Drinking songs and country music go together like nothing else. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
Category: Music
The singer was banned from the Opry before he even got to play there. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
The singer was banned from the Opry before he even got to play there. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Aaron Watson’s new album comes as he’s become famous for his sharp takes on country music. During this interview he opens up about all of it. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
Aaron Watson’s new album comes as he’s become famous for his sharp takes on country music. During this interview he opens up about all of it. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Cody Johnson has announced plans to release his new studio album, Banks Of The Trinity, on June 26, 2026.
Produced by his longtime collaborator Trent Willmon, the album showcases a different side of Johnson, offering fans a deeper look into his childhood and the place he grew up. The album’s title is a nod to the Trinity River near his hometown, and even the cover art reflects that connection, featuring a photo of Lawrence’s Grocery Store in Sebastopol. As a kid, Cody would ride his bike two miles down a dirt road to the small-town store to grab a cream soda and a Blue Bell ice cream bar. He’d stick around for a bit, listening to the old men talk, before heading back home with a basket full of groceries.
Ahead of the album announcement, Johnson spoke with Billboard, sharing the inspiration behind the project.
“On this album, I wanted to tell the story about my childhood,” the Texas native shared. “When I heard the song ‘Banks Of The Trinity’ for the first time, it was like this portrait showed in my head of memories that I had honestly forgotten. It just took me back home to Sebastopol, Texas, where I grew up on the Trinity River. I had tears in my eyes when I heard it for the first time.”
To celebrate the announcement of Banks Of The Trinity, Johnson also released “I Want You.”
The tender love song, written by Tom Douglas, Tony Lane, and Matt Rogers, finds the CMA Male Vocalist of the Year assuring his other half that he loves her in every version of herself. Carrying a message of unconditional love, the track reflects the kind of deep, enduring connection he shares with his wife, Brandi.
“I want you when you’re pretty/ And I want you when you ain’t/ I want you when you’re a sinner/ And I want you when you’re a saint/ I want you till the cows come home/ And till the moon turns blue/I want you,” he sings on the opening verse.
The multi-platinum-selling star continues to climb the charts at country radio, with “The Fall” sitting in the Top 5 this week.
Johnson’s latest success comes as he earns four nominations at the 61st ACM Awards, including Entertainer of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Single of the Year (“The Fall”), and Visual Media of the Year for “The Fall.”
The superstar is also set to take the stage during the show alongside Lainey Wilson, Riley Green, Kacey Musgraves, Little Big Town, Miranda Lambert, and more. The ceremony will take place on Sunday, May 17, 2026, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and will be livestreamed exclusively on Prime Video.
The post Cody Johnson Announces ‘Banks Of The Trinity’ Album And Releases Heartfelt New Song ‘I Want You’ appeared first on Country Now.
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It actually wasn’t an easy sell at first. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
It actually wasn’t an easy sell at first. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Meet Dylan Conrique: a 21-year-old singer-songwriter whose journey has taken her from the pop world of Los Angeles to Nashville, where she has found a home in the heart of Music City. With each step of her path, Conrique has brought her knack for songwriting to life and her latest release, “A Little Like You”, is a perfect example of that.
While growing up in Northern California, artists like Rascal Flatts and George Strait became the soundtrack of her upbringing. By third grade, she leaned into that passion for music and began taking vocal lessons and performing around the area with a small group of other aspiring performers. On top of her passion for music, she also discovered a love for acting, inspired by Disney Channel stars at the time like Zendaya and Selena Gomez.
Her parents supported this new dream and moved her and her brother out to L.A. when she was just 12 years old and went on to earn screen credits including a recurring role on ABC’s The Rookie.
“The acting took over. When I came to L.A., I had 23 followers. My account was private. I did this YouTube series, it blew up. I made my account public, changed my username to my name, and the rest is history. And that’s kind of… Honestly, I would say the fans and everything, I wouldn’t be here without them because it’s given me so many opportunities to pursue music,” Conrique shared with Country Now.
But that music bug still stuck around through it all. She finally made her music debut at age 15 in the pop scene. During this time, she signed to her first label and began writing songs for the first time in her life. While she was finally finding her footing in the industry, there was still something missing that Conrique was looking for to make her feel more fulfilled in her artistry.
“I loved being in the studio and being a part of it. And then as time went on, I started to get a little more…it’s like a muscle. It’s like you’re working a muscle in your mind when it comes to writing. And so I was doing that a lot and I wanted to go to Nashville because I just heard it was the place to be for country music and I grew up listening to country music all the time,” she explained. “So I did a trip and I was supposed to only write pop music and I came out with country music.”
The California native naturally fell right back into her roots during her visit to Music City, giving her the confidence to officially move to the Volunteer State and embark on the next chapter of her career.
“From then on I was like, ‘This is my place. This is where I want to be.’ And yeah, I just fully did the move. Most of my family moved out of California, long drive to Tennessee and now I’m fully here,” she revealed.
During one of those eye-opening writing trips to Tennessee a couple years ago, she penned her latest release, “A Little Like You” with co-writers Sam Ellis and Lydia Sutherland. The mid-tempo song taps into a personal experience in Conrique’s dating history with a guy who everyone in her life had fallen in love with. Being a daddy’s girl herself, the songstress found that the thing she admired most about this man was that he reminded her of her own father’s kindness, humor and hard work ethic. Her father was the one to set the standard for the kind of love she deserves, and because of that, she finds herself hoping that the two men in her life can accept each other
“I was telling them about this guy that I met and we had already been like eight or nine months into this. And I was kind of just talking about how my parents love him. He’s great. Everyone gets along. And there’s like similar things that he does that my dad does, but maybe different career wise. And I just really look up to my dad and love my dad so much. And yeah, I’m just also like a daddy’s girl. So that’s why I also wrote that song about him as well,” she shared.
With her gentle vocals, soft instrumentation, and strong storytelling, Conrique fits right into country music. She has particularly found that writing songs from her personal experiences that offer vulnerable lyrics and unfiltered emotions is what has helped her build an impressive community of fans in such a short amount of time.
“I feel like when I write music from the heart, it’s something that I’ll love for the rest of my life. It’s a song that I’ll love and I’ll want to perform for the rest of my life. And then I also noticed a pattern of when I did speak my truth, there were other people who also felt the same way, it’s helped people,” she admitted. “And so that’s kind of been my biggest thing is like, I want to write from the heart, and I want to write from personal experiences because other people are also going through or have gone through the same thing. So in a sense, it’s like I’m kind of like a therapy session.”
She truly began speaking her truth in 2022’s “Birthday Cake” followed by “Polaroid,” which stemmed from a particularly hard period that left her in tears. Walking into the writing session that day, she chose to address the sadness on her face instead of burying it and the result was an incredibly striking track that captures that feeling of watching everyone around you figure life out when you’re still finding your own path.
That idea was compared to the process of a polaroid. When you look at the picture after it’s first taken, it’s impossible to see it clearly until it’s fully developed. Conrique’s co-writer Nicole Beaubien pitched this idea saying, “’It’s kind of like your life. You’re on your own path. Your picture is going to become clear at some point, just maybe not right now.’”
Once the story came to life, Conrique gained a whole new perspective and finally stopped putting so much pressure on herself to be someone that she wasn’t ready to be yet.
“I’ve learned to just be patient in the music industry and just people will find me at some point. So yeah, that song overall was just a good song for me to write for myself and I felt like I had the need to put it out as well,” she added.
That idea has carried over into the making of her next collection of songs, which is slowly coming to life through her latest string of releases, including “Written In Stone,” “Polaroid,” “A Little Like You,” and more.
“I’ve been writing and not having too much pressure on myself to, I guess, put an album or an EP out, but that would be a dream of mine. So that is a thought in my head right now, for sure.”
Fans can keep up with Dylan Conrique on Instagram.
The post Dylan Conrique Talks Her Shift From Pop to Country Music and Finding Her Voice in Nashville appeared first on Country Now.
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Belles is reimagining one of country music’s most beloved songs, Dolly Parton‘s “Jolene,” putting her own modern twist on the well-known story with “Son of Jolene.” And to make it even more full circle, she has tapped the country music icon to be part of it.
The rising country star has always had a love and admiration for Dolly Parton’s masterful storytelling, especially on a song as timeless as “Jolene.” Last year while on her headlining tour, she had her first run-in with a woman named Jolene, who also happened to be the mother of her opening act on the road. This instantly sparked Belles’ idea to revisit the classic narrative and write what she imagines the next chapter would look like.
“Obviously ‘Jolene’ is one of the most iconic country songs of all time and one of my favorite country songs ever, and just songs in general. But I grew up loving that song and loving Dolly and her music so much,” Belles told Country Now.
She continued, “I don’t know what came over me, but I just turned to him and I was like, ‘You should write a song about being the son of Jolene.’ And maybe you could spin it where you have a messed up love life because your mom’s name is Jolene and just explore that…he was kind of like, ‘Oh, I mean, it’s a good idea, but I don’t really know if it feels like me or my artistry.’ And I was like, ‘That’s totally fair, but do you mind if I maybe try to write that song?’ And he was like, ‘Sure.’”
The next week, Belles was in the writing room with Dan Harrison and Tyler Bank and together they cranked out “Son of Jolene” in no time.
“It kind of just came out of the sky. I remember as soon as we finished writing it that day, I texted Dan and Tyler and I was like, ‘I feel like we wrote something really special today.’”
The new song serves as a continuation of the classic story. Belles tells it in a way that honors its legacy while introducing a fresh, modern perspective. She draws from the original character Jolene to depict how her mischief and cheating tendencies might have been passed down to her son later in life.
The track unfolds from the perspective of a woman who’s doomed for heartbreak after falling for the son of the same Jolene who once sent Dolly Parton into a frenzy as she begged the woman with “beauty beyond compare” not to take her man. When she hears his mother’s name and notices his auburn hair and emerald green eyes, a lightbulb goes off. The narrator realizes too late that history is bound to repeat itself and accepts defeat: “I was headed for heartbreak.”
Belles’ raw Nebraska twang shines on this mid-tempo track that includes every element of a traditional country song, from twanging guitars to steady rhythms and of course, heartfelt storytelling. She joins forces with Dolly Parton’s signature vocals, creating a moment of pure girl power, as the singers reflect on the people who have wreaked havoc on their lives.
She sings, “I’m just another fool who fell for him/ And the vision of what could’ve been/ But what was I expecting him to be/ The son of Jolene.”
At the end of the tune, Belles tips her hat to the original, repeating the scorned name “Jolene” while Parton’s voice harmonizes alongside hers, serving as a generational passing of the torch that bridges classic and modern country.
When “Son of Jolene” was first written, Belles wanted to make sure she got Dolly Parton’s blessing before sharing it with the world. The country music icon did more than just give her stamp of approval, she also decided to help bring the story to life.
“Immediately after we wrote it, before really doing anything with it, I just wanted to make sure that she was okay with this song and this idea and hopefully get her stamp on it. And so it was actually my publisher, Stephanie Green, who got the song to Dolly’s producer and he was kind of like, ‘I really like this song and I think I’m going to play it for Dolly because I think she would love it. And that was just so crazy to me that Dolly Parton was going to hear a song that I wrote and sang on,” Belles gushed.
“A week later, I got on that Zoom call that I recorded for TikTok and Instagram, and they told me that she wants to sing on it with me. And I was shocked, honestly. It was probably one of the best moments in my life,” Belles confessed.
The “Crazy As Me” singer was lucky enough to meet Parton in person when they came together to record the stunning harmonies for the track last November. She admits there was a fear of getting emotional in the moment, but she held it together until Parton was no longer in her presence and then let the tears of joy flow.
“It was amazing. It was so much fun. And there’s going to be so many clips and content that I’m about to roll out about meeting her. And yeah, it was such a special day. And she was everything that you would imagine her to be and more. It was really awesome.”
“Son of Jolene” follows the release of her self-titled EP and the viral success of her breakout single “Crazy As Me.” Belles finds herself in the midst of a major milestone moment as she gears up to send her newest single to country radio May 11 and looks forward to dropping her debut full-length album later this year.
“It’s been such a highlight of my life. And because I’ve been here in Nashville for seven years and I’ve gotten to do so many cool things. And I got to open for Miranda Lambert, who is another hero of mine and so many awesome things. But Dolly has always been my number one favorite country artist of all time. And I never in a million years thought that I would ever get to meet her, much less have a song with her. I mean, it is truly the greatest honor. And yeah, and I’ve just been working really hard on this album, just trying to make Dolly proud and keep putting out songs that she likes.”
Beginning May 1, Belles will also launch her Songs & Stories Tour with stops in cities across the U.S., including New York City, Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and Portland. This trek offers a stripped-back listening experience, putting Belles’ storytelling front and center as she shares personal moments and real-life inspirations behind each song in her live performances.
The majority of the tour dates will feature Johnny Gates as the opening act, with Averie Bielski joining the Atlanta performance. Belles will also serve as support for country legend Gene Watson for two shows in Tennessee and Alabama this year.
Reflecting on the upcoming set of shows, Belles shared, “I love to tour so much. I love to play live, and I love to just get up there and just talk about how I wrote the songs from my real life perspective and maybe some stuff that you wouldn’t hear just on social media and kind of give a behind the scenes look on how these songs made it out into the world…I want to leave every show feeling like I know these people and they know me better as an artist and a person. I’m really excited to get back out there. I think it’s going to be a really fun summer.”
A full list of Belles’ tour dates can be found on her official website.
The post Belles Opens Up About Reimagining ‘Jolene’ and Working With Dolly Parton on ‘Son of Jolene’ appeared first on Country Now.
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