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A lineup of performances for Wednesday night’s “Opry 100: A Live Celebration” special on NBC has been revealed, with many of today’s top country superstars slated to pay tribute to the legends of previous generations, and some doing their own enduring hits as well.

One First Couple of Country will salute another First Couple when Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood team up to honor the late George Jones and Tammy Wynette on the show, which will also be available for viewing on Peacock.

Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash are the other country couple who will be feted with a tribute, delivered by the duo of Jelly Roll and Ashley McBryde.

Reba McEntire will do double-duty, as tributes go, performing in dual appreciation of Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, who were close friends before Cline’s career was cut tragically short.

Kelsea Ballerini will sing Barbara Mandrell’s biggest hit,...

Beyoncé made history at the 2025 Grammys on Sunday night by becoming the first Black artist to win the Grammy for Best Country Album with Cowboy Carter.

After accepting the award from Taylor Swift, Bey delivered a speech in which she expressed her surprise at the win. “I really was not expecting this. I wanna thank God that I’m able to still do what I love after so many years,” she said. “I’d like to thank all of the incredible country artists that accepted this album. We worked so hard on it.”

She continued, “I think sometimes genre is a code word to keep us in our place as artists, and I just want to encourage people to do what they’re passionate about, and to stay persistent.”

Earlier in the evening, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to win a country Grammy in 50 years, taking home Best Country...

George Strait was honored with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 CMA Awards. Lainey Wilson kicked off the homage with a note-perfect take on Strait’s signature “Amarillo by Morning,” followed by Jamey Johnson’s plainspoken but swaggering rendition of “Give It Away.”

Parker McCollum and Miranda Lambert traded verses on Strait’s 2008 hit “Troubadour,” a fitting song for the occasion. To cap things off, Strait emerged to reprise “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame,” his duet with Chris Stapleton, from his album Cowboys and Dreamers released earlier this year.

Country music icon George Strait racked up 17 Country Music Award wins during his long career. He won Entertainer of the Year three times. Strait was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in 2006. Now he is set to receive a huge honor at this year’s Country Music Awards. Keep reading to find out how to watch the 2024 CMAs.

Country Music Awards To Honor George Strait

George Strait has had a long and fulfilling career in country music. He continues to make new music and entertain fans during live performances on tour. His latest album, Cowboys And Dreamers, dropped on September 6. It was his 31st studio album and his first in five years.

The country crooner has an extensive collection of awards thanks to his impressive discography. He’ll add another award later this month at the 2024 Country Music Awards. George Strait is this year’s recipient of the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award.

The American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special is airing tonight!

The two-hour special will feature superstar performances and special guest appearances, and will broadcast on CBS at 8 p.m. Et and stream on Paramount+ via the Paramount+ Essential plan.

You can watch the AMAs special on TV through your local CBS affiliate on DirectTV Stream, fuboTV, SlingTV and Paramount+ with Showtime. You can also use services like SlingTV, fuboTV, DirectTV Stream or Hulu + Live TV to watch. Many of the services offer free trials, so you can watch the show for free.

Keep reading to see who will perform…

Performers

Mariah Carey – The Emancipation of Mimi 20th anniversary medley

Stray Kids – performance honoring the legacy of boy bands

Jennifer Hudson – tribute to Whitney Houston

Chaka Khan – “I’m Every Woman”

Brad Paisley – “Truck Still Works” and Charley Pride tribute

Kane Brown – Country tribute with classic and current hits

Gladys Knight...

Country legend Keith Urban is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, but he had no idea how deeply he’d be affected by his trip to see Springsteen on Broadway a few years back. When Springsteen described having a dream where he tells his father he embodies him as a performer — “Look, Dad. That guy onstage? That’s how I see you” — Urban was stunned. “I just sat there holding back tears so badly,” he recalls in the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. When the performance ended, Urban and his wife,...

Green Day, Mariah Carey, Brad Paisley, Raye, and Stray Kids are among the artists who will take the stage to help the American Music Awards celebrate its 50th anniversary next month.

Gladys Knight, Kane Brown, Chaka Khan, and Jennifer Hudson are also among the first slate of performers for the American Music Awards 50th Anniversary special. Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Lopez, Jimmy Kimmel, and Gloria Estefan are also set to appear on the October 6 live special on CBS.

The AMAs also shared some details about what some of the artists have in store,...

CBS and DIck Clark Productions have announced nine artists set to perform on the “American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special” Oct. 6, with Mariah Carey, Green Day, Stray Kids, Jennifer Hudson, Kane Brown, Raye, Gladys Knight, Brad Paisley and Chaka Khan in the initial rollout of talent for the live broadcast.

Additionally, the two-hour special will include appearances by Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Lopez, Gloria Estefan and former AMAs host Jimmy Kimmel, producers announced.

The network unveiled what many of the slate of performers will be doing on the telecast. Carey will be doing a medley of songs from her “The Emancipation of Mimi” album to salute that recording’s own anniversary — its 20th. Hudson is set to perform a salute to Whitney Houston, who won 22 AMAs in her lifetime.

K-pop group Stray Kids will do a salute to boy bands. Raye will sing James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,...

Brad Paisley, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Green Day, Jennifer Hudson, Kane Brown, Mariah Carey, Raye, and Stray Kids will perform on the American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special next month, CBS and Dick Clark Productions announced today.

The two-hour special, celebrating the show’s anniversary with music, “iconic moments, unforgettable performances, and rich pop culture history,” airs Sunday, October 6, at 8 Pm, Et/5 Pm Pt on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

Some of the highlights will include two-time Ama winner Brad Paisley honoring the late Charley Pride, the first American Music Award winner for Country Male and Country Album; Chaka Khan will celebrate 50 years of achievements by female artists on the AMAs with a special performance of her iconic anthem “I’m Every Woman”; and Gladys Knight, a seven-time Ama winner who performed on the first American Music Awards in 1974, will return to the AMAs stage 50 years later for an encore...

There will be no American Music Awards handed out again until 2025, but the AMAs aren’t going to miss out on their golden anniversary. The “American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special” will air on Sunday night, October 6, live coast to coast at 8:00pm Eastern/5:00pm Pacific on CBS and Paramount+. And the first round of performers and special guests have been announced.

Brad Paisley, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Green Day, Jennifer Hudson, Kane Brown, Mariah Carey, Raye, and Stray Kids will take the stage for the celebration. Carrie Underwood, Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez, and Jimmy Kimmel will also make appearances during the broadcast.

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Paisley, himself a two-time Ama winner, will perform in honor of the legendary Charley Pride, who was the first Ama winner for Country Male and Country Album. Five-time winner Kane Brown will also celebrate country...

Exclusive: Tiye and Keisha Mennefee’s audiobook Rifts and Refrains from the latter’s Honey Magnolia Media is being adapted for TV by Attica Locke and Tembi Locke for Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.

Rifts and Refrains centers on an aspiring Black female writer and musician who discovers a hidden legacy of love, betrayal and music in her estranged grandfather’s past, leading her on a journey of self-discovery and unexpected romance in the heart of Nashville’s country music scene and Memphis, the home of the blues.

“We grew up listening to Charley Pride and Muddy Waters in our grandmother’s house in Texas, and have playlists full of Rhiannon Giddens, Mickey Guyton, Yola, and Brittany Spencer. We know the twin sounds of blues and country and could not be more excited to explore a story that highlights the crosscurrents of these two sounds and cultural institutions in American life.

The contributions of Black artists to country music have been marginalized, minimized, and, in some cases, wholly erased from the genre’s history. A group of songwriters, singers, activists, and journalists aimed to set the record straight on Wednesday during a live panel discussion in Nashville. Dubbed “Act III: A Conversation Around ‘Three Chords and the Actual Truth,’” the event was presented by the Black Music Action Coalition and the org’s co-founder, president, and CEO, Willie “Prophet” Stiggers.

Scholar and songwriter Alice Randall, who co-wrote Trisha Yearwood’s 1995 Number...

When Beyoncé unveiled a poster homage to country jamborees to announce the track list to Cowboy Carter, the project’s country tie-ins became even more clear. The artwork included references to Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton — and Linda Martell, a name that may have only resonated with country scholars.

Although she isn’t a star on the magnitude of the other names Beyoncé included, Martell, now 82, left a sizable mark on country music. Released in 1970, her sole album, Color Me Country, was the first major release by a Black female artist in country.

About six weeks back, Beyoncé announced plans to release a country album titled Act II: Cowboy Carter. “This album has been over five years in the making,” she wrote on Instagram. “It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive.”

She didn’t delve into the specifics of the negative...

The Grammy Hall of Fame has its 2024 class of treasured songs and albums.

The Recording Academy today enshrined classic albums by Guns N’ Roses, Lauryn Hill and De La Soul and Buena Vista Social Club and tracks from Donna Summer, The Doobie Brothers, Wanda Jackson, Charley Pride, William Bell and Kid Ory’s Creole Orchestra. See the full list below.

“We’re proud to unveil the diverse mix of recordings entering the Grammy Hall of Fame in its 50th year,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said in a statement. “The music showcased here has played a pivotal role in shaping our cultural landscape, and it’s a true honor to recognize these albums and recordings, along with the profound influence each has had on music and beyond.”

The Grammy Hall salutes recordings that “that exhibit qualitative of historical significance” are are at least 25 years old. This year’s class...

On Wednesday, March 20, the Recording Academy announced 10 singles and albums that will be added to the Grammy Hall of Fame for 2024. Eligible recipients will receive an official certificate from the academy. See the complete all-time list of inducted recordings here. And scroll down for this year’s auspicious entries.

The inducted recordings are chosen annually by a select committee of professionals from all branches of the recording industry with final ratification by the Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees. With this year’s 10 new titles, the Hall, now in its 50th year, currently totals 1,152 inducted recordings.

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said in a statement, “We’re proud to unveil the diverse mix of recordings entering the Grammy Hall Of Fame in its 50th year. The music showcased here has played a pivotal role in shaping our cultural landscape, and it’s a true honor to recognize these albums and recordings,...

Four albums and six singles are being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2024. In order to be considered for induction, a recording must be at least 24 years old and have “qualitative or historical significance.”

“We’re proud to unveil the diverse mix of recordings entering the Grammy Hall Of Fame in its 50th year,” said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. “The music showcased here has played a pivotal role in shaping our cultural landscape, and it’s a true honor to recognize these albums and recordings, along with the profound influence each has had on music and beyond.”

The 2024 Grammy Hall of Fame Inductees:

3 Feet High And Rising

De La Soul

Album

Appetite For Destruction

Guns N’ Roses

Album

Buena Vista Social Club

Buena Vista Social Club

Album

“I Feel Love”

Donna Summer

Single

“Kiss An Angel Good Mornin...

If you’ve attended a mainstream country concert in the past decade, you’re probably familiar with the part of the set where the headliner sprinkles in a non-obvious cover from an adjacent genre like pop, R&b, or classic rock. It’s a move with any number of purposes: to show an artist’s range of influences, to reel in a drifting crowd with a massive hit, to appeal to a wider audience, or to highlight how fluid and arbitrary genre borders really are when you strip a song back to its essentials.

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,...

Garth Brooks named Dolly Parton the Goat of country music, Chris Stapleton won his first-ever entertainer of the year title and Lainey Wilson continued her rise to stardom at the 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards.

Parton closed the two-hour awards show Thursday with a performance of her rock anthem “World on Fire,” taken from her upcoming rock debut Rock Star. The song features lyrics like, “Don’t get me started on politics/Now how are we to live in a world like this?”

Fire burst from the stage during the performance, which featured a full band and 10 dancers.

“Country music’s rock star,” co-host Brooks said as he introduced the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and fellow host.

Early in the night, Brooks rattled off names like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Buck Owens, Charley Pride, George Strait, Keith Whitley and Randy Travis when trying...

Ahmad Jamal, the pianist and band leader who helped pioneer the influential style that would come to be called cool jazz, died Sunday of prostate cancer at his home in Ashley Falls, Mass. He was 92.

His death was announced by his daughter Sumayah Jamal.

“All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal,” trumpeter Miles Davis once famously said, just one of many musical icons and jazz devotees who credit Jamal with impacting the direction of the form away from the speed and busyness of bebop toward a more spare approach.

Jamal often described his playing style by saying he honored the spaces between the notes, a less-is-more approach that in the 1950s was initially dismissed by critics as superficial cocktail lounge music.

The record-buying public disagreed, and Jamal’s 1958 album At the Pershing: But Not for Me spent an unprecedented two years on Billboard’s album chart. The freeform, relaxed but...

On May 13, 1975, Ray Benson, leader of the Western-swing heroes Asleep at the Wheel, was readying his band to make their stage debut at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas, when he received the news that Bob Wills, the “King of Western Swing,” had died that morning in nearby Fort Worth.

“An AP reporter told me as I got off the bus,” the 72-year-old tells Rolling Stone backstage at the recent grand reopening of the Longhorn. “He says, ‘Are you going to cancel?’ I said, ‘Cancel? We’re going to glorify this and play his music.

Chris Stapleton and Carrie Underwood are among the artists chosen to celebrate the music of Vince Gill on a new CMT special. CMT Giants: Vince Gill will premiere Friday, Sept. 16 at 9 p.m. Et.

The 90-minute special will focus on the Grammy-winning artist’s career and recordings with one-of-a-kind renditions of his hits by friends and admirers alike. In addition to Stapleton and Underwood, the show will include performances by Brad Paisley, Cody Johnson, Luke Combs, Maren Morris, and Ricky Skaggs. Notably absent from the list are Gill’s Eagles...

Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood were the biggest winners of the night at the CMT Awards on Monday, taking home Video of the Year as well as Collaborative Video of the Year for their song “If I Didn’t Love You.”

Hosted by Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini and Anthony Mackie, the CMT Awards honor the best in country music as expressed through music videos.

Other winners included Miranda Lambert (Female Video of the Year), Cody Johnson (Male Video of the Year), Maddie & Tae (Group Duo Video of the Year) and more.

Read on for the full list of winners and nominees.

Video Of The Year

Brandi Carlile – “Right On Time”Cody Johnson – “‘Til You Can’t” (final nominee)

Cole Swindell & Lainey Wilson – “Never Say Never”

Winner: Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood – “If I Didn’t Love You” (final nominee)

Kacey Musgraves – “justified”

Kane Brown – “One Mississippi” (final nominee)

Kelsea Ballerini feat.

Alan Jackson is calling for one more celebratory round with his new headlining tour Last Call: One More for the Road Tour, which gets underway in June.

Spanning 16 dates in total, the trek launches June 24 in Biloxi, Mississippi, and runs all the way to its Oct. 8 finish in Pittsburgh. Along the way, the “Chattahoochee” singer will visit Kansas City, St. Paul, and Austin. The closest he’ll get to Nashville is Knoxville’s Thompson-Boling Arena or Lexington’s Rupp Arena, but he did play a Music City gig at Bridgestone...

So what’s the shelf life of consequences? Well, Morgan Wallen just won the ACM Award for Album of the Year for “Dangerous” to enthusiastic applause (while Black artists were shut out), so while your mileage may vary, it looks like getting caught on video using a racial slur will land you in the doghouse for a few months. During that time you’ll have to suffer the indignity of having the most commercially successful album of the year, for which you will then be awarded one of the industry’s most prestigious prizes. Cancel culture is out of control!

Wallen released “Dangerous” in January of 2021 just as news broke of him using the N-word, but while he was suspended from his record label and pulled from country radio for a little while, “Dangerous” ended up spending 10 weeks at number-one, and it has since become the country album with the...

For all of its national holiday status, Super Bowl Sunday can be a complicated matter, especially when you consider the NFL’s tumultuous record surrounding issues of race. See the league’s handling of Colin Kaepernick or coach Brian Flores. But the NFL made the right call for Super Bowl Lvi when it invited Mickey Guyton — a Black country music singer — to perform the national anthem.

Introduced by the SoFi Stadium announcer as having “the voice of an angel,” Guyton certainly lived up to the description. Dressed in vibrant blue...

Dallas Frazier, the songwriter behind such country hits as The Oak Ridge Boys’ “Elvira,” The Hollywood Argyles’ “Alley Oop” and Emmylou Harris’ “Beneath Still Waters,” has died, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CEO Kyle Young. He was 82.

“Dallas Frazier is among the greatest country songwriters of all time. He could convey infectious fun with ‘Elvira,’ and then write something as stunningly sad and true as ‘Beneath Still Waters.’ His songs helped Connie Smith to become a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame,” said Young in a statement published the Country Music Hall of Fame’s official website. “He was a man of kindness, generosity and faith, who overcame a hardscrabble upbringing to offer smiling gifts to all of us. He lived a beautiful life of a beautiful mind.”

Born in Spiro, Oklahoma on October 27, 1939, Frazier released albums throughout his career including Elvira,...

Exclusive: Dennis Quaid has formed Bonniedale, a new production company in which he’s partnered with wife Laura Quaid and Ben Howard, latter of whom produced the Quaid-starrer Blue Miracle. They are cooking up a batch of film and TV projects that reflect the life affirming everyman themes of Quaid’s best remembered films, which include The Rookie, The Parent Trap and The Right Stuff.

First up is American Pride, a biopic of Charley Pride, the C&w superstar. Script is being written by Empire’s Dianne Houston, and Dolemite and Coming 2 America’s Craig Brewer will direct. Bonniedale is producing with Brewer and Third Coast Content. Quaid will play “Cowboy” Jack Clement, who wrote and recorded with Pride many of his breakthrough songs. Clement was also a longtime mentor to Quaid in his own music career. The name of the production company comes from Quaid’s mom’s middle name.

Throughout 2021, we will continue to update this In Memoriam photo gallery with major celebrity deaths from film, television, theater and music. The first major entertainment figures to be honored in the 2021 gallery are talk show host Larry King, Emmy and Tony winner Hal Holbrook, Oscar and Emmy winner Cloris Leachman, Emmy winners Peter Scolari, Cicely Tyson and Jessica Walter, Oscar champ Olympia Dukakis, Oscar/Tony/Emmy winner Christopher Plummer and legendary composer Stephen Sondheim, an Oscar, Tony and Grammy winner.

The previous year of 2020 suffered many losses, including:

Actors Chadwick Boseman, two-time Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland, Oscar champ Sean Connery and honorary Oscar recipient Kirk Douglas

TV legends Carl Reiner, Diana Rigg, Jim Lehrer, Hugh Downs, Gene Reynolds, Alex Trebek and Regis Philbin.

Grammy champs John Prine and Kenny Rogers, plus Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members Eddie Van Halen, Little Richard, Bill Withers and Neil Peart, plus...

One of the biggest all-star lineups ever will celebrate the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees this weekend. The ceremony filmed October 30 in Cleveland, Ohio, and now airs this Saturday, November 20, on HBO and HBO Max.

The event clocking in at 3 hour and16 minutes honors Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s, Jay-Z, Carole King, Todd Rundgren and Tina Turner in the performer category. Kraftwerk, Charley Patton and Gil Scott-Heron were chosen for early influence induction. LL Cool J, Billy Preston and Randy Rhoads were honored in the musical excellence category. Clarence Avant received the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

King had been previously inducted as a songwriter. Turner is now a solo artist inductee after going in with Ike Turner the first time around.

SEEThe Go-Go’s, Foo Fighters, Tina Turner, Jay-Z among 16 artists eligible for 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

While the order of inductions was different during filming, here...

Arguably no other state has contributed as much to American music and culture as Mississippi. Situated smack in the middle of the Americana music triangle, whose anchor points are Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans, Mississippi is the cradle of blues, country and rock & roll music.

It’s easy to overlook mostly rural Mississippi when metropolises like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York have long been home to celebrated music hotbeds that have produced incredible artists. But Mississippi is where the beat was born. Before there could be Chicago blues, there was Delta blues.

Reyna Roberts is a study in contrasts in her assertive new song “Raised Right.” The Alabama native released the country-rock anthem on Friday and it follows her 2020 single “Stompin’ Grounds.”

Built around a handclap rhythm and swampy guitar lick, “Raised Right” has Roberts outlining some fundamentals of her upbringing. “At your worst, be on your best/Do unto others like the good lord says,” she sings, waiting a beat before she adds, “Unless you cross me or my girlfriends.”

Roberts plays up those dual sides of her personality throughout the song,...

On Wednesday, CMT aired the concert special CMT Giants: Charley Pride, a musical tribute to the late, great Country Music Hall of Fame member, who died in late 2020 from complications related to Covid-19. The all-star list of performers included George Strait, Darius Rucker, and Gladys Knight.

Strait, who recently returned to the stage for his ongoing “Strait to Vegas” residency, gave a standout performance with his rendition of Pride’s 1970 Number One “In Anybody Goin’ to San Antone.” In true Strait fashion, he didn’t make any drastic updates to...

Charley Pride, the Country Music Hall of Fame member who died from complications related to Covid-19 last year, will be remembered with an all-star musical special. CMT Giants: Charley Pride, premiering August 25th at 9 p.m. Et on CMT, pays tribute to the “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” singer through a series of performances and interviews.

Along with appearances by Pride’s son Dion and his widow Rozene, CMT Giants includes performances by George Strait, Garth Brooks, Lee Ann Womack, Darius Rucker, Wynonna, and Alan Jackson. Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton,...

Pioneering Black country superstar Charley Pride will be the subject of a 90-minute CMT special set for August, the network is announcing today, with stars like Luke Combs, Garth Brooks, Mickey Guyton and Darius Rucker participating in the commemoration.

Titled “CMT Giants: Charley Pride,” the special will be arriving when Pride-pride is still at a peak level, with his name constantly brought up in the current conversations about race and country music, and how his ascent to the top of the genre in the 1970s represented both an enormous breakthrough as well as an opportunity to keep the door open that was lost.

The special will premiere August 25 at 9 p.m. Et on the cable network.

“I am delighted to have so many ‘giants’ in the business celebrate the legacy of Pride,” said Rozene Pride, who was married to the singer for 54 years. “He would have been so happy to...

Before “country music outlaw” became just another outfit for would-be badasses to try on, Johnny Cash made it a job description. But among the seven arrests he accrued during his most tumultuous years, from the late 1950s to 1967, none was quite like the time he was arrested in Starkville, Mississippi while picking flowers on May 11th, 1965.

The way the Man in Black told the story of his mishap in the song “Starkville City Jail,” from his 1969 live album Johnny Cash at San Quentin, he was innocently picking dandelions and daisies...

Cowboy Jack Clement, legendary in music circles for everything from being present at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll at Sun Studios to writing hits for Johnny Cash to eventually working with U2, has been pegged as the subject of a feature film that Nashville’s Visionary Media Group has signed a deal with Clement’s estate to develop.

Additionally, plans are afoot for an all-star album that would have singers and songwriters that knew Clement finishing and recording unfinished songs that he left behind. Clement died in 2013 at age 82, just a few months after being named as an inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Further Clement-related projects could be in the works down the road, but the film and album will be the initial focus in a deal made between the late producer-songwriter’s family, represented by daughter Alison Clement, and Visionary Media Group, a still fairly...

What can you say about a Grammy Night that begins with Harry Styles in a feather boa and ends with Billie Eilish saying, “What’s up, Ringo?” Just this: They should always do the Grammys this way. Last night was the best Grammy show ever, by an absurd margin — nearly four hours focused on artists doing their own songs, every performance excellent. No audience, and barely any awards. No stupid comedy bits. No presenters reading scripted banter. No Zoom screens. No “let’s ride the subway with Sting” montage. Just music.

Los Angeles, March 15 (Ians) The Grammys went a step ahead this year to honour musicians who passed away over the last year.

Apart from the usual display of names and photos of the artistes, which is the annual feature, this year the honour also included performances of songs by four musicians -- Little Richard, Kenny Rogers, John Prine and Gerry Marsden -- who died in the past year.

Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak (or Silk Sonic) performed "Long tall Sally" and "Good golly, Miss Molly", two of the biggest hits of Little Richard, as a tribute to the rock 'n' roll pioneer, who died of bone cancer in May.

Lionel Richie sang "Lady", his 1980 song that was first recorded by Kenny Rogers, who died last March. "I miss you Kenny," he said after the performance.

Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile performed John Prine's "I remember everything". Country-folk singer Prine died of Covid complications in April.

Brandi Carlile, Brittany Howard with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak paid tribute to the artists who died last year during the 2021 Grammy Awards’ In Memoriam segment.

Introduced by Grammys host Trevor Noah, the lengthy 12-minute block kicked off with Mars and Paak — who performed earlier in the night as the duo Silk Sonic — roaring through “Long Tall Sally” and “Good Golly Miss Molly” in honor of Little Richard. Mars handled vocal duties, while Paak backed him up on drums. Little Richard, the architect of rock & roll,...

The Texas Rangers paid tribute to late country legend Charley Pride — the baseball player-turned-trailblazing country singer who also held a part-ownership stake in the MLB team — by naming a field at their spring training complex after him.

The Rangers announced the dedication Sunday on Twitter with the unveiling of the “Charley Pride Field” signage at their Surprise, Arizona spring training site. “Introducing Charley Pride Field! You are greatly missed,” the team tweeted.

Introducing Charley Pride Field!

You are greatly missed. pic.twitter.com/v46HyO2EQ3

— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) March 14, 2021

Pride died December 12th,...

It’s time for “Music’s biggest night,” and the arrival of the 63rd Grammys comes at a crossroads created by the worldwide pandemic.

The usual drama surrounds the event. The Weeknd and Beyonce are both involved in snubs of the show, diminishing the star power of the broadcast, and other artists no doubt are making life difficult for show producers working under difficult constraints in the pandemic age.

The good news of the moment is that In 2020, the Recording Industry Assn. of America said United States recorded music revenues grew 8.9% to $8.0 billion. Worldwide, those figures are more than doubled, hitting an estimated $20.2 billion, per the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry,

But RIAA Chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier acknowledged the pain amid the growth.

“In 2020 we grieved epochal losses of giants from every corner of our industry — from Charley Pride to Chynna, Eddie Van Halen to John Prine, Bonnie Pointer to Little Richard,...

Jim Weatherly, the country singer-songwriter who penned the Gladys Knight and the Pips hit “Midnight Train to Georgia,” among other hit songs, died Wednesday at his home. He was 77. Music publisher and family friend Charlie Monk, “the Mayor of Music Row,” confirmed Weatherly’s death to the Tennessean. No cause of death was provided.

Weatherly was a celebrated, championship-winning quarterback at Ole Miss before abandoning football to start a music career in Los Angeles. It was there that Weatherly first recorded his best known track as “Midnight Train to Houston...

The announcement Tuesday that the Grammy Awards will be moved from January 31 to March 14 took many people by surprise but did not come as a shock: The show is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, which has seen a dramatic spike in Covid-19 patients and is currently ranked by Fema as the most dangerous county in the U.S.

“The deteriorating Covid situation in Los Angeles, with hospital services being overwhelmed, ICUs having reached capacity, and new guidance from state and local governments have all led us to conclude that postponing our show was the right thing to do,” said a statement signed by interim Grammy chief Harvey Mason jr., CBS Executive VP Jack Sussman and the show’s executive producer, Ben Winston.

However, the show, which is hosted by “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah, is quite far along in its planning, and is being moved up by just five weeks.

Updated: The Grammy Awards are being postponed until March 14 due to coronavirus-related concerns, a rep for the show confirms to Variety.

“After thoughtful conversations with health experts, our host and artists scheduled to appear, we are rescheduling the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards to be broadcast Sunday, March 14, 2021,” a statement reads.

“The deteriorating Covid situation in Los Angeles, with hospital services being overwhelmed, ICUs having reached capacity, and new guidance from state and local governments have all led us to conclude that postponing our show was the right thing to do. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of those in our music community and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly on producing the show.We want to thank all of the talented artists, the staff, our vendors and especially this year’s nominees for their understanding, patience and willingness to work with us as we navigate these unprecedented times.

As we finally turn the calendar on the Cruelest Year, let’s take a moment to reflect on some of the memorable people we lost from the world of entertainment. Click through the photo gallery above.

Among those who passed during 2020 were big-screen Hollywood legends from Kirk Douglas and Olivia de Havilland to Sean Connery and Chadwick Boseman, sitcom favorites Jerry Stiller and Dawn Wells and two of the all-time showbiz multihyphenates in Carl Reiner and Buck Henry. Other actors who left us include Diana Rigg, Max Von Sydow, Brian Dennehy, Kelly Preston, Fred Willard, Naya Rivera, Nick Cordero, Monty Python’s Terry Jones and Indian stars Irrfan Khan and Soumitra Chatterjee.

The movie world also mourns filmmakers Alan Parker, Joel Schumacher and Kim Ki-duk, along with a man who would be on a Mount Rushmore for film composers: Ennio Morrocone.

Also gone this past year were such admired TV personalities as Regis Philbin,...

K.T. Oslin, a multiplatinum country singer-songwriter who won three Grammys including one for her breakout single “’80s Ladies,” died today. She was 78. She had been battling Parkinson’s disease and living in an assisted care facility for several years and recently was diagnosed with Covid-19. No official cause of death was announced.

Oslin was a rare female late bloomer in the country music industry. She finally hit in 1987 with the top 10 country tune “’80s Ladies.” She was 45 and had made her first record 23 years earlier. Oslin also had the chart-topping country smashes “Do Ya” and “I’ll Always Come Back,” all of which were from her RCA album ’80s Ladies. That disc topped Billboard Country LPs chart and peaked at No. 68 on the pop albums chart.

She followed up with another platinum LP, 1988’s This Woman, which featured the country chart-topper “Hold Me” and No. 2 hit “Hey Bobby,” and the...

Black country music legend Charley Pride died on Saturday due to complications from Covid-19 at 86. The “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'” singer died in hospice care in Dallas, according to his website. Pride, born on March 28, 1934, was the son of a sharecropper, who eventually went on to become country music’s first black […]

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Charley Pride’s death on Saturday from complications of Covid-19 resulted in an outpouring from artists including Dolly Parton, Maren Morris, Darius Rucker, and Marty Stuart. Stuart also honored Pride regularly while he was living, inviting the country legend on his Rfd-TV show more than any other artist. After Pride’s death, Stuart and his wife, singer Connie Smith, posted a tribute saying, “I was so proud to call Mr. Pride my friend. He was, and will forever be one of the grandest of all my country music heroes.