. And by 21, Beckham says he was “loaded as a stagecoach shotgun” and begging his mother “please don’t look at me." At 23, he was navigating the failure of a seven-year relationship he thought would last forever. As Beckham sings in the heartbreaking chorus, “Now I'm 23 and there ain't nobody who can drink like me / Soon I'll be 24 and the Lord knows that I can't drink no more / I know I shoulda taken it slow / It's not the way that my life goes / Now I know / When you're passed out on the floor / You're sober by 24.” The happier news is that with this kind of authentic, powerful songwriting, accompanied by a profound performance on the single, the now 26-year-old rising star has a very bright future ahead of him.
Coming out of a bad relationship and embarking on a new, healthy one is a joyful experience that Ingrid Andress mines for her new single, “Feel Like This.” She describes both kinds of love in some detail, singing of the toxic one in the song’s two opening verses, “It’s crazy how manipulation feels like a soft blanket holding you tight / And every night sleeping next to someone’s just as warm as the gaslight / It’s funny how jealousy sounds like somebody’s worried about you / And all that control takes on different roles / Don’t realize the toll it takes on you.” But then turning her attention to a new relationship that tastes “like stability,” she compares it to lovely things like “homemade cooking,” “backyard kissing,” laughter and “Sunday sleeping in.” Noting that she’s been in “some pretty dark places,” Andress has more to say about the unhealthy relationship — and her role in it — later in the song, describing how she used to make excuses for the former partner “as often as I breathe / Defending him, trying to defuse it / And it would only blow up on me.” But in the song’s most revealing — and heartening — moment, she almost shyly approaches new love in a half sung, half spoken line, “I don’t know what this is, but I think love’s supposed to feel like this.” Andress says the song is “about falling in love with a new person, and it’s healthy and it’s wholesome.” She says she wrote it when she was falling for her current boyfriend, and it "felt really natural because [pop star] Julia Michaels wrote it with me and she was also falling in love with her boyfriend at the same time, and it just turned into a huge, mutual love fest.” We’re feeling it!
Jackson Dean is following up his #1 debut single, “Don’t Come Lookin’,” with a song equally as strong. Written by Dean, Luke Dick and Jonathan Scott Sherwood, “Fearless” is a man’s confession to his love that he's courageous and daring about everything in his life except her. As he vulnerably tells her in a verse, “Baby here I am, in the palm of your hand / You got me where you want and you know it / You're lookin' right at me and you're holdin' all the keys.” In the sing-songy, well-written and catchy as hell chorus, he confides, “I’m fearless / I’ll jump off the ledges / Burn all the bridges, walk on the edges … I don't mind the shadows / Take all the arrows, ride in the echoes / And I don't mind the night / I don't mind the fight, even if I lose / I got thick skin, I'll dive in, I'm fearless / Except when it comes to you.” It’s the second single from the 22-year-old Maryland native’s “Greenbroke” album, released last March. Watch for him joining Blake Shelton and Carly Pearce on this year's “Back to the Honky Tonk Tour.” He’ll also play Country Radio Seminar’s “New Faces of Country Music” show in Nashville on March 15th, after having been selected by radio to fill one of the show’s five performance slots.
At just 22 years old and a relative newcomer to the music scene, Bailey Zimmerman is off to an incredible start, and his record label isn’t letting any grass grow under him. The very day his debut radio single, “Fall In Love,” hit #1, they shipped the follow up, “Rock And A Hard Place,” a sure thing that had already charted on Mediabase by then, and was Platinum-certified. The fan reaction to the song in strong, as Zimmerman has been finding out nightly on tour. “When I hear all the people at the shows singing ‘Rock And A Hard Place,’ it’s … ear piercing,” he says. “These people absolutely scream the song, and it’s just insane to hear.” The three and a half minute song uses vivid imagery to describe a faltering relationship. As Zimmerman sings in the chorus, “Red wine and mistakes Tears rollin' down your face When I walked out that door And that's when I lost it A midnight in Austin Damn, I'm exhausted What the hell's this all for? Is this where it mends or it breaks? Between a rock and a hard place.” And while the relationship he’s singing about is clearly on the cusp, there’s some optimism in the lyrics. “It ain't broke yet, but damn, it needs fixin’,” he sings of the relationship, later adding, “For the record Throwin' in the towel takes some effort So I'd rather ride it out for better weather Together.” Zimmerman says even though he didn’t write this particular song, he’s lived it. “I wouldn’t have put it out if I didn’t connect with it,” he says. “This song has … helped me in life more ways than everybody knows.” The accolades keep pouring in for this Illinois native and former gas pipeline worker. After being named one of Amazon Music’s “2022 Artists To Watch” and a YouTube “Trending Artist on the Rise,” he’s just been named one of CMT’s “Listen Up” artist for 2023. Watch for him to perform “Rock And A Hard Place” on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on December 27th and "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2023" on December 31st, and catch him live touring with Morgan Wallen in 2023, a booking that is likely to swell his already considerable fan base.
Some of the best-written songs utilize lyrics that seem to be about one thing, then reveal themselves to be something else entirely. That’s precisely the case in this new single from Tenille Arts, “Jealous Of Myself,” which employs a surprising plot twist that doesn’t become apparent until the last line of the first chorus. The song appears to be about a woman lamenting the fact that her ex has a new love. The new lady is younger, knows all of the guy’s secrets and favorite haunts, is close with his mother, popular among his hometown friends, and “gets to do all the things I thought I’d always do.” Arts, in a beautiful vocal performance, sings of the apparent rival, “I want every second that your hands are on her body / How you put her name in every prayer to God / She has it so good but she has no clue.” Then comes the big reveal: She’s singing about — and jealous of — a younger version of herself when she was still in the relationship. After that confession, the first two lines in the chorus change from, “Ain't a day that I don't wish that I could be her / The way you hold her like you never gonna leave her” to the more poignant, “She hasn't had to miss the way you need her / Have her whole world shattered when you leave her.” Written by Emily Weisband, Trevor Rosen and John Byron, and produced by Nathan Chapman, the song goes for adds at Country radio on Monday.
One of the things fans seem to love best about Russell Dickerson is his sweet love story with his wife, Kailey. Several of his past hits have had specific references to their relationship, so his latest single, “God Gave Me A Girl,” is right in that pocket. It’s a faith-based song about the role God played in connecting him with the soulmate who changed his life. The mid-tempo song from his just-released third studio album was written by Dickerson, Ashley Gorley, Chase McGill and Zach Crowell. It starts with the rising Country star describing an earlier, single life full of empty bars, broken hearts and giving his mother a reason to worry. But in the catchy chorus, he describes how his life turned around when, “God gave me a girl Girl gave me a kiss Kiss gave me a feelin' that I still get Every time I look in her eyes I don't deserve her and I don't know why She gave me her hand I gave her a ring Then as soon as I could I gave her my last name Now I'm gonna give her forever I knew what I wanted but He knew better.” Early prediction: This lovely tune will be the wedding anthem of 2023.
When the mood strikes, sometimes you just have to dance, and Tyler Hubbard's new single is an ode to doing just that. More specifically, it's about getting your groove on out in nature, two-stepping in a place that may not have neon signs, but it never closes. The Country-as-red-dirt lyrics reference the music of Alabama and Alan Jackson, along with Levis, Luccheses and a Silverado. Written by Hubbard, Jon Nite, Ross Copperman and some guy named Keith Urban, the three-minute tune was the title track of Hubbard's EP, released earlier this year, and is the next single from his self-titled debut solo album, due out January 27th. In an August interview with Apple Music's "Today's Country Radio With Kelleigh Bannen," Hubbard said the four writers had a good time when they got together in Copperman's writing room and banged this one out in three hours. Hubbard recalled to host Bannen, "I said, 'Let's write something that feels good. That's really fun. That makes you want to dance.' We've been having these dance parties every night at my house after dinner with our three kids ... And so, I was sort of in that head space of 'let's just make some fun music.' So Ross and Keith started chipping away at making a track. Jon and I started chipping away at the lyrics and just putting all the puzzle pieces together .... I think, we ... had a great demo [by] that evening."
Queen Of Me
