Country Daypop Archives

Emmylou Harris and Chris Stapleton are set to perform together live at the 60th GRAMMY Awards. The announcement was made Wednesday, 1/24 that the two will be playing together like many other country stars attending the event. Stapleton garnered the most nominations in all of country music with his nods in Best Country Solo Performance, Best Country Song and Best Country Album, and Harris will be honored with the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award during the ceremony. Country music will get its time to shine, not only with Stapleton and Harris, but also with performances from Little Big Town and a special tribute to the lives lost at the Route 91 Harvest Festival by Maren Morris, Eric Church and Brothers Osborne. The 60th GRAMMY Awards will broadcast live from Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday, January 28.

Luke Bryan’s What Makes You Country Tour has been extended. The singer has announced a set of new dates for a new leg, including shows from April through September. Bryan has added 17 new shows to the 2018 tour, making stops in cities like Charlotte, N.C., Dallas, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque, N.M. Jon Pardi’s will be Bryan’s opening act beginning in June and continue throughout the year, while Morgan Wallen will join from June through August. Newcomer Carly Pearce performs on select dates in September. The newest dates follows a previously-announced first leg which kicks off in February, running through March. Kip Moore and the Cadillac Three are featured opening acts on the first eight shows. Tickets for select cities on the newly-announced dates are available Jan. 26, with the rest of the cities up for sale in the following weeks.

Country singer-songwriter Lari White, has died after a battle with cancer. She passed away on Tuesday, January 23, at the age of 52. White first came to public attention in 1988 after winning a TV competition called You Can Be a Star. RCA released her debut album, Lead Me Not, in 1993, but it wasn’t until her 1994 sophomore album, Wishes, that White broke through to the country music mainstream. She scored three Top 10 hits from that album with “That’s My Baby,” “Now I Know,” and “That’s How You Know (When You’re in Love).” White revealed her diagnosis of advanced peritoneal cancer in November 2017, and on Jan. 19 her mother announced she had entered hospice care. White married songwriter Chuck Cannon in 1994, and together they had three children; daughters M’Kenzy and Kyra Ciel and a son named Jaxon.

After 39 weeks at country radio, Russell Dickerson’s “Yours” is the No. 1 song on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. The tune, which was co-penned by Russell, Casey Brown and Parker Welling, was inspired by Russell’s relationship with his wife, Kailey. “Yours” is the lead single from Russell’s self-titled debut album. The breakout ballad that became the wedding anthem of the year has seen 88 million total U.S. audio streams to date, with 3.7 million streams last week, consistently trending up from each week prior. This news arrives on the heels of last week’s announcement that Dickerson is  set to support Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker on their North American “Summer Plays On” Tour, kicking off this July in Toronto.  

Country artist Ashley McBryde has announced her upcoming full-length album Girl Going Nowhere, set for release on March 30.  With a reputation for solid storytelling and raw honesty, McBryde has already made her Opry debut and toured with the likes of Chris Stapleton and Eric Church. Her vocals have been likened to a mix of Loretta Lynn’s and Reba McEntire’s. This spring and summer, she will joining Luke Comb and Miranda Lambert on their respective tours. McBryde has also shared the video for her newest single “American Scandal,” which premiered on Monday.