Country Update
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Country Update BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 | PAGE 1 OF 18 INSIDE BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE [email protected] Thomas Rhett’s Hometown Heroes: Country Ties ‘Light’ Chart Touch >page 4 Emotional Messages To Physical Roots CMA Streaks: When Big Loud singer-songwriter HARDY drove back to Nash- around the acts’ original residences. Luke Bryan, who hailed Lambert, Underwood ville after a visit with his dad in Philadelphia, Miss., sometime the peanut dust and pine trees of his native Leesburg, Ga., in >page 10 in the last two years, his father told him to hit Play on the CD the title track from his 2017 album What Makes You Country, in the dash at a specific point in the journey. returns to the theme in the title song from his new Born Here His father had queued up Travis Meadows’ reflective “Mis- Live Here Die Here (released Aug. 7). Kelsea Ballerini docu- sissippi,” and as the track’s storyline unfolded with every-day, ments those who choose to stay, and those who leave, in the Scotty McCreery familial images kelsea album cut “Half Makes ‘Time’ about “the home of My Hometown.” >page 11 I couldn’t wait to High Valley’s “Grew leave behind,” the Up on That,” released journey away from to country radio via his hometown PlayMPE on Aug. 25, Luke Comb’s weighed heavily keys in on tractor Labor Day Triple on HARDY. seats and high school >page 11 “I just lost it,” he sports in La Crete, says. “I completely Alberta, the group’s started crying, and remote Northern I started thinking Canadian homeland. Makin’ Tracks: HARDY RAELYNN LYNCH Devin Dawson’s about how proud Brett Eldredge’s ‘Truck’ I was to be from new Sunday Drive >page 15 where I was from. But I don’t know why that is.” closes with “Paris, Illinois,” named after his Midwest birth- Maybe not, but HARDY — like many of his fellow country art- place. Dustin Lynch’s current album bears the name of his ists and songwriters — frequently explores the topic. He cowrote hometown, Tullahoma, and RaeLynn’s latest, Baytown (released Morgan Wallen’s current “More Than My Hometown” (No. 18, Aug. 14), owes its title to her Texas roots. Country Coda: Country Airplay), a song in which the protagonist chooses his “In Nashville, every artist you meet, we’re all from a little ‘Modern Day’ surroundings over a girlfriend who’s moving away. Alternately, town,” reasons RaeLynn. “We’re all from somewhere special, Dirt Band HARDY’s debut album, A Rock (released Sept. 4), features “Hate and we all decided to move here for a big dream, and that’s what >page 18 Your Hometown,” in which he hopes a girlfriend will not make makes it so cool is you bring that little bit of your hometown to a similar choice. this huge city … what’s going to make us stand out in the crowd There’s a wave of songs and albums in the genre that are built is not losing that.” DWYER CONNOR LYNCH: FAIRCHILD. FORD RAELYNN: GALLAGHER. TANNER HARDY: BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 | PAGE 2 OF 18 It has worked that way historically. Alabama’s 1980 breakthrough, “My Home’s in Alabama”; Mac Davis’ introspective 1982 midtempo “Texas in My Rear View Mirror”; and Alan Jackson’s 1993 tongue twister “Chattahoochee” all incorporate specific images from the acts’ hometowns. And listeners don’t have to be from Fort Payne, Ala.; Lubbock, Texas; or Newnan, Ga.; to share the artists’ appreciation for their geographic origins. Hearing Randy Owen ruminate on his Southern upbringing can make a Maine native think about the lobster boats from their original home. “It’s a lot of those first-time feelings,” says Lynch. “They never go away, you know? I can’t remember my 100th beer, but I can remember my first one, and I think that has a lot to do with it.” But so does upheaval and the loss of innocence. Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me,” an award-winner about reconnecting with lost values, zeroes in on a single structure. But a hometown water tower, school colors or a Drake White (right) played his 25th Wednesday Night Therapy virtual quixotic local comfort food can take an adult back to a simpler time, too, whether event on Sept. 2 from his Whitewood Hollow barn in Tennessee. Also they knowingly identify the meaning or just feel it subconsciously. on hand were Colbie Caillat and Frankie Ballard. “I’ve been through a lot of small towns, as well as major cities,” says Lynch, “but the smaller towns, man, everybody is very proud of something. Whether that be the ball team or the barbecue joint or the diner, the brewery — whatever it may be, there’s a sense of pride in all of our hometowns.” That may not be true, however, at every age, and the music industry, in par- ticular, attracts people who might not have fit in where they were raised. It’s tough to make a living from music in Chockie, Okla.; Dixon, Calif.; or Altoona, Iowa; so like-minded members of the music community find their collective way to Nashville. Often, it’s several years after the migration that they come to recognize their hometown had some valuable charms, even if it failed to fulfill Thomas Rhett presented a surprise $100,000 check to MusiCares for their creative ambition. COVID-19 relief, adding to a previous pledge of all proceeds from his “Sometimes you have to run so far away from that place to realize that that single “Be a Light” to the charitable campaign. From left: Big Machine place will never leave you,” notes Eldredge. “It’s not like I’m going to pick up my Label Group president/CEO Scott Borchetta, MusiCares executive bags and move back to Paris, Ill., but at the same time, I’m going to go back there director Laura Segura, Recording Academy chair/interim president/ and I’m going to get those feelings. And I’m going to go back there in my mind.” CEO Harvey Mason Jr. and Rhett. Or, in some instances, artists simply stamp it on their album titles. Sam Hunt’s Montevallo, Blake Shelton’s Texoma, Darius Rucker’s Charleston, SC 1966 and Radney Foster’s Del Rio, Texas 1959 all connect the acts to their hometowns or, in Shelton’s case, the regional reservoir. That doesn’t mean that leaving is a mistake. “My biggest advice to anybody ever, if you can, if you don’t have a family, go travel and live somewhere else,” says HARDY. “See how other people live, and it will open your mind up.” It might also revise whatever feelings the traveler might harbor for their roots. “Especially right now in the pandemic,” says RaeLynn, “the only thing that makes my heart feel cool and like I’m doing something right is being proud of WOOD. KIT JANSON: where I’m from and having a little bit of my hometown with me.” Chris Janson (right) received a plaque honoring his RIAA-certified That’s a function served in America’s mobile culture by those songs about triple-platinum single “Buy Me a Boat” from Warner Music Nashville our geographical roots: Even when we can’t go home physically, we can make executive vp/GM Ben Kline during an Aug. 28 appearance at a three-minute emotional visit. Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. DECISIVE INTELLIGENCE. DELIVERED DIGITALLY. CLICK HERE FOR FREE DELIVERY DIGITAL NEWSLETTERS BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE APRIL 13, 2020 | PAGE 4 OF 19 ON THE CHARTS JIM ASKER [email protected] BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 | PAGE 4 OF 18 ON STHEa CHARTSmH JIMunt ASKER’ [email protected] Southside Rules Top Country Albums;Thomas Brett Y Rhettoung ‘Catc— Andh’-es Friends Fifth — Airplay Chris Stapleton,Leader; Travis Denning Jameson Makes Rodgers History And Tim McGraw Add Top 10s Sam Hunt’s second studio full-length, and first in over five years, Southside sales (up 21%) in the tracking week. On Country Airplay, it hops 18-15 (11.9 mil- (MCA Nashville/Universal Music Group Nashville), debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s lion audience impressions, up 16%). Top Country Albums chart dated April 18. In its first week (ending April 9), it Thomas Rhett’s “Be a Light” — featuring Reba McEntire, Hillary Scott, week ending Sept. 3 and arrives atop Country Digital Song Sales, where it’s earned 46,000 equivalent album units, including 16,000 in album sales, ac- TRY TO ‘CATCH’ UP WITH YOUNG Brett Youngachieves his fifth consecutive Chris Tomlin and Keith Urban (Valory) — enters the top 10 of Billboard’s Stapleton’s second No. 1 and first to enter at the summit, after “Tennessee cording to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. and total Country Airplay No. 1 as “Catch” (Big Machine Label Group) ascends airplay-, streaming- and sales-based Hot Country Songs chart, jumping 11-7 Whiskey” in 2015. “Starting Over” attracted 6.4 million U.S. streams in the Southsideon the list marksdated Sept. Hunt’s 12. second No. 1 on the week ending Sept. 3 and 3.9 million2-1, increasing in radio reach 13% to in 36.6 the week million ending impressions. Sept. 6. chart andThe fourthsong rises top 4-210. onIt follows Country freshman Airplay, upLP 12% to 29.5 million audience It’s the title track from his upcomingYoung’s LP, firstdue Nov. of six 13. chart entries, “Sleep With- Montevalloimpressions, which in the arrived week at ending the summit Sept. 6, in according No - to Nielsen Music/MRC out You,” reached No.