We started digging on Craig Campbell a few years back when he stopped by our office to perform a few cuts from his self-titled debut album. Since then, the rural Georgia singer-songwriter has forged a nice career as something of a neo-traditionalist in today’s world of pop country. Earlier this week, Campbell dropped his new [...]

“This definitely doesn’t suck,” said Eric Paslay, one of the twelve songwriters who received trophies at yesterday’s CMA Triple Play Awards. Held during the CMA Songwriters Luncheon at Marathon Music Works, the Triple Play Awards honored those musicians who penned three chart-topping country hits in 2012. For newcomers like Paslay, who topped the charts with [...]

Daniel Romano Come Cry With Me (Normltown) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Country music is a genre, of course, but it’s also a geographical location: we expect at least some degree of physical southern roots or innate twang birthright from its ardent preachers, particularly those brave enough to wear a Nudie-inspired suit on stage [...]

Have you heard the phrase, “I’m not a songwriter, but I play one on TV?” Did you know Carrie Underwood’s next hit could be something Hayden Panettiere will pass on next week? A Country music star was probably stuck in traffic caused by a film crew shooting a scene about a Country music star stuck in traffic. [...]

American Songwriter is excited to announce that the Grand Prize “Dream Co-Write” for our 2013 Amateur Lyric Contest will be with songwriter and Curb Records recording artist Lee Brice. Brice’s smash single “Woman Like You” reached #1 and has sold over 1.2 million digital downloads. “It’s an honor to be featured in a magazine that celebrates [...]

Released just over a year ago, Ronnie Dunn’s self-titled solo album—his first since the pre-Brooks & Dunn era—landed with a bang. It even briefly claimed the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s country albums chart. Dunn’s first single, the ethereal piano ballad “Bleed Red” (written by Tommy Lee James and Andrew Dorff), raced up the chart [...]

(PHOTO: Erin Enderlin, center, with Nashville songwriters Leslie Satcher (left) and Matraca Berg) Arkansas native Erin Enderlin grew up listening to traditional country music and learning to play guitar and sing and write songs, not realizing until she was a teenager that it was “something you could do for a job.” Once she figured that [...]

It’s pretty much guaranteed that a country singer born at the dawn of the ‘80s will have a musical back story that includes exposure to mom and dad’s record collection—and we’re talking LPs of a much more recent vintage than Roy Acuff. For Kip Moore, that meant the giants of heartland rock: Springsteen, Seeger and [...]

It’s possible to spend half an hour on the phone with a current hit-maker, and end the conversation feeling like he or she hasn’t said anything that would indicate there’s a human being on the other end of the line with a brain, a personality and a perspective. Chances are, the music made by such [...]

Let’s talk about Tim McGraw for a minute. You’ve had a lot of success over the years with him cutting your songs and releasing many as singles, with No.1’s and Top 10’s that followed. Did you have a personal relationship with him early one in his career? Well it’s weird, and luckily I was actually [...]

As the front man for the Nashville-based rock band American Bang, Jaren Johnston worked hard to get to the big time. The band was finally signed to Warner Brothers but had to wait several years for its debut album to be released, and soon after the recording hit the shelves in 2010 a reorganization at [...]

What do you get when you cross a soldier and a country music singer? You get Craig Morgan. The ten year army veteran is basking in the Top 5 debut of his latest release, This Ole Boy. Once dubbed “country music’s champion of the Everyman,” he is best known for monster hits that espouse the [...]