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Some of country music’s most exciting new voices took to the stage at the famous Nashville Palace honky-tonk for a celebration of Wanted! The Outlaws, the first country music album to ever go Platinum. Presented by Tennessee’s own George Dickel Whisky, the rocking evening paid tribute not only to the history-making 1976 record and other Outlaw Country classics, but also celebrated the 10th anniversary of Rolling Stone Country.

Rolling Stone publisher and EVP Brian Szejka and RSC Senior Editor Joseph Hudak welcomed the crowd with Dickel in hand, toasting...

For a guy who didn’t live in Nashville and bucked every Music Row norm he could, Toby Keith sure was loved by the country music community. That was apparent on Monday night at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, where A-listers like Eric Church, Jelly Roll, Luke Bryan, Lainey Wilson, and Keith’s fellow Oklahoman Carrie Underwood gathered to perform his songs at a briskly-paced, but expertly-staged tribute concert. Dubbed Toby Keith: American Icon, the concert was recorded to air Aug. 28 on NBC.

While tribute concerts can sometimes be fawning, heavy-handed affairs,...

Duane Eddy, one of rock’s first guitar heroes and an idol of George Harrison, Jeff Beck, John Fogerty, Dan Auerbach, and many other guitar-slingers who followed, died Sunday at his home in Franklin, Tennessee. He was 86. A source close to the family confirmed Eddy’s death to Rolling Stone.

Released in 1958, Eddy’s “Rebel-’Rouser” wasn’t the first instrumental hit, but it was one of the most arresting. Arriving just a few years into the birth of rock & roll, “Rebel-’Rouser” announced that the raucous new genre was...

Ted Russell Kamp just can’t quit L.A. Despite an extended stint in Seattle and growing up in Upstate New York, Kamp is a California country-rocker through and through, and his latest album, California Son, reads like a love letter to the Golden State.

But it’s also a snapshot of one of the most prolific, if under the radar, careers in country music. A Grammy-winning musician and producer, Kamp is revered by those in the know for his work with Shooter Jennings, with whom he’s played since...

Margo Price appeared on The Daily Show last night to showcase her emotive single “Lydia” and to chat with guest host Sarah Silverman about her music. Price performed the song, a moving track about bodily autonomy and women’s rights, solo with an acoustic guitar.

“Lydia” was written years ago after Price was struck with inspiration while passing by a women’s health clinic on tour. She finally recorded it last year for her most recent album Strays, which dropped in January. Roe v. Wade hadn’t been overturned when...

Margo Price continues to embark on her own evolution with Strays II, an extension of her original 2023 opus with nine new songs that will arrive in the form of three distinct acts.

The Nashville singer-songwriter announced that the double album will arrive on Oct. 13, and shared Act I: Topanga Canyon on Monday at midnight. Each act is billed as “its own unique story of love, grief and acceptance.” On the first offering, a trio of songs, she’s joined by Strays producer Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Dawes), as well...

Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, Quavo honors the late Takeoff with a posthumous feature, Usher ups the jealousy ante in new song, and Reneé Rapp captures the plight of queer girls with pop perfection. Plus, new tracks from Anitta, Maluma, Addison Rae and Charli Xcx.

Quavo feat. Takeoff, “Patty Cake” (YouTube)

Usher, “Boyfriend” (YouTube)

Reneé Rapp, “Pretty Girls” (YouTube)

Anitta, “Casi, Casi” (YouTube)

Maluma and Carin Leon, “Según Quién” (YouTube)

Addison Rae feat.

The First Lady of Outlaw Country has returned.

In an exclusive premiere with Rolling Stone on Wednesday, Jessi Colter debuted her first new single in six years, “Standing on the Edge of Forever.” The song opens her new album, Edge of Forever, the next chapter of her storied career, out Oct. 27 on Appalachia Record Co.

The 10-track collection is the long-awaited follow up to 2017’s Lenny Kaye-produced The Psalms. “It was really sheer enjoyment for me to be able to do, because I really hadn’t planned anything much further,...

Jerry Bradley, a towering Nashville music executive who helped guide the genre into the modern era and bring about its first ever platinum-selling album — Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser’s Wanted! The Outlaws — has died, The Tennessean reports. He was 83.

Bradley’s family confirmed his death, but did not provide a cause.

Bradley was born into country music, the son of Owen Bradley, a prominent producer who helped create and shape the “Nashville Sound” during the Fifties and Sixties. Jerry began his career shadowing his father in the early 1960s,...

Music subscription service Vinyl Me, Please has announced The Story of Waylon Jennings vinyl box set, which collects eight of the legendary country artist’s albums in eight years. It’s part of its Vmp Anthology series, which includes a podcast telling the story behind the albums in the set.

The limited-edition Jennings set culls his “Imperial Period,” from 1973 through 1981, covering a timeframe where he dominated the country charts with Number One hits and was artistically fruitful. The set was made in collaboration with the estate of Waylon Jennings and Legacy Recordings.

Margo Price will release her next album at the top of 2023. The singer-songwriter and performer has announced that Strays, her fourth studio full-length, will arrive Jan. 13 via Loma Vista Records and includes appearances by Sharon Van Etten and the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell. The project follows Price’s 2020 album That’s How Rumors Get Started.

Price previously released the album’s first single, “Been to the Mountain,” in August. Along with the announcement of Strays, Price dropped the new song “Change of Heart” and its accompanying video. An intense, blues-influenced psych-rock tune,...

“I have a love/hate relationship with the term ‘outlaw,'” Eric Church says in the opening moments of the the trailer to They Called Us Outlaws: Cosmic Cowboys, Honky Tonk Heroes And the Rise of Renegade Troubadours, a six-part documentary due next year.

Executive produced by country music luminaries Jessi Colter, Ray Benson, and Jack Ingram (who narrates), the 12-hour film, released in association with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, will feature interviews or performances from names like Church and Miranda Lambert to contemporary singer-songwriters Tyler Childers and Charley Crockett,...

Richie Albright, who manned the drum kit for Waylon Jennings since the Sixties and was essential to the Outlaw country trailblazer’s signature rock-based sound, died suddenly Tuesday in Nashville. He was 81. A rep for Shooter Jennings, with whom Albright toured up until 2017, confirmed Albright’s death to Rolling Stone.

An Oklahoma native, Albright joined Jennings’ backing band the Waylors in 1964 in Arizona, and the group developed a fan base at the Tempe nightspot J.D.’s. Jennings’ first album, in fact, was named after the club, Waylon Jennings At J.

Miranda Lambert and husband Brendan McLoughlin are saying goodbye to their dog Waylon. On Oct. 22, the country star took to Instagram to share the tragic news that her beloved pet passed away.  "Today I lost one of my best friends. My old pal Waylon. I found him and his sister on the side of the road in Oklahoma in January 2008," she wrote. "They were abandoned , starving and freezing nearly to death. I was listening to Jessi Colter and Waylon Jennings at the time me and mom saw them and pulled over to pick them up." She continued, "I took them straight to the vet and she told me that the little boy was not doing too well (malnourished and dehydrated ) because whatever they...

Collaboration is at the very heart of Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen’s partnership under the “Hold My Beer” name, refined over 15 years or so of live performances and expertly distilled on the friendly duo’s 2015 debut album. But there’s an entirely new type of collaboration on the Texas singer-songwriters’ Hold My Beer, Vol. 2 — one that stretches back across a generation of country-music history and includes the iconic voice of Waylon Jennings.

Midway through the album, released on Friday, “Ode to Ben Dorcy (Lovey’s Song)” gets underway with a scratchy acoustic guitar strum,...

An under-appreciated period of Johnny Cash’s lengthy recording career will be reexamined with the April 24th release of a seven-disc box set, The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991, and a 24-cut “best of” collection representing highlights from this period. The CD set also includes several rare or previously unreleased tracks and an additional 20-track collection titled Classic Cash: Hall Of Fame Series (Early Mixes), featuring material mastered from tapes newly discovered in the Mercury vaults. While the vinyl version does not include this LP, it will be available as a...

Jaime Wyatt follows up her celebrated 2017 debut Felony Blues with the new album Neon Cross, her first for New West Records. Produced by Shooter Jennings, the LP refines Wyatt’s honky-tonk sound into something more lush, layered, and complex, and arrives May 29th.

Ahead of the album’s release, Wyatt unveils a music video for the title track that finds her haunting some less-visited corners of Los Angeles. She’s in the Los Feliz strip club Jumbo’s Clown Room with Jennings; hanging with members of the Urban Saddles horse...

Throughout a series of health challenges in the last years of his life, Waylon Jennings retained the same outlaw spirit that he first brought to Nashville in the early Sixties, when RCA producer Chet Atkins signed him to the label. Although Atkins wanted Jennings to be himself, the veteran producer-guitarist was also used to functioning within the Music Row studio system that was, as Jennings noted in his autobiography, “working more for efficiency than emotion.” What Jennings wanted, and eventually achieved, was creative control over doing his music his way.

So, How Was Your Decade is a series in which the decade’s most innovative musicians answer our questionnaire about the music, culture and memorable moments that shaped their decade. We’ll be rolling these pieces out throughout December.

In 2014, a then-unsigned Margo Price headlined Rolling Stone Country’s new artist showcase at Nashville’s Exit/In. Two years later, she was signed to Jack White’s Third Man Records label, had released her debut album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, and was about to perform on Saturday Night Live.

Put simply,...

By 1966, two years after Beatlemania and the British Invasion first swept America, the musical quartet whose name was a play on Buddy Holly’s Crickets were experimenting with new sounds and mind-altering substances, both of which would be especially reflected in their now-classic LPs Rubber Soul and Revolver. John Lennon, in particular, would take inspiration from Bob Dylan, then charting his own course from traditional folksinger to spokesperson for a generation.

Lennon, who was born 79 years ago today in Liverpool, and his fellow Beatles would influence musicians in virtually every genre,...

“There’s an angel missing in heaven and his name is Allen Reynolds,” Garth Brooks told author Patsi Bale Cox in 1990. In the early Nineties, Brooks, with Reynolds as his producer, was on one of the hottest streaks in country-music history, topping the charts, earning dozens of industry honors, and selling tens of millions of records. But in spite of Brooks’ assertion, Reynolds didn’t just suddenly appear out of the ether. He had been toiling in his own Music Row studio for a couple of decades, and was also...

In mid-January 1969, Elvis Presley and his entourage arrived at American Sound Studios in Memphis for a scheduled 10-day recording session with studio producer Chips Moman and Presley’s longtime RCA producer Felton Jarvis. These would be the first sessions Presley had done outside of Nashville or Hollywood since his last Sun Records sessions in 1955 and would take place just weeks after Presley’s triumphant 1968 comeback special. Aired on NBC during the Christmas season, the special fueled a renewed interest in Presley to shift his focus in the studio from movie-soundtrack...

Jeremy Ivey has long been one of Nashville’s most beloved behind-the-scenes musical magicians: as onetime member of Southern soul outfit Buffalo Clover; as a producer; occasional harmonica player in Margo Price’s band and her frequent songwriting partner (yes, they’re also married); and low-key solo artist. Later this year, Ivey will finally release his debut solo record, produced by Price, via Anti – Records, with the first single, “Story of a Fish,” debuting today.

Set to a bit of slowly chugging “She’s So Heavy”-era guitar, “Story of...

Jessi Colter, the first lady of the Outlaw Country movement, has a new album on the way, one that pairs her up with a contemporary country rebel in Margo Price. According to a series of tweets by the artists, Price spent a week in May in Nashville producing Colter’s latest project. The as-yet-untitled album is the follow-up to 2017’s The Psalms, a collection of stripped-down religious recordings that were produced by Lenny Kaye.

“I spent the entire past week producing an incredible new album for the Og Queen of ‘Outlaw’ Country,...

Stevie Nicks kicked off the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony with her windblown classic, “Stand Back.” She paid tribute to its inspiration and co-writer Prince with purple lights bathing the audience. She twirled 11 times during the guitar solo with her (original!) gold and black shawl cascading around her. She followed with “Leather and Lace,” with Henley slowly walking to the front of the stage from the back. They locked eyes as they harmonized through the duet. After Henley exited, she introduced former One Direction star Harry Styles, who...

Struggle Jennings, the grandson of Jessi Colter, pairs up with his daughter Brianna Harness for a new collaboration that also features his mother Jenni Eddy Jennings and Colter herself.

Titled “Ace in the Hole,” the song stands as a love letter between father and daughter, and the accompanying video assembles Colter’s side of the Jennings dynasty. Prior to marrying Waylon Jennings in 1969, Colter was married to guitar great Duane Eddy, with whom she had the daughter Jenni Eddy Jennings. Struggle Jennings (born Will Harness) is the son of Jenni...

“When I met Jessi, I was pretty well at my lowest point. I weighed 138 pounds and I was bent on self-destruction. Wallerin’ in self-pity was the biggest part of it, stayin’ depressed all the time and stoned. Jess was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

That’s Waylon Jennings in 1973, telling Rolling Stone’s Chet Flippo about the transformative effect his fourth wife, Jessi Colter, had on his outlaw lifestyle. Married to Jennings in 1969, the singer-songwriter was previously wed to guitar legend Duane Eddy, but would have her...

In 2006, four years after Waylon Jennings’ death, New West Records released a live album featuring the outlaw legend’s April 1st, 1989 appearance on the long-running PBS music series Austin City Limits. Jennings was himself at a personal crossroads in early ’89 — having already battled his addiction to cocaine, he kicked a six-packs-a-day cigarette habit in 1988 and underwent heart surgery just four months before this Acl appearance. He was also between record labels, having left McA after two album projects and soon to record briefly for Epic, where he would enjoy his...

Tony Sokol Dec 13, 2018

Beatles insider Ken Mansfield always had the best seats in the house, even when the show was up on the roof.

Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 1970 documentary film Let It Be was recorded in January 1969, while the band rehearsed songs for their twelfth and final studio album Let It Be. Originally planned as a television documentary to go along with a concert broadcast, the documentary saw The Beatles get back to their roots. Augmented by a keyboard player they'd known since their beginnings in Hamburg, the band performed as they had in the beginning, as a five-piece with loud guitars, steady thunderous drumming and unadorned voices through microphones covered in nylon stockings. Until that day, January 30, 1969, on the roof, the Beatles hadn't performed live since August 29th, 1966, when they performed at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. Ken Mansfield, the former manager of The Beatles' Apple Records in America...

Tony Sokol Nov 11, 2018

The former manager of The Beatles' Apple Records in America, Ken Mansfield, saw the band at both final concerts.

On a chilly January 30, 1969, afternoon, the Beatles, who played their first concerts at The Cavern's lunchtime shows and last concert on August 29th, 1966, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, stepped onto the roof of their London headquarters at 3 Savile Row to shoot the ending for their last film. Bassist Paul McCartney, long a proponent for keeping music live, was the first to hit the roof and kept warm by jumping on the planks to be sure they'd hold the equipment. Drummer Ringo Starr noted his set was "nailed down in the wrong place," and slipped into his wife Maureen Starkey's red raincoat. Rhythm guitarist John Lennon fretted his "hands were too cold to play the chords,”and wrapped himself in Yoko Ono's fur coat.

Shooter Jennings wants to tour with robots. Which, if you’ve been following the songwriter’s eclectic career, makes complete and perfect sense. While he may be the son of leather-and-lace country couple Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, the 39-year-old is less inspired by the outlaw Seventies than he is the outsized Eighties. He’s obsessed with vintage video games, plays guitar with custom-made picks featuring the likeness of He-Man villain Skeletor, and in 2016 released a superb tribute to electronic music pioneer Giorgio Moroder.

Today, he unveils Shooter, his most...

Back in May, some of the key players of the Outlaw Country movement took the stage at the Cma Theater in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to pay musical tribute to the Hall’s superb new exhibit Outlaws & Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s. Among them: Billy Joe Shaver, who performed a rowdy “Honky Tonk Heroes.”

Organized by the Country Music Hall of Fame and co-produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings, who can be seen playing piano in the video, the opening gala included performances by Bobby Bare,...

Stevie Nicks is many things: Goddess Of Rock, style icon, survivor, and today is her 64th Birthday. We could never hope to give her all of the proper respect she deserves, but here's a small tribute to her legacy of cryptic lyrics, ethereal stage presence, and shawls.

So many shawls ...

1. - "Landslide." The greatest song ever written. Timeless, and one of the most covered songs of all time, from The Dixie Chicks to anyone learning the guitar ... or performing drunken karaoke.

2. "Sisters Of The Moon" - Hands down the best track from Tusk, the chances that Stevie would write a song named "Sisters Of The Moon" were always pretty good.

3. "Gypsy" - One of the definitive Fleetwood Mac songs, and one of the greatest music videos ever made.

4.

5."Silver Spring" Such a beautiful song, it was originally supposed to be included on Rumours but was left off because there just...

Nashville, Tenn. — The family of Waylon Jennings will soon release songs the country music icon recorded shortly before his death 10 years ago.

At least eight of the 12 songs on the tentatively titled "Goin' Down Rockin': The Final Recordings" were written by Jennings and eight have not been released in any version before. The simple vocal and guitar tracks were cut at steel guitarist Robby Turner's studio before Jennings' death in 2002 and musicians who worked with Jennings have gathered to finish the tracks.

The release later this year is part of a new effort by Jennings' family to establish a Waylon business brand similar to the booming estates of artists such as Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Hank Williams.

His son, Shooter Jennings, also plans to launch a clothing line, a redesigned community-based website and finalize plans for a biopic. All that also coincides with the second installment of the three-part...

Trace Adkins, Alabama and Kris Kristofferson have teamed up to pay tribute to late country legend Waylon Jennings on a new album. "The Music Inside: A Collaboration Dedicated to Waylon Jennings" will be the first of a trilogy of tributes to Jennings, who died in 2002.

Alabama's rendition of "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" will be released as the project's first single on November 29. It's the band's first new recording in a decade. Kristofferson and Patty Griffin will duet on "Rose in Paradise", and Jennings' widow, Jessi Colter, will perform "Good Hearted Woman".

The late icon's son, Shooter Jennings, has covered "Belle of the Ball" for the project. Jennings himself appears on two tracks - "Go Down Rockin' " and a duet with John Hiatt on "Just to Satisfy You".