Country Update BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS JULY 8, 2019 | PAGE 1 OF 21 INSIDE BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE
[email protected] Blake, Blanco Country’s New Kids On The Block: ‘Git Up’ To No. 1 >page 4 Fresh Sounds For The Last Half Of 2019 Songland Pays Dividends The world at large may seem combative and difficult at stance that threads a psychedelic-throwback element into a >page 10 the moment, but new country artists are approaching the solid Southern foundation. atmosphere harmoniously. Here’s a look at the six acts breaking out during the back Six acts are expected to file their first album or EP during half of 2019 with the equivalent of their first album or EP for the last six months of 2019, and two of them are groups with a prominent country label: ‘Highwomen’: distinct harmonic • Avenue Beat A Song To Die For approaches at their (Valory/Tape Room) >page 11 cores. — Songwriter Ashley Valory’s Avenue Gorley (“Rumor,” Beat b r i n g s “Living”) expands together three i n t o p r o d u c t i o n Old Dominion Sets female 2016 as his firm, Tape Album Date graduates from a Room, launches >page 11 Midwestern high female harmony school with age- trio Avenue Beat in appropriate slang conjunction with Big Makin’ Tracks: and sly sarcasm. Machine Label Group. Andress Packs An And Stoney Mixing acoustic Emotional Punch Creek’s K i n g instrumentation >page 16 Calaway, plotting and programmed its first full album sounds, the act after a January EP, formed in Quincy, Ill., stacks six males in PHILLIPS WILSON COUNTS a short skip across the Country Coda: harmony while Mississippi River from Underwood, pinpointing a sonic residence somewhere between a boy band Mark Twain’s hometown, Hannibal, Mo.