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The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Day: August 20, 2025
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The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
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The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Scotty McCreery announced that he has postponed his upcoming concert in Barco, North Carolina due to the potential impacts of Hurricane Erin.
The country superstar took to social media on Tuesday morning to share the news with fans, explaining that the concert will now be moved to next spring.
“Due to the projected path of Hurricane Erin and in the interest of the safety of fans, staff, and artists, my concert originally scheduled for this Thursday, August 21, 2025, at Morris Farm Back 40 Live in Barco, NC has been rescheduled to May 23, 2026,” he revealed.
McCreery reassured fans that all previously purchased tickets for the August 21, 2025 show will still be valid for the new date. Those who are unable to attend the rescheduled performance will be able to request a full refund from their original point of purchase, with all refund requests needing to be submitted within 30 days of the announcement.
“We appreciate your understanding and look forward to seeing you at the show,” he added in closing.
According to reports from The Associated Press, Hurricane Erin is expected to remain off shore, but its effects will still be strongly felt across North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Officials issued evacuation orders beginning Monday, and dangerous surf conditions have already led to at least 60 swimmers being rescued from rip currents. Those currents are predicted to intensify as the storm moves northward.
Forecasters say tropical storm-force winds could extend as far as 200 miles from the storm’s center, with the system expected to strengthen further as it tracks through the Atlantic Ocean. In North Carolina, heavy rain and flooding are anticipated to begin Tuesday and persist through Thursday.
For McCreery, the decision to postpone hits close to home. The American Idol winner was born and raised in North Carolina and continues to live there with his wife, Gabi, and their young son, Avery. While some fans may be disappointed about the delay, it’s clear the singer prioritized safety above everything.
The news comes during an exciting season in McCreery’s career. He recently released his first-ever EP, Scooter & Friends, in mid-July. The project features his fast-rising single “Bottle Rockets” with Hootie & The Blowfish, as well as collaborations with Lee Brice and R&B legend Charlie Wilson. The single marks the fastest climb up the charts of McCreery’s career to date, and he even joined Hootie & The Blowfish to film the official music video for the fan-favorite track.
“I had a lot of fun creating this EP and performing some songs that are different from my normal sound, yet are still me,” McCreery shared. “Getting to record with Hootie & the Blowfish, Lee Brice, and my hero Charlie Wilson on songs that I co-wrote with some of my favorite songwriters has been a blast.”
For a complete list of Scotty McCreery’s upcoming tour dates, click HERE.
The post Hurricane Erin Forces Scotty McCreery to Push Back Upcoming North Carolina Concert appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
Before anyone knew Lainey Wilson’s name, she was looking to the careers of country music greats like Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton to help her make decisions throughout her musical journey. But now that she’s lucky enough to call these female icons her friends, Wilson is blessed enough to have a front-row seat to their wisdom.
“I feel like they taught me a lot before I ever even knew ’em,” Wilson shared during an interview with Bobby Bones on the Bobbycast podcast.
Whenever the “Somewhere Over Laredo” singer has questions or doubts on something happening in her career, she goes straight to the top to seek answers. Over the years she’s learned that McEntire will go above and beyond to be there for her and step into that mentor role just as others did for McEntire during the early days of her music career.
“I can text Reba and say, ‘what do you do when this happens? And what do you do when you’re feeling this way’ and whatever. And then she just willingly sends me pages of wisdom that shows you why she is where she is. Because you can tell that there has been people before her who have poured into her and she’s willing to do the same now. She’s a good woman,” Wilson explained.
Lainey also admires how Reba’s authenticity has stayed consistent over the years. Seeing the “Fancy” singer maintain that genuineness has inspired Wilson to try and do the same in her career.
“Just even watching old interviews of Reba, it’s the same exact person as when me and her went and got supper together in Los Angeles a few months back, what you see is what you get and no amount of awards and accolades and money and stardom and all of these things will ever take her away from the things that make her, her,” she revealed. “And that’s inspiring to me.”
The Louisiana native continues to touch on that memory from L.A., when she met up with McEntire and her boyfriend Rex Linn. Wilson fondly recalled facetiming her now-fiancé, Duck, and letting him catch up with Rex about duck hunting while she used the opportunity to ask McEntire as many questions as she could. This conversation gave her a firsthand look at just how similar their musical journeys have been, despite spanning different generations.
“It is really crazy to, even though we’re in a completely different time, that a lot of her struggles then are the same struggles that I have now. And a lot of the things that you’re just kind of scared to ask people, it didn’t seem like a silly question to her,” Wilson shared. “She is a beautiful person inside and out. So getting to know her has been, it’s been more than I could have ever imagined.”
As Bobby Bones pointed out, the biggest parallel between Lainey Wilson and Reba McEntire’s careers is their humility. It’s safe to say that the kinda of people that they are now is the same as they were back before the major award wins and star status.
“Getting to know you has been one of my favorite parts about being in this city. Because to watch somebody be wildly famous now and then you can just be like, ‘what up, dude?’ That’s you,” Bones pointed out to Wilson. “You’re an inspiration to a lot of artists.”
Lainey and Reba recently had the chance to collaborate on the song “Trailblazer” with Miranda Lambert. The trio of artists debuted the song during the 2025 ACM Awards, wowing fans with the track that pays tribute to the female country icons who paved the way for them.
The post Lainey Wilson Reflects On Her Friendship with Reba McEntire: ‘She’s a Good Woman’ appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
Tucker Wetmore has quickly become one of country music’s most buzzed-about new artists. In late 2023, he started teasing a few of his songs on TikTok, and what began as casual previews quickly blew up, racking up millions of views and putting Wetmore on the industry’s radar.
During a recent appearance on Boyfriend Material with Harry Jowsey, Wetmore opened up about this time in his career when record labels began reaching out in droves, eager to sign the rising star to their respective rosters.
“Okay, so like December of 2023 I teased ‘Wine Into Whiskey,’ and then right after that, like the next week, I teased ‘Wind Up Missin’ You’ and they were both blowing up on TikTok, like millions and millions of views. Every single video. I was like, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t even know what’s going on now. ‘ And so, pretty much since I teased those, I got hit up by damn near every label there is,” he revealed.
Rather than rushing into a deal, Wetmore took the time to carefully consider his options, ensuring that whoever he signed with would be aligned with his vision and his approach to his career.
“I knew I wanted to hold off and so I was like, hold off, let us just get some music out. Let me get my first tour under my belt,” he explained.
Wetmore went on to reveal that he had “30 to 40 offers” on the table.
“There was like two months there where I was flying from LA to New York, to LA to Nashville, to LA to New York just to meet with these label people,” he explained. “‘Cause you know, I didn’t want to just be like, ‘Oh, this is the best offer.’ I’m not just gonna put my name on a piece of paper and let’s roll. That’s not really how I’ve been trying to build my brand.”
Instead, the Washington native focused on building a “personal connection” with label executives before making his decision.
After about “two or three months,” Wetmore secured his deal and has been on an upward trajectory ever since, earning his first No. 1 single with “Wind Up Missin’ You,” opening for Luke Bryan and Kameron Marlowe, and releasing his debut album, What Not To.
Now, his latest single, “3,2,1,” is climbing the charts and could soon become his second chart-topper.
Currently touring with Thomas Rhett, Wetmore says he’s soaking up valuable lessons from the superstar, whom he admires as both an artist and a friend.
“It’s cool to see how he does it. And he’s got such a tight-knit family and his crew is great. They’re all like family and they treat my guys and me like family. And you know, just being able to learn and sit down and like, talk to him after the show is on the bus, whatever it is, and kind of just see how he does it. It’s really inspiring. ‘cause he keeps his faith in line. He keeps his family in line. His creative life. Yeah. And his touring. You know, um, he does it all so well. So it, I kind of, I look up to Thomas a lot, especially within like the last couple months really getting to see it firsthand.”
According to his Instagram stories, Tucker Wetmore is also back in the studio, possibly signaling that new music is on the horizon.
The post ’30 to 40′ Record Labels Wanted to Sign Tucker Wetmore After His Songs Went Viral appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
Connie Smith’s 60th anniversary Grand Ole Opry celebration has been postponed due to illness.
Smith’s team shared the news on her official social media accounts, revealing that a new date will be announced soon.
“Unfortunately, the special evening at the Grand Ole Opry planned for tomorrow night celebrating Connie Smith’s 60 years as an Opry member is postponed,” the statement reads. “We look forward to rescheduling this soon and also listening to the wonderful lineup of folks performing tomorrow night!”
The Opry also confirmed the news, revealing that both Connie Smith and her husband, Marty Stuart, have come down with COVID.
“Though we were so excited to celebrate 60 years of Grand Ole Opry membership with the great Connie Smith tomorrow night, Connie and her husband Marty Stuart must cancel their appearances on the show due to, as Marty said, ‘the unwelcome presence of COVID in our home.’ We will look forward to celebrating Connie’s 60th with her (and with Marty by her side) on a future date to be announced soon,” the Opry shared. “Marty will also be rescheduling his concert planned for this Saturday in Louisville. Meanwhile, the Wednesday Night Opry will continue, and we hope you can join us. We love you, Connie and Marty!”
While Smith and Stuart won’t be in attendance, the evening will still feature an impressive roster of performers. Vince Gill, The Whites, Sierra Ferrell, The Isaacs, Old Crow Medicine Show, Mandy Barnett, Dailey & Vincent, John Conlee, and Riders in the Sky are all scheduled to take the stage.
Connie Smith was inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry on August 21, 1965, after making her debut on July 18, 1964. She dreamed of performing on the Opry stage since she was a young girl and has been performing there for decades. Roy Acuff, the “King of Country Music,” honored Connie with the title “Sweetheart of the Grand Ole Opry.”
Connie Smith shot to stardom with her debut single, “Once a Day,” which made history as the first debut single by a female country artist to hit No. 1. The song spent an impressive eight weeks at the top of the charts and earned a Grammy nomination. She went on to score several more hits, including “I Can’t Remember,” “Nobody but a Fool,” “Ain’t Had No Lovin’,” and “Cincinnati, Ohio.”
Smith is married to fellow Opry member, Marty Stuart. They tied the knot on July 8, 1997.
The post Connie Smith and Marty Stuart Cancel Opry Appearance Due to COVID appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
Five-year-old Sawyer has endured so much while battling pediatric cancer in his first few years of life and HARDY’s music was there to help him along the way since day one. The young fan experienced a full-circle moment over the weekend when he got to meet his country music hero for the first time and attend his second-ever concert.
According to his mom, Jessica, Sawyer’s health journey began very early on when he was diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma, which is a form of cancer in the eyes. He went through various rounds of chemo over the span of four years and ended up having both eyes removed and replaced with prosthetics.
She told Country Now that his love and appreciation for live music began when he was just a year and a half old. Particularly, HARDY and Lainey Wilson’s CMA Award-winning collaboration “wait in the truck,” became a source of comfort for the young boy.
“It was right after his first eye was removed and we couldn’t get him to calm down but when the song ‘wait in the truck’ by HARDY and Lainey Wilson came on, he went completely silent and from then on we started to play HARDY after every surgery or chemo that he had so that he would be happy.”
HARDY was such a big part of Sawyer’s time in the hospital that the superstar quickly became his “all-time favorite country artist.” The plan to introduce the young fan to the Mississippi native began when Winston Academy, where Sawyer’s grandfather attended school, reached out asking to raise money for Make-A-Wish so that he could meet HARDY. Jessica noted it was a “no brainer for us to say yes.”
From there, Make-A-Wish got in touch with HARDY’s team to set up a date and a once-in-a-lifetime meet and greet opportunity. When the day finally came, Jessica captured snippets of the experience in a video and shared it to TikTok. In the first clip, HARDY can be seen crouching down to Sawyers level as he introduced himself during their backstage interaction.
“Anyone who knows Sawyer knows that he is never speechless but in that moment Sawyer was definitely speechless and star struck,” Jessica said of her son’s reaction.
@jessicagoodin2675 Sawyer got to do a Make A Wish and that was to mee hardy!!!! HIS WISH CAME TRUE!!!! #hardy #rockstar ♬ original sound – sawyersmom2020
The video then cuts to the moment during the concert when HARDY tells the crowd about his meet and Greet with Sawyer.
“I got a story to tell,” HARDY began. “A couple weeks ago I got a call from the Make-A-Wish foundation…they said that there was a kid named Sawyer that wanted to meet me and Sawyer had some complications with childhood cancer and lost his sight.”
He called Sawyer and his family out in the crowd and shared a few of the topics they discussed, like hunting and fishing. But HARDY revealed that his favorite part of their conversation was when the boy shared that his favorite song was “Rockstar.” Although this track is no longer a part of his live set list, HARDY made an exception that night and performed it just for Sawyer.
“Sawyer, it’s for you,” he declared before breaking out into the hard-hitting tune. Sawyer was captured head banding and dancing around in his seat with a huge smile plastered on his face.
Jessica dubbed this a dream-come-true moment.
This wasn’t Sawyer’s first time seeing the country-rocker live as he also saw him in Starkville, MS, but every concert he’s attended in his life so far has featured Hardy as the headliner, and his most recent show may be the hardest one to top.
Jessica extended a “huge thank you” to HARDY, his team and all those at Make-A-Wish who made this once-in-a-lifetime night a reality.
“We want to say a massive thank you to HARDY alone for his music and giving sawyer peace and comfort through a 4 year battle!! Sawyer will never stop listening to HARDY!!” she added.
Sawyer’s mom is happy to say that the five-year-old is currently cancer free.
The post HARDY Meets Five-Year-Old Cancer Survivor Sawyer, Who Found Comfort In His Music appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
When we think of Smokey Robinson‘s indelible imprint on our collective musical consciousness, our first instinct may be to celebrate his incredible achievements as the frontman of the Miracles and as a writer and producer beyond compare, for that group and so many fellow Motown superstars.
But as he developed his solo career in the 1970s, he became one of the architects of a new sub-genre of smooth soul named after his 1975 hit “A Quiet Storm.” Then in 1979, that slow-jam style gave him his biggest hit in his own name of the entire decade: “Cruisin’” found its way to the Top 5 of Billboard’s U.S. R&B and pop charts, and to No. 1 on Cash Box.
Robinson’s 1975 album, also called A Quiet Storm, became the template for a new, sensual and sophisticated subdivision of soul and the entire radio genre named after it. He later described his vision for that LP’s concept of “seven songs carried on the back of a breeze, blowing through the record from start to finish.” The album gave him an R&B No.1 in “Baby That’s Backatcha” and set the mood not only for some of Smokey’s subsequent releases but for Quiet Storm staples by the likes of Teddy Pendergrass, Rose Royce, and the Isley Brothers.
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Robinson, also by this time a longtime industry figurehead as VP not only of Motown but also of the Performing Arts division of the Black Music Association, further augmented his catalog of solo R&B hits with such songs as “There Will Come A Day (I’m Gonna Happen To You)” and another Quiet Storm gem, “Daylight & Darkness.” But a major pop crossover in his own name had continued to elude him.
Then came the Where There’s Smoke… album, which was released on Motown in May 1979 and became the latest demonstration of Smokey’s mastery of infectious, distinctive soulfulness of every stripe. He acknowledged, for example, the prevailing disco sound, but was never subsumed by it, on such tracks as “It’s A Good Night” and “Share It,” and updated his own immortal classic for the Temptations, “Get Ready,” into a four-to-the-floor club favorite released as a 12-inch single.
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But that left plenty of room for what other artists of the day, notably Pendergrass and Barry White, had now customized as “bedroom soul.” In Robinson’s hands, that subtle but sumptuously romantic style was typified by “I Love The Nearness Of You,” co-written with his old friend Stevie Wonder, and the reflective, string-laden “The Hurt’s On You.” But the jewel in that album’s crown, and the single that would be all over pop and R&B playlists that summer, was the song that carried his Quiet Storm sound into the ’80s, “Cruisin’.”
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Robinson co-wrote the track with his close friend and former Miracles bandmate Marv Tarplin, with whom he had continued to work since Smokey’s departure from the group in 1972. Tarplin came up with the melody not long after that, but Robinson couldn’t conjure a suitable lyric until some five years later, when his car radio came to his aid.
“I was driving my car down Sunset Boulevard and I heard that song by the Rascals, ‘Groovin’ and I thought, ‘That’s it! Grooving,” he told The Guardian. “But then, no, it wasn’t intimate enough, it wasn’t sensual enough for the music, and that’s when I thought of ‘cruisin.’”
Part of the song’s success was a title phrase that was delightfully ambiguous. “You’d be surprised by how many people speculate on what cruisin’ means,” added Smokey. “Cruisin’ is a word that I leave up to the listener. When you’re with the person you’re with, and you feel you’re cruisin’, it’s whatever you want it to be.”
The combination of the song’s mesmerically hedonistic lyrics and the vocalist’s own sultry, cool-breeze production was utterly irresistible. “Heaven for fans who remember Smokey’s distinctively soft and supple R&B,” purred the Cash Box review. The song peaked at No.4 on both the pop and soul listings on Billboard, staying on the latter survey for an epic 28 weeks.
Better was to come on the Cash Box pop chart, on which “Cruisin’” finally rose to No.1 as late as mid-February 1980. It also reached the summit, and gold certification, in New Zealand. Smokey had reached a whole new cruising speed.
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