NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Charley Pride wasn’t country music’s first Black artist, but he reached heights that had not been available to early Black singers and musicians in the genre. And he did it...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country singer Jimmie Allen continues to rise on the charts, but he can’t think about his own success without giving praise to one of the stars who paved the way for him:...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Outlaw country singer songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, who wrote songs like “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train” and “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” has died...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Trailblazing country music star Charley Pride will get a lifetime achievement award at the CMA Awards in November.
The rich baritone singer became the genre’s first...
Matt Rollings, "Matt Rollings Mosaic” (Dualtone Records)
A sideman is the frontman on “Matt Rollings Mosaic.”
Rollings earned the shot at center stage with his stellar career as a...
SPICEWOOD, Texas (AP) — Willie Nelson’s annual Fourth of July Picnic is going ahead this year, but to reduce concerns about the coronavirus the event will be virtual.
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, "Naked Garden" (Fantasy Records)
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real offer 10 outtakes and five alternative versions of songs that appeared on last year's...
HUDDLESTON, Va. (AP) — Country singer Willie Nelson frequently sings about traveling and seeing things he may never see again.
Chances are he had never before encountered a 15-foot-tall hay...
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Willie Nelson may have given up smoking, but he hasn't stopped using marijuana.
While in San Antonio last week for two performances, the 86-year-old country music legend...
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — The often-decadent Fantasy Fest is in full flair this weekend in Key West.
At Wednesday evening's family friendly Pet Masquerade, entrants included costumed dogs, cats...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country music superstar Garth Brooks has more than just friends in low places. The Library of Congress said Wednesday the Grammy winner will receive the Library of Congress...
NEW YORK (AP) — Willie Nelson has come off his tour because of a "breathing problem."
The 86-year-old singer apologized on Twitter late Wednesday, writing "I need to have my doctor check...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — As Toby Keith and Willie Nelson's "Beer for My Horses" blared from loudspeakers, 13 horses — six of them from the Columbus police mounted unit — lined up in a parking lot...
EAST TROY, Wis. (AP) — Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Dave Matthews will headline Farm Aid 2019 when the music and food festival visits Wisconsin's struggling dairy country in...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Ever since Willie Nelson left Nashville in the early 1970s to return to Texas, there's been a large chasm between the "red dirt" country artists working primarily in Texas...
Willie Nelson, "Ride Me Back Home" (Sony Legacy)
Willie Nelson's latest studio offering, "Ride Me Back Home," is a relaxed, joyous collection that finds Nelson reflecting, explicitly, on age...
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, "Turn Off the News (Build A Garden)" (Fantasy Records)
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real have a piece of advice for their listeners: Turn off the...
J.J. Cale, "Stay Around" (Because Music)
J.J. Cale's "Stay Around" is a posthumous collection of 15 previously unreleased tracks that is as authentic as any of the original and compilation...
WASHINGTON (AP) — From Ben Affleck and Susan Sarandon to Anna Wintour and Willie Nelson, celebrities lined up to give money — and a dash of star power — to their favorite Democratic presidential...
WESTFIELD, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey high school principal who had agreed to donate bone marrow to a 14-year-old stranger in France has died, weeks after he lapsed into a coma during the procedure,...
Steve Earle, "Guy" (New West Records)
Guy Clark was one of Steve Earle's main mentors— Townes Van Zandt, the other — and Earle has honored the brilliant songwriter, who died in 2016,...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nashville producer Fred Foster, who produced some of Roy Orbison's most popular records and was the first to produce records from Kris Kristofferson and Dolly Parton, has...
Robert Ellis, "Texas Piano Man" (New West)
Texans play guitar. Stevie Ray Vaughan? Willie Nelson? Buddy Holly? Johnny "Guitar" Watson? Guitarists. Elton John is not a Texan, but when he recorded "Texas Love Song" (a deep-cut gem), the tune featured not piano, but guitar.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nobody pokes more fun at Dolly Parton — all hair, sequins, nine-inch nails and five-inch stilettos — than the country superstar herself.
Parton was celebrated for her musical achievements and philanthropic work as MusiCares Person of the Year on Friday night. She's the first country artist to be saluted in the tribute's 29-year history.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kacey Musgraves, Dave Matthews and Lukas Nelson saluted the outlaw king of country music Willie Nelson with tributes and performances at a famed Los Angeles studio.
The Recording Academy's Producers and Engineers Wing honored Nelson on Wednesday night ahead of Sunday's Grammy Awards.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Guitarist Reggie Young, a Memphis- and Nashville-based session player whose signature licks defined hit records from Elvis, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and many more, has died. He was 82.
Friend and fellow Nashville Cats session musician David Briggs said Young died Thursday at his home in Nashville, Tennessee.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country soul icon Ronnie Milsap is a bit of a studio geek, and he thinks a lot about music technology and recording equipment. So it makes sense that he spent a long time getting 13 other singers and bands into the studio to record duets with him for a new album, "Ronnie Milsap: The Duets," to be released Friday, just two days after his 76th birthday.
Poker, wife stealing and smoking with Willie Nelson
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The late Aretha Franklin's songs were so impactful that some of music's bests from Alicia Keys to Celine Dion took the stage Sunday to relive the Queen of Soul's biggest hits in a taped tribute concert.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country icon Willie Nelson has sung with just about everyone, from Snoop Dogg to Frank Sinatra, but one surprising omission was fellow Texas troubadour George Strait.
The two country singers sang their first ever duet together on Saturday night in Nashville, Tennessee, during a tribute show honoring the 85-year-old outlaw country singer with a performance of a song written just for the occasion.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Don Henley and Mavis Staples will perform in tribute to Dolly Parton when she's honored as the 2019 MusiCares Person of the Year by the Recording Academy.
The academy announced the latest additions to the lineup Thursday for the tribute concert and gala to be held in Los Angeles on Feb. 8, two days before the Grammy Awards.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Recording Academy's Producers & Engineers Wing will honor Willie Nelson days before the 2019 Grammy Awards.
The academy announced Tuesday that Nelson's career and achievements will be celebrated on Feb. 6, 2019, at The Village Studios in Los Angeles.
Neil Portnow, the academy's president and CEO, says in a statement that "Willie Nelson has inspired generations of musicians and fans, and continues to set precedents of excellence within the music community."
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — With Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr. already visiting the state and the president himself working thousands of supporters into a frenzy at a Houston rally Monday night, Ted Cruz is convening a veritable parade of Republican powerbrokers in the final weeks of the Texas Senate campaign to ensure Democrat Beto O'Rourke doesn't upset him.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Filmmaker Richard Linklater is the latest celebrity wading into the tight U.S. Senate race in Texas with a social media ad attacking Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democratic Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rouke rallied thousands with Willie Nelson on Saturday night, offering an openly liberal vision for the country's largest conservative state and vowing that his campaign that has shunned outside political support can topple Republican Ted Cruz in November.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Latest on Texas Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke's concert with Willie Nelson (all times local):
10:30 p.m.
Texas Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rouke is rallying with Willie Nelson, telling thousands of supporters, "The people of the future, our kids and our grandkids, are depending on what we do at this moment."
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ethan Hawke had long been enchanted by the songs of mysterious singer-songwriter Blaze Foley. Foley wrote songs like 'If I Could Only Fly," that Willie Nelson covered and would go on to become a Merle Haggard hit, and "Clay Pigeons," which John Prine covered. Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams wrote songs about him after his death at age 39 — he was shot in 1989. And yet his is a name that few outside of the Austin music scene would know.
Ethan Hawke spotlights an unknown legend in ‘Blaze’
