The “Fortnight” singers ex’s mom dishes on their breakup and the drama behind the music, saying she’s “glad” her son moved on. Continue reading…
The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Month: July 2025
Lee Ann Womack is taking a moment to reflect on the legacy of her signature hit, “I Hope You Dance,” as the iconic track just surpassed 100 million views on YouTube and turns 25 years old this year.
“Grateful doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Womack shared on social media, thanking every single fan who viewed the heartfelt music video since its release in 2000. “I Hope You Dance” quickly became a cultural phenomenon as it was one of the most successful singles across multiple genres.
The No. 1 hit on country radio served as the title track and lead single from Womack’s album that dropped the same year. It earned multiple awards including CMA Single of the Year, Best Country Song from GRAMMY’s and Song of the Year from ACM, NSAI and BMI awards. The song has since been certified double platinum in digital and retail sales.
“I Hope You Dance” was penned by Mark D. Sanders and Tia Sillers. It ended up in the hands of Lee Ann Womack after the songstress instantly fell in love with the demo and recorded it just a few months after it was written.
In lieu of the song’s milestone anniversary this year, Womack reflected on her journey with the narrative and watching the success that came out of it. When asked if she thought the music video would ever reach 100 million views, she admitted “I could never have imagined that anything would be a hundred million anything. That’s a big number to me. So no, I couldn’t have anticipated that.”
The video opens with Lee Ann Womack’s oldest daughter, Aubrie Sellers, gently guiding her younger sister, Annalise Liddell, through an iron gate and into a picturesque setting. As they enter, the story unfolds through an elegant ballet performance, with young girls twirling in classic pink tights and leotards and their graceful movements guided by a string orchestra.
In between the choreography are clips of Womack donning a shimmering silver dress as she sings directly to her daughters. The visuals mirror the heart of the song’s lyrics that center around a mother’s wish for her children to embrace life to the fullest, to take risks, and to lead with love and faith.
“When we were talking about making the video, I knew I wanted to have my girls in it because that’s what the song meant to me. Just to think that something we created that long ago has touched that many people. It’s incredible,” she shared.
Womack goes on to say that she started to really notice the song’s traction when she got a call from a friend back in Texas informing her that it was being played on a pop radio station in town. This was no mistake, “I Hope You Dance” had officially become so big that it was reching audiences beyond country music.
“At that point I thought, well, maybe it’s just because that’s where I’m from, east Texas. But before I knew it, it was playing everywhere. So when you start getting air play on all different kinds of stations and stuff, that’s when you know something’s about to have happened.”
The track went on to become a major crossover success. It reached the No. 1 spot on both the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks, the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks charts. This wide reach lead the beloved tune to become a standard soundtrack to milestone events, including graduation ceremonies, weddings and even funerals.
“I didn’t know that ‘I Hope You Dance’ was going to be as big as it was for sure. I didn’t, but sure. I’m glad it was,” Womack admitted.
Even 25 years later, its powerful message of hope and resilience continues to resonate with audiences around the world. It continues to be a staple across multiple generations, which the female country icon joked makes her feel old. For Lee Ann Womack, that kind of legacy is more than she ever dreamed of.
“I don’t want to discourage people at all from telling me that it was my grandmother’s favorite song, stuff like that. So it makes you feel old, but I mean, you know that you have a song that’s going to live on forever. You can’t ask for more than that.”
The post Lee Ann Womack Reflects On 25 Years Of ‘I Hope You Dance’ As Music Video Surpasses 100 Million Views appeared first on Country Now.
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Ashley Cooke is setting the stage for her next musical chapter with the announcement of three new songs.
Cooke announced the news on Instagram, revealing that she’ll be rolling out new music in the coming months: “swear words” drops on August 22, “tin foil hat” arrives on October 3, and the fan-favorite live track “baby blues” follows on November 14.
“Okay okay, you’ve been asking and I simply can’t hold it in any longer,” she wrote. “If I’m being honest, this era of creating music has been way more than clever hooks and hopeful ‘ring the bell’ radio songs. It’s been a journal for me, a place to let myself feel deeper, a life line in a year full of one-thing-after-another. I’ll fill you in on more so soon…”
She expressed her gratitude to fans for their support, admitting, “couldn’t love you guys more.”
Cooke has been open and honest with fans about the struggles she has faced in the past year, from losing both of her grandmothers, to witnessing her parents and other family members endure difficult health struggles.
“It’s been a really crazy year with losing both my grandmas and then my dad had cancer for the fifth time. My mom had a heart attack, just had another scare top of this week. Went through breakup. My sister had a thyroid tumor,” Cooke revealed during a conversation for the Bobby Bones Show. “There’s just so much stuff that happened in a matter of a year…”
She admits she felt guilt leaving her family to go on the road amid such difficult times but says they were nothing but supportive of her.
“They’re like, it’s actually a good release for us to be able to cheer you on and see you doing these things and feeling like one of us is at least living our lives and having fun and doing all of it,” she explained. “And so I think me personally coping with it, mental health is a huge thing for me. And therapy has been super helpful and crying when I need to cry and ignoring it when I need to ignore it. And it’s just the way that this industry rolls.”
This season of life inspired Ashley Cooke to pen the deeply emotional “Growin’ Up Is Getting Old,” a song she’s been teasing on social media for the past few months. While the release date remains under wraps, there’s a good chance it will appear on her nearly finished next album.
As fan anticipate her upcoming releases, the Big Loud / Back Blocks Music artist will be busy on the road performing alongside Parker McCollum, Dustin Lynch, Brad Paisley, Lee Brice, and more, in addition to her headlining shows.
This announcement follows the recent release of her fiery breakup anthem “The Hell You Are,” which dropped earlier this month.
The post Ashley Cooke Ushers in Her Next Musical Chapter with Three Upcoming Releases appeared first on Country Now.
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To mark one year anniversary since the passing of her father, J.J. Suddeth, Lauren Alaina is honoring his memory with a deeply personal new song, “Little Things.” She offered fans a first listen to the heartfelt demo on social media.
Written as a tribute and open letter to her late loved one, the song touches on the everyday moments where grief unexpectedly appears. Along with that sadness, Alaina shares how her outlook on life has changed in his absence. One of her biggest lessons learned is to no longer sweat the small stuff, because she’s come to truly understand how precious each day is.
Alaina took to social media to preview the demo of this song alongside a heartfelt message that let fans in on what the past 365 days without her father have looked like for her.
“July 23rd. One Year. How can that be? I’ve spent the last 365 days learning how to live in a world that doesn’t have my daddy in it. Some days I still forget and reach for the phone to tell him something. Other days, I sit in the silence and let the grief come in,” she shared.
The Georgia native continues to reflect on how the “little things” now carry the heaviest weight. From the empty chair at a game to the missing “Roll Tide” texts, the jokes she can’t share, and the milestones he never got to witness, like her first pregnancy or the birth of her daughter, Alaina shares how grief isn’t always loud. In fact, she’s learned that it’s often felt the strongest in the quietest moments.
“It’s dreaming you’re here and waking up and remembering. It’s life moving forward but your heart feeling stuck in what was. It’s in the way I go about my days now. Slower. Softer. More aware of what truly matters and what doesn’t,” Alaina adds.
“There’s a version of me that existed before July 23rd, 2024. And then there’s me now. this version of me handles things differently. I try to let go quicker. I laugh harder. I love more intentionally. I don’t flinch at the “little things” anymore. A car cuts me off, and I just let it go. Because I know that time is not promised, and life is too short to waste on anything that doesn’t really matter.”
Since his unexpected passing last year, the country singer and her husband Cam have welcomed a daughter, Beni Doll. Looking back, she says that becoming a mother without her dad by her side has affected her in big ways. These emotions and lessons are what led her to write, “Little Things.”
“I can’t call my dad anymore. I can’t tell him about the things happening in my world right now, so I wrote him a song. It’s called ‘Little Things.’ This is not just a song, it’s an open letter to him. A way of telling him how my heart and perspective have changed since he left us. I want him to know that his passing opened my eyes to so much. To prioritize my mental health. To call people back when I say I’m going to. To share if I’m struggling. To Let go of things that don’t matter and focus on what does. To be quick to forgive. To be kinder. To be slow to anger. To love harder and deeper. I hope he would be proud.”
Lastly, Alaina expressed her hope that her dad is sitting on a cloud listening to the heartfelt new track and already learning to play it on guitar.
“Love you, Daddy. Pinky,” she signed the message.
Lauren Alaina announced her father’s passing to the world on the morning of Wednesday, July 24, 2024. The cause of his death is unknown; however, it seems to have been sudden news for the family.
This also isn’t the first time the U.S. Army Veteran has acted as the inspiration for her songwriting. Back in 2017, Alaina released “Doin’ Fine,” a deeply personal track that addressed the emotional impact of her parents’ divorce and her father’s path to sobriety. In June 2021, she shared a special moment with him on the Grand Ole Opry stage, where they performed a cover of Keith Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing At All” alongside her brother, Tyler.
She later gave fans a glimpse of another vulnerable track, “My Old Man.” Though never officially released, the song will forever be special to their relationship as it was used for the father-daughter dance at her wedding on February 4, 2024.
Through every moment of her music and personal life, Lauren Alaina continues to keep her father’s memory and legacy alive.
The official release date for “Little Things” has not yet been revealed.
The post Lauren Alaina Shares Emotional Reflections One Year After Losing Her Father appeared first on Country Now.
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After taking some time off to help his family adjust to life with their newest addition, Sam Hunt is opening up about this joyful new chapter. He and his wife, Hannah Lee Fowler, welcomed their son Weyman Allen Hunt on May 21, 2025, marking their third child in just three years.
In a new interview with Audacy’s Katie Neal, the country hitmaker shared how life’s been lately, detailing the transition from two to three kids and sharing what fans can expect from him musically in the near future.
Though his sleep schedule has been impacted in recent weeks, Hunt says he’s been on “cloud nine” since welcoming baby Weyman Allen Hunt into the world. Just like his older children, Lucy Louise (born May 2022) and Lowry Lee (born October 2023), Weyman’s name continues a family tradition. His middle name, Allen, is passed down from Hunt’s own father, while Weyman reaches even further back into the family tree.
Adjusting To Three Kids In The House
When asked how his two older kids are adjusting to having a new baby brother, Hunt admitted that while it’s been a bit of an adjustment, they’re handling the change well overall.
“They’re getting old enough now. They’ll just kind of go off and do their own thing and still they understand how they need to be gentle and not so rambunctious around the baby. They’re learning that, but they’re getting better at it. So yeah, we’re all getting along,” he shared.
As for him and his wife, Hunt says the biggest challenge of becoming parents of three rather than two has been shifting his focus to the older kids while his wife, Hannah, devotes most of her time and energy to caring for the newborn.
“I think with new baby and mama, new baby needing so much time with Hannah that I have to be the distraction for the other two kids. So I’m pretty good with ’em, but it’s been rare up to this point that I’ve had ’em really just me without Hannah close by,” he admitted. “So all the little things like where are your shirts or where are your shoes? All these little things that Hannah’s always doing, getting dressed and that sort of thing, I have to now, I needed to know these things, but I have learned how to manage on my own.”
Finding Balance Between Work and Family
In the midst of all the chaos, Sam Hunt is content in knowing that he has found a good balance between releasing music, touring and having time at home with his family.
“Honestly, the pace that I’m keeping in terms of my music and touring now, I was concerned that it wouldn’t be enough to maintain the connection with the fans and the ability to go out and play these venues that we played in the past. But it’s been amazing to have fans that after 10 years and hopefully we’ve made some new fans along the way, but still come out to shows and even when maybe I haven’t been to their city in two or three years or maybe I haven’t put out as much music as some of the other artists on the radio, but they, they’re still showing up. So it really has given me some relief in terms of my time and attention.”
The “Liberty” singer has plenty of upcoming tour dates this summer taking place at various fairs, festivals and arenas across the U.S. On top of his performance schedule, the singer/songwriter has been steadily releasing music over the past few years and is now building out his next full-length album. Meanwhile, his fan-favorite single “Country House” continues to rise up the charts at country radio.
Halfway Through A New Album
He is currently halfway through the new project and can confidently say it “feels like the next chapter” for him musically.
“I think just thematically and just the approach, the one component I’ve got to figure out production wise is what to do next,” Hunt confessed. “I’m at a point where I’d like to, I don’t know if involve is the right word, but to lean into a more organic sound,” he explained. “So I’m trying to decide how important is some of the musical elements I’ve used in the past. How important is that to the sound going forward? You don’t want to break with what has gotten you here, but at the same time that youthful sound, I don’t want to be the old guy trying to do the young thing.”
Between this fall and next spring, Sam Hunt hopes to have a fully completed project that’s ready to finally share with his fans who have been waiting for a new album since 2020’s SOUTHSIDE collection.
The post Sam Hunt Opens Up About Life as a Father of Three appeared first on Country Now.
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Before Blake Shelton racked up 30 No. 1 hits and a 23-season run on NBC’s The Voice, he was just a young boy in Oklahoma eager to perform on any stage that would have him. His mom, Dorothy, fully supported his talent and worked hard to find him local gigs. By age seven, Shelton was performing at beauty pageants, and even competing in some of them.
During an appearance on Q with Tom Power, Shelton hilariously looked back on those pageant days, calling them an “embarrassing” chapter of his early performing career.
“Can’t you tell by looking at me that I’m pageant material?” Shelton said with a laugh.
While performing on the pageant circuit, Shelton had a few go-to songs, though looking back, he admits they may not have been the most appropriate choices for a young boy.
“I had two signature songs back then… the only boy in the entire pageant,’ he recalled. “My two songs were ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’ and ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ by Ted Nugent, which by the way, I had no clue and neither did my mom apparently what that song was even about…I think we literally thought it was about somebody’s house cat scratching them and making them sick or something.”
He admitted he felt like was “in 50 of ‘em” but in reality, the superstar says it was likely around six or seven. Regardless, it was something Shelton decided he no longer wanted to do.
“I was so embarrassed and humiliated by being in those pageants…I told her, I said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to sing anymore because it’s just embarrassing. And my friends are going to find out.’”
Appearing at the pageants nearly made Shelton stop performing altogether. In fact, it took a few years for him to get back on stage.
“But I quit after that because it was just embarrassing. And it wasn’t until I was probably 13, I guess, 12 or 13 that I started wanting to perform again.”
At this point, Shelton finally got the chance to sing the songs he truly loved, and that’s when he realized this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
“My mom found a little Opry-type hometown shows around Ada, Oklahoma. There was a couple of them, and she would go beg ’em to let me be on, and it kind of started again. And that’s when I was finally getting to do back then Kentucky Head Hunters and Travis Tritt and Paul Overstreet and Mark Collie, these artists that I loved,” he shared. “And I was getting to do some country music and by then there was no, in my mind, there was no stopping me. This is what I was going to do.”
Looking back, those early, sometimes awkward and “embarrassing” performances laid the foundation for Shelton’s future success. And he has his mom to thank for it.
The post Blake Shelton Recalls ‘Embarrassing’ Childhood Pageants That Nearly Made Him Quit Singing appeared first on Country Now.
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Akon has teamed up with Vevo “CTRL” for a live performance of “Locked Up,” the lead single from his monumental 2004 debut, Trouble.
The song, which has become a classic staple in Akon’s wide-reaching discography, shares the singer’s reflections of his time in prison. He sings about being behind bars and the wide reaching implications that led to his road to redemption. He croons: “I’m steady tryna find the motive/ Why I do what I do?/ Freedom ain’t getting no closer/ No matter how far I go/ My car is stolen/ No registration/ Cops patrollin’/ Now they done stop me and I get locked up.” Even more than 20 years later, the words still hit powerfully.
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The song was originally identified as a crossover cut from Akon and his team. “‘Locked Up’ is a street record,” SRC Records A&R Jerome Foster told Hit Quarters. “I thought that was the place for us to start, knowing that we had a record like ‘Lonely’ to follow it.” Foster was right, as “Locked Up” was a success, reaching No.8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning the star a Top Five hit on the Official U.K. Singles Chart.
Much of the entire Trouble album was recorded as a reflection of Akon’s time as a convicted felon. “I came out and recorded it, but it was like a dead end at that point cause I wasn’t really into the music thing,” he told Ozone in 2005. The singer further explained that he made the album because he “couldn’t get a regular job cause I was a convicted felon.” He added: “You can only make but so much money as a felon. A fast food restaurant ain’t gon’ cut it, not for the type of lifestyle I was used to living. [Choreographer] Devyne [Stephens] took my music and shopped it around.”
Trouble was an overnight sensation, thanks in large part to the staying power of “Locked Up.” It sold 25,000 copies in its first week of release and has gone on to move more than 1.5 million units. “Locked Up” has even found a fanbase Akon never could have guess he would have appealed to. “The police told me that the song is the police department’s anthem,” Akon told Rolling Stone. “They play my song “Locked Up” in their cars when they pick kids up and are taking them to jail.”
Buy Akon’s music on vinyl now.
Discover more about the world’s greatest R&B artists | uDiscover Music
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