Tribute Album To Honor Roger Miller Recruits Brad Paisley, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, Willie Nelson, Dozens More

Artist: Multiple
Album: King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller
Label: BMG
Release date: August 31

King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller, out Aug. 31 via BMG, pays long overdue respects to one of American music's premier entertainers and songwriters. The two-disc collection contains new renditions of Miller's songs by Ringo Starr, Dolly Parton, Eric Church, Loretta Lynn, John Goodman and more than two dozen others, including Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard on one track. Produced by Miller's son, Dean Miller, and Colby Barnum Wright, 'King of the Road' offers a fresh look at the work of a creative giant who has been gone 26 years but whose genius continues to shape contemporary music in ways both overt and subtle.

Before Miller's premature death of cancer at age 56, the Country Music Hall of Famer had 31 Top 40 Billboard country hits (10 of which crossed over to the pop chart), including his signature songs "Dang Me" and "King of the Road." He held the record for most GRAMMY wins in a single night until Michael Jackson and 'Thriller' broke it in 1984. Miller wrote songs and voiced a character for Walt Disney's 1973 Robin Hood film. He also wrote the music and lyrics for the Tony-winning Big River, helping launch the career of actor John Goodman, who reprises the musical's "Guv'ment" on 'King of the Road.' As Dean Miller writes in liner notes accompanying 'King of the Road,' "Roger Miller was too gigantic to be contained by genres and definitions."

'King of the Road' includes versions of Miller's biggest '60s hits, like "Chug-A-Lug" (Asleep at the Wheel ft. Huey Lewis) and "England Swings" (Lyle Lovett), and lesser-known treasures from a catalog full of gems. As with Miller's own output, the album contains plenty of unexpected turns -- country superstar Eric Church's playful take on Robin Hood's "Oo De Lally," for instance, or Starr's selection of "Hey, Would You Hold It Down?," a song from Miller's long-out-of-print 1979 'Making a Name for Myself' album. By any standard of measurement, Miller was "one of the greatest songwriters that ever lived" -- even if he did say so himself. And he did, in the first of a handful of the album's live-performance interstitials that capture the spontaneous wit of a mind that operated at a breakneck pace.

The scope of material and performances on 'King of the Road' both capture Miller's personality and convey an astonishing legacy that's still felt today. "Roger Miller didn't have to say much," Dean writes in the liners. "You were simply drawn to him. He had a magnetic smile, and electric wit and a passion for life and music that transcended generations."

'King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller' Tracklist:
Disc One
Greatest Songwriter (Banter)
Chug-a-Lug - Asleep at the Wheel ft. Huey Lewis
Dang Me - Brad Paisley
Leavin's Not the Only Way to Go - The Stellas/Lennon and Maisy
Kansas City Star - Kacey Musgraves
World So Full of Love - Rodney Crowell
Old Friends (Banter)
Old Friends - Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard
Lock Stock and Teardrops - Mandy Barnett
You Oughta Be Here With Me - Alison Krauss ft. The Cox Family
The Crossing - Ronnie Dunn, The Blind Boys of Alabama
In the Summertime - The Earls of Leicester ft. Shawn Camp
Fiddle (Banter)
England Swings - Lyle Lovett
You Can't Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd - Various Artists
Half a Mind - Loretta Lynn
Invitation to the Blues - Shooter Jennings, Jessi Colter
It Only Hurts Me When I Cry (Live) - Dwight Yoakam

Disc Two
Hey, Would You Hold It Down? - Ringo Starr
Engine, Engine #9 - Emerson Hart ft. Jon Randall
When Two Worlds Collide - Flatt Lonesome
Oo De Lally - Eric Church
You Can't Do Me This Way and Get By With It - Dean Miller ft. The McCrary Sisters
Chicken S#$! (Banter)
Nothing Can Stop Me - Toad the Wet Sprocket
Husbands and Wives - Jamey Johnson ft. Emmylou Harris
I Believe in the Sunshine - Lily Meola
Guv'ment - John Goodman
Old Songwriters Never Die (Banter)
The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me - Dolly Parton ft. Alison Krauss
I'd Come Back to Me - Radney Foster ft. Tawnya Reynolds
Reincarnation - Cake
One Dying and a Burying - The Dead South
Do Wacka Do - Robert Earl Keen, Jr.
King of the Road - Various Artists

Hear It Here - LeAnn Rimes & Stevie Nicks - "Borrowed"

Today, (June 20), country star LeAnn Rimes will release a surprise EP called Re-Imagined, where she's recorded new versions of several of her older songs. For "Borrowed," which originally appeared on 2013's Spitfire, Rimes duets with Stevie Nicks. As the Fleetwood Mac singer revealed, she's been itching for this duet for years.
 

"I stopped in my tracks and sat down on the floor and started to cry," Nicks told Rolling Stone. "I understood what she was singing about. I understood that the pain was real... and I understood that it had happened to me. When the song ended, I called my assistant to tell her that one day, I would sing this song with LeAnn. It was our destiny."

"You can't compete with her; you can only keep up with her," Nicks added. "To sing with her is to be blessed. She teaches you; she takes you along for the ride. She takes you on her journey and you arrive a much better singer."
 

For Rimes, getting to work with Nicks was a dream come true as well. "Stevie has been inspiring me as a songwriter and performer since I can remember," she said. "To know that my music has seeped its way into her heart the way her music has into mine is magical. Connecting with her, not only musically, but on a soul level – understanding what it's like to be a woman with passion, a pen and a desire to tell the most authentic, heartfelt truth through song, has been an experience that's forever left an imprint on my life."

New Music Video From Ben Rector - "Old Friends"

New Music Video From Maggie Rose - "Long Way To Go"

New Music Video From Montgomery Gentry - "Get Down South"

New Music Video From Jason Aldean and Miranda Lambert - "Drowns the Whiskey"

DJ Fontana, Last Surviving Member of Elvis' Band, Passes Away

 K.F. Raizor, author of the website Raizor's Edge and the book We Can't Sing and We Ain't Funny: The World of Homer and Jethro is our guest writer today on That Nashville Sound. She's ever so gracious to provide wonderful tributes to honor those to whom the music we treasure just wouldn't be the same without. Thank you, K.F.

Sadly, the "Heartbreak Hotel" is now vacant. DJ Fontana, the last surviving member of Elvis' band in the 1950s, has died.

Born Dominic Joseph Fontana in 1931, Fontana's first work as a drummer came on the legendary Louisiana Hayride. He met and backed the likes of Faron Young and Webb Pierce there.

Of course, the Louisiana Hayride is also where a young Elvis Presley first unleashed his rockabilly-style music on the world. Fontana joined Presley's band, playing drums on the groundbreaking "Heartbreak Hotel."

Army duty called for Elvis, putting an end to the "official" band that consisted of Fontana, Bill Black, and Scotty Moore. However, Moore and Fontana continued to work with Elvis throughout the 60s, appearing in movies and on TV specials with him.

Additionally, Fontana was an in-demand session musician. His web site lists his credits on albums by acts as diverse as Jim Reeves, Ringo Starr, and Cheap Trick. His talents earned him induction into the Rockabilly and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame.

Farewell to DJ Fontana, who was 87.

That Nashville Sound Thursday Newsbytes: Lost Trailers, Mandy Barnett, Lindsay Ell, Kenny Chesney & More

I'm blaming the 100 degree weather yesterday in my neck of the woods on the hot news in today's news round-up on That Nashville Sound. Seems logical, right?  We've got some news on some new projects and a couple of new music videos.

- Sublime vocalist Mandy Barnett will have a new album out on September 28 called Strange Conversation.

- A decade after their smash single "Holler Back", The Lost Trailers are back and have a new EP called Old Friends coming out tomorrow, 6/15.

- The Song Suffragettes just celebrated their fourth anniversary as an all-female music collective and had a unique cover of TLC's "No Scrubs" this last Monday featuring Kelleigh Bannen, Alys Ffion, Kalie Shorr, Candi Carpenter and Tegan Marie.

- Lindsay Ell has a new music video for her song "Dreaming With A Broken Heart."

- Ziggy Marley, Mindy Smith and Jimmy Buffett are guest vocalists on Kenny Chesney's upcoming 7/27 release Songs for the Saints. 

- Rodney Crowell has a new music video for his recut of "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight." 

New Music Video From Kelly Willis - "Don't Step Away"

New Music Video From Kelsea Ballerini - "I Hate Love Songs"

New Music Video From Old Dominion - "Hotel Key"

New Music Video From Sugarland - "Babe" (featuring Taylor Swift)

New Music Video From Darius Rucker - "Straight To Hell" (featuring Charles Kelley, Jason Aldean & Luke Bryan)

New Music Video From Little Big Town - "Summer Fever"

Rory Feek To Release New Memoir Once Upon a Farm: Lessons on Growing Love, Life, and Hope on a New Frontier On June 19

Artist: Rory Feek
Book: Once Upon a Farm: Lessons on Growing Love, Life, and Hope on a New Frontier
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release date: June 19

The tragic story of the married and musical duo Joey + Rory was one that the country music community was invested in deeply.  The duo splashed onto the scene through CMT's Can You Duet and through their television show and their classic country recordings, had developed a deep and lasting group of fans that adored them. When Joey lost her life in 2016 to cervical cancer, it was made all the more heartbreaking as she was a brand new mother to a little daughter named Indiana.

Now, two years later, Rory has finished a new book about his life without his soul mate.  The book follows Rory as he takes their four-year-old daughter Indiana’s hand and walks forward into an unknown future, he takes readers on his incredible journey from heartbreak to hope and, ultimately, the kind of healing that comes only through faith.

Now raising their four-year-old daughter, Indiana, alone, after Joey’s passing, Rory Feek digs deeper into the soil of his life and the unusual choices he and his wife, Joey, made together and the ones he’s making now to lead his family into the future.

From the press release:

When Rory Feek and his older daughters moved into a run-down farmhouse almost twenty years ago, he had no idea of the almost fairy-tale love story that was going to unfold on that small piece of Tennessee land . . . and the lessons he and his family would learn along the way.

A raw and vulnerable look deeper into Rory’s heart, Once Upon a Farm is filled with powerful stories of love, life, and hope and the insights that one extraordinary, ordinary man in bib overalls has gleamed along the way.

As opposed to homesteading, this is instead a book on lifesteading as Rory learns to cultivate faith, love, and fatherhood on a small farm while doing everything, at times, but farming. With frequent stories of his and Joey’s years together, and how those guide his life today, Rory unpacks just what it means to be open to new experiences.

“This isn’t a how-to book; it’s more of a how we, or more accurately, how He, God, planted us on a few acres of land and grew something bigger than Joey or I could have ever imagined.”

New Music Video From Jamie Lin Wilson - "Old Oldsmobile" (Live on the Texas Music Scene)

That Nashville Sound Monday Newsbytes: Willie Nelson, Krystal Keith, Rory Feek, Maggie Rose & More

Lots of new projects were unveiled over the weekend- many of which are new on the radar. So consider yourself first in on the know. It's like a little club. Except we don't have meetings and there are no dues.

- A special collection of Willie Nelson's earliest demos is going to be made available through Real Gone Music with a double album called Things To Remember: The Pamper Demos. The project is scheduled for release on CD and digital platforms on July 13th. Here's the scoop on the project:

For the series of sessions that laid the foundation for Willie Nelson’s career and thus changed the course of modern country music, these recordings have been treated pretty cavalierly over the years. But first, a little history…Willie Nelson was a struggling songwriter, hungry for work and maybe even just plain hungry, when he moved to Nashville in late 1960 with his wife and kids and met Hank Cochran, who was a writer for Pamper Music. Pamper, which was owned by country star Ray Price, fiddle player Hal Smith, and a baker (!) from Pico Rivera, California named Claude Caviness, was the hottest publishing company in town, thanks to writers like Cochran and Harlan Howard and songs like “Heartaches by the Number” and “I Fall to Pieces.”

At first, Willie wasn’t going to sign with Pamper because Hal Smith wouldn’t give Willie the draw he needed, but Cochran told Smith to front Willie fifty bucks a week from his own draw. So Willie, determined to reward Cochran’s trust, got to work. “I was writing to prove I could write,” he said. “To get the money and feel like I was earning it.” He would end most work days with a new song, and then he and Cochran would call a session with A-team musicians who didn’t have major label studio work that day. The result: a body of work that just may well represent the most fertile creative period ever to issue from a country songwriter. The songs Willie recorded for Pamper during the early ‘60s remain among his most famous, and include tunes he still performs to this day: “Crazy,” “Funny (How Time Slips Away),’ “Night Life,” “Pretty Paper,” “Half a Man,” “Hello Walls,” “Healing Hands of Time,” and more.

And these, the Pamper demos, are the first recordings of those legendary songs. In other words, this is what artists and label guys back in the day heard when Hal Smith or Hank Cochran handed over a little acetate, and said, “Hey, listen here to what our guy Willie Nelson just come up with.” It simply doesn’t get much more historic than that! But, for some reason, these demos have hitherto turned up in bits and pieces, mostly on budget packages with little documentation or care. Now, finally, these incredibly important recordings are getting the respect they deserve. Things to Remember—The Pamper Demos brings together these 28 performances for the first time (several of which have hitherto eluded compilation), all remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision to sound much better than they ever have, and annotated by Grammy-winning writer Colin Escott, with photos courtesy of Bear Family label founder Richard Weize.

 - Sonia Leigh, former songwriter and tour-mate of Zac Brown and Eric Church, has a new live album coming out on June 15 called Live in London - Studio 3 Sessions.

- Maggie Rose has been releasing digital 45's damn-near every single month and they've been terrific. Her voice is one of the best in Nashville and each dual-track release has had her soulful style front and center. Her next one is being released on June 15 and features "Long Way To Go" and "Do Right By My Love." 

- Krystal Keith, daughter of Toby Keith, has a new EP coming out on July 13 called Boulder. The five track Show Dog label release features a duet with Lance Carpenter. Track list:

1. Boulder

2. I Got You

3. Anyone Else

4. Then It Started Raining

5. Resting Beach Face

 

- Big-voiced newcomer Dillon Carmichael has set August 17th as the release date for his debut album, Hell on an Angel. He's quietly released some fantastic independent work and according to Rolling Stone Country, "mixes some hard-nosed Outlaw country with the melodic edge of Southern rock.  The album's 10 tracks were recorded in Nashville's historic RCA Studio A by Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton). Seven of the songs were written or co-written by the young Kentucky native – a nephew of John Michael Montgomery and Montgomery Gentry's Eddie Montgomery – including the gritty title track and the previously released "It's Simple." Fellow singer-songwriters such as Jon Pardi and Leroy Powell also show up in the credits of Hell on an Angel, along with Carmichael's mother Becky Montgomery on "Hard on a Hangover.""

 

- Rory Feek released a final version of his film trailer for Josephine, a movie filmed with he and his cousin Aaron Carnahan based loosely on a true story that inspired a Joey+Rory song by the same name.

 

- Classic country songs are alive and well. William Michael Morgan proves such as with one of our favorite tracks of the year and an incredible track titled "The Last Monday in May."  Check out this video of him performing it with some veterans via Operation Song on the historic Grand Ole Opry stage on May 25, 2018.

 

Rosanne Cash To Release She Remembers Everything In October

Artist: Rosanne Cash
Album: She Remembers Everything
Label: Blue Note
Release date: October 26, 2018

The incredible legacy of the Cash family adds another note in the story as Rosanne Cash announced she will be releasing her 16th album, She Remembers Everything, on October 26. The project is her highly anticipated follow up to her 2014 triple Grammy winning masterpiece The River and The Thread. Those awards include Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Song and Best American Roots Performance for "A Feather's Not A Bird."

The project is sure to include some influence from her husband and singer/songwriter/producer John Leventhal.  On their last project, Leventhal’s virtuoso acoustic guitar provided the perfect complement to his wife’s voice, which seems to have become even more soulful over the years.

Cash recently signed with ICM Partners which hopefully alludes to an upcoming tour to support the new project.

Among Cash’s other accolades:  She was awarded the SAG/AFTRA Lifetime Achievement award for Sound Recordings in 2012, received the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award in the Performing Arts in 2014, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2015 and to the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in 2017. Cash, who has authored four books, is also set to receive an honorary doctorate from Boston’s Berklee School of Music. 

Interview Flashback - Ann Exclusive Interview with Bucky Covington

I have been blessed to write contributions/reviews/interviews/opinion pieces for several country music and roots-oriented websites and publications over the years including Saving Country Music, Nashville Scene, Country California, Country Weekly, American Noise, The 9513 and Engine 145. As a regular contributor to the last two in that list, I did close to a 100 interviews with different artists- and since both of those great sites have come down, I will reprint some of those interviews here to give them a home in perpetuity. This interview was originally published in April 2010 on The 9513.

It’s easy to think of Bucky Covington only at the crazy-haired blonde guy who finished in 8th place on Season 5 of American Idol. But after Covington signed a recording contract with Lyric Street Records, his self-titled debut became the best-selling debut artist of the country music class of 2007. It opened at number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and became one of the best performing debut albums for any male country artist in recent memory. It produced three hit high-performing singles on the charts including "A Different World", "It's Good To Be Us" & "I'll Walk."

Bucky was kind enough to sit down and talk with The 9513 about what fans can expect on his upcoming sophomore album, I'm Alright, his new single, "A Father's Love," his recent USO tour and his thoughts on American Idol.

Ken Morton, Jr.: American Idol- how do you feel about it on your resume now four years later?

Bucky Covington: The year I was on it, it was a huge huge show. It still is. I didn’t realize just how big it was until I was in the middle of it. I’m still very proud of the show, I love what it does. But then I have people come up to me and ask why if someone wins, it isn’t always the best thing for you. I think my best answer for that one is while as a television show, it’s amazing, it’s still just a television show. But after the show, it becomes about selling music and making music and reaching people in a different way through radio and songs. I think there’s a big difference. But the show was amazing. The biggest thing for me was putting a name with a face with a sound within three months. I think any major label would take three, five, ten years to be able to do that.

KMJ: Has there been a stigma attached to you from the show or has it been all positive from your perspective?

BC: I would love to say that it’s been all positives. I think there are fans and certain people in the music industry that love you because you were on American Idol. You went up against all these people and while you didn’t come up on top, you came out doing very well. But I think there are people that really dislike you because you were on that show. Some people think that maybe you took a shortcut, that you maybe got it handed to you. There’s all kinds of ways to take it. But I think it has helped me. Definitely. But it really can make your blood boil when somebody’s already made an opinion of you, you know?

KMJ: What has Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown meant to your career?

BC: To put it in the shortest perspective possible, he’s been like a father-figure to me in the music business. When you’re on a show like American Idol, you learn a lot of things. With an audience that big, you can perform in front of anyone. But performing in front of a TV camera is different than performing in front of thousands of people. Well, maybe hundreds of people at the time. (Laughing) Luckily for me, it’s become thousands. You have to perform a little different on camera. So I learned how to conduct myself differently on stage. I learned how to conduct interviews. As famous as I thought I was, I had never really done an interview. Unless it was my hometown newspaper. Internet interviews. Radio interviews. TV interviews. One is different from another. When you come off of that show, it’s about music now. It’s about playing music and reaching people in that manner. And Mark helped me about immensely in every aspect of that. On American Idol, you don’t have to really deal with any radio. It’s all TV things that just kind of happen. When you come off of that television show, radio is it. That’s it. That’s your job. Mark Miller has definitely helped me in making choices like which label to go to, which management company I should go with, which booking agent I should choose. He has such a good general idea of how to make decisions.

KMJ: You’ve got an upcoming album on Lyric Street called I’m Alright that will be coming out later this year- how would you compare it against your first album?

BC: I’m very very proud of my first album. I think it did great and wonderful. But we were pushed for a little time on that one. When you come off of a show like that, you want to hit the ground running. When you come off of a TV show, you’ll be remembered only as long as until the next season comes out. Then it’s a whole new thing. We had to get to work quick and we were able to get that one out. But one thing I absolutely love about country music is that while in pop music, you couldn’t take a 80’s sounding song and do anything with it, you can take an 80’s sounding country song and today, go number one with it. I love how country music kind of grows that way. It has some pop that’s grown into it, there’s a rock edge in it, but it can still do the straight country and western songs. I love that. And this album has a variety of country music like that on it. There’s some soulful songs on there. We have a song on there called “Hold A Woman” that my 60’s side if you will. We have upbeat songs. There’s one on there called “Evil Knievil.” We’ve got the title track which is “I’m Alright.” It’s one of my favorites and it’s a very traditional country song. I really love it. And we had a lot more time on this album. I thought I was done with it and we were waiting to put it out and last minute, we had this song cross our desk called “A Father’s Love.” It was one of the songs that we went, “Hold on, hold on. Stop the presses!” We cut it and sent it out to radio within two weeks. That’s one nice thing about this particular album is that we took more time to invest in it.

KMJ: Talk to me about that next radio single, “A Father’s Love.” Any correlation to your relationship with your own father?

BC: Without a doubt. I’ll give you an idea about what it’s talking about. A father will do anything and everything. For example, you’ll buy a new house and he’ll come over and whip out his tool-belt and fix everything in the house that’s broken. He’ll fix this and fix that without ever saying, “Hey, nice house,” or, “You know I love you, right?” Most dads won’t say that. They show it. The show it by making sure your house is fixed or making sure your car is maintained. My stepfather, when I was growing up, was very good that when I stepped out of line, he didn’t ask me to get back in line. He knocked me back in line. For me, that was helpful because I didn’t listen so well. But he would do stuff like that and “I love you” wasn’t a big thing to come out of his mouth. If you were a buddy of mine and you came over to our house growing up and were there for three hours, you’d go outside and he would wash and wax both of our cars. He would care for us in different ways. One of my favorite lines in the song is “I knew he’s stiffen up, but I hugged him anyways.” Even today, my real father will say, “I love you” only now. That’s something that’s happened in the last five years. I think the song is very relatable to a lot of folks.

KMJ: Do you have a firm album launch date yet?

BC: We do not have a firm one yet. We’re guessing fall. If I told you anything else, I’d be lying.

KMJ: You did a USO tour recently. How did that go?

BC: It was a very cool thing, man. I have to be honest. I absolutely loved it. We first went to Kosovo and then we went over to Amsterdam and then we spent three days in Germany. I have to say that my favorite was Kosovo. It’s a third world country. It was a good lesson learned I think. Amsterdam was pretty cool too, from what I can remember of it. (Laughter) But Kosovo was amazing. Eleven years ago, Bill Clinton was President. We’d hear on the news about bombings for this reason or that reason. But while I was there, I was talking with the locals and what happened was they were not just run out of their homes, but run out of their country. They had to go into Germany. They were forced into a different culture where nobody knows what you’re saying, you have to find a new job, and that’s only if your wife and kids weren’t raped or murdered on the way out. It was a horrible thing that was going on. Bill Clinton said that’s not cool, dropped a bomb on them, leveled the place and the Kosovo countrymen were able to come back and rebuild their lives in freedom. And we put an American base in there to make sure that everything was cool. And to hear the locals. Wow. When I left Kosovo, I was never more proud of being an American.

KMJ: That firsthand experience has to be pretty amazing. Was there any strange requests or song covers that you did for the troops over there?

BC: Not so much song covers or anything like that but we did have a crazy request. This is my first time ever in another country. The first country we went to is Kosovo. And it’s a third world country. And when you get off the airplane, they’re holding assault rifles. Nobody steps out of line. You get the picture. A couple of the Army guys came up after the show and wanted to know if we wanted to go back to the barracks and drinks some Crown Royal. And this is a completely dry base. These guys are used to hanging out and using AK-47’s. I told them this time, I was going to fly the straight and narrow. (Laughing) I think that was the first time somebody asked me to have a drink and I had to deny them. 

KMJ: Thanks a lot for your time today. I have one last question for you. What’s country music to Bucky Covington?

BC: That is a great question. I do have to say, I’ll have to rob Trace Adkins on this one. Before I went into country music I was in bands for about ten years. It was a lot of rock music. At the age I was at, I was self-teaching myself guitar and everybody I met was in rock. At that time, it was the thing. But what the heck, I learned. I played drum in bands. I played base guitar. And I sang. But when I started singing, I loved the energy of a rock show. But when I was singing, I didn’t know what the songs were about. Country music was something I knew about from the first song. I knew what it was talking about. It was talking about things I’ve done, things I think. You know what I’m saying? It speaks to me. Country music speaks to me. I understand it.

That Nashville Sound Friday Newsbytes: Luke Combs, Keith Urban, Dierks Bentley & More

It must be the official start to summer, because several new music videos and musical performances were released yesterday and we've got them all under one convenient umbrella for you this first of June morning. Enjoy watching.

- Steven Curtis Chapman is back with a new expansive music video for his new song "Remember To Remember."

- "Must've Never Met You" is the name of Luke Combs new music video.

- Luke Combs also released a second music video for "A Long Way" off of his new deluxe album, This One’s For You Too.

- Dierks Bentley and Brothers Osborne collaborated a new music video for "Burning Man." 

- Michael Ray released a new music video for his song, "Summer Water."

- Steve Moakler went on WSM 650 to do an acoustic video performance of his new song "Suitcase."

- Keith Urban and Julia Michaels released a new music video for their new music collaboration, "Coming Home." 

- Aaron Lewis stopped by to sing his patriotic original "Folded Flag" acoustically for everyone at Country Rebel HQ for the Country Rebel HQ Sessions.