New music from Randy Travis is coming SOON. Few living artists have made an impact on country music the way Randy Travis has. With over 23 million albums sold worldwide, 23 #1 singles, seven Grammys and dozens upon dozens of awards from the likes of the ACMs and CMAs, the “I Told You So” singer has paved the way for over two generations of artists at this point. Simply put, Travis’ journey over the past twelve years has been nothing short of incredible. If you recall, the “Three Wooden Crosses” singer suffered a massive stroke back in July 2013, which was caused by a complication of his congestive heart failure. At the time, doctors only gave him a 1% chance to live, but Travis pulled through. The stroke, as we all know, did not come without its consequences, however. Despite surviving in what can only be described as a miracle, Travis has remained severely affected by it, developing aphasia and being extremely limited in terms of both speech and his ability to sing. In fact, Travis’ wife, Mary, recently revealed that the doctors advised her to “pull the plug” on the 7x Grammy winner after he developed a plethora of different hospital-born viruses, including Serratia, Pseudomonas and a staph infection while in the hospital. Recently, we’ve seen quite a bit of music from the North Carolina native over the past few years. With that being said, however, it hasn’t come without its controversy. Back in 2024, he’d release his first new song in well over a decade with “Where That Came From.” The catch with the release, as many know, was the fact that it was created using the use of AI. Of course, it wasn’t as nefarious as today’s mess that is AI-generated “music,” given the fact that Randy himself gave his consent to guest vocalist, James Dupré, to aid in the song’s creation. With that being said, it still caused quite a stir around the industry, and they’d follow it up in 2025 with another AI-assisted song with Dupré, “Horses In Heaven.” Back in November, he released yet another new track, this time pulling from the vault and dropping a beautiful Christmas song, “Where My Heart Is.” Undoubtedly, this gave fans hope that more unreleased, original music from Travis was on the horizon, much in the vein of recent releases from the likes of Waylon Jennings, Don Williams, Luke Bell and more. It looks like that day is coming incredibly soon. Travis teased that a new song is coming next Friday, July 10th. Thankfully, it appears that it will be an original song from the vault, NOT another AI-assisted song, judging by the image that reads, “Went Fishing in the Vault.” View this post on Instagram Back in June, during the grand opening of the Randy Travis Room at Nashville Palace, Mary and Randy would tell us here at Whiskey Riff that they do have plans of releasing a full-length album of even more vaulted tracks from the legend. During our conversation, Mary revealed that they have an entire album’s worth of archived music, recorded before Randy’s stroke in 2013, that has already been mixed and mastered. “We got a full deck. We have a whole new album coming out of archived music. It’s stuff that he had sang before the stroke. It’s been mastered, mixed and ready to go. We’ll be having a new album.” When asked about a potential time frame for the release, Mary wouldn’t go into specifics. However, she would confirm that the album will be released by the end of the year, and judging by the timing of this upcoming release, it very well might be the project’s lead single. Of course, it’s all speculation at this point. With that being said, we should know more when the unnamed vault track releases next Friday. Before you go, fire up his most recent vault track, “Where My Heart Is.” Randy Travis Tour Dates Aug. 21 – Hiawassee, GA – Georgia Mountain Fall Festival – Anderson Music Hall Aug. 22 – Richmond, KY – The Vine at Chenault Vineyards Sept. 23 – Wilkes-Barre, PA – F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts Sept. 24 – Lansdowne, PA – Lansdowne Theater Sept. 25 – Westbury, NY – Flagstar at Westbury Music Fair Sept. 26 – York, PA – Pullo Center Sept. 27 – Albany, NY – The Egg Performing Arts Center Oct. 1 – New London, CT – Garde Arts Center Oct. 2 – Keene, NH – Colonial Theatre Oct. 3 – Plymouth, MA – Plymouth Memorial Hall Oct. 4 – Northampton, MA – Academy of Music Theatre Oct. 14 – Austin, TX – The Long Center for the Performing Arts Oct. 15 – Dallas, TX – Longhorn Ballroom Oct. 22 – Lubbock, TX – Buddy Holly Hall Oct. 23 – Albuquerque, NM – Popejoy Theatre Oct. 24 – Pueblo, CO – Pueblo Memorial Hall Nov. 6 – Oklahoma City, OK – Civic Center Music Hall Nov. 7 – Topeka, KS – Topeka Performing Arts Center Nov. 8 – Branson, MO – Clay Cooper Theatre The post “Went Fishing In The Vault”: Randy Travis Teases New Song Coming Next Week first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

The Long Haired Country Boy is hitting the stage once again. With this Fourth of July marking America’s 250th birthday, cities all across the country are going all out and bringing out the biggest names for their massive Independence Day celebrations. But a concert from Charlie Daniels, who passed away in 2020, might be the most impressive of the birthday parties for our country. Daniels unfortunately passed away at the age of 81 back on July 6, 2020 following a hemorrhagic stroke at his Nashville area home. But thanks to technology, the “Devil Went Down To Georgia” singer will be making his return to the stage to headline this year’s 4th of July celebration in Fort Campbell, Kentucky… or at least a Charlie Daniels hologram. “The Legend of Charlie Daniels” tribute concert will feature a hologram created by 8 Track Entertainment, who worked closely with the Daniels family in bringing the country music legend back to life. According to Charlie Daniels Jr., he was hesitant at first, but wouldn’t commit if it wasn’t done right: “I only agreed to it with the understanding that this could not in any way look strange, creepy or unnatural. If it looked like a bad Disney audio animatronic figure, then I was out, but the work-in-progress 3D models has been very promising, and continues to improve with each new model.” The hologram will be brought to life by having someone in a motion-capture suit mimic Daniels’ movements, which his son says will include everything down to the way he held his fiddle: “I will be highly critical to make sure it is as authentic as possible.” Of course a military base is the perfect place to debut the new show, given Charlie’s intense patriotism and love for his country and our military: “Dad always said, ‘From an early age I realized that only two things protected America, the Grace of Almighty God, and the United States Military.'” The show will also feature Aaron Tippin, Eric Lee Beddingfield, as well as the 101st Airborne Division Band, and Daniels Jr. is careful to stress that this will be different from other hologram shows that we’ve seen in the past featuring artists like ABBA: “What the show is NOT is the ABBAtars ABBA Voyage show where the entire show is motion captured performing images of the band from their heyday in 1979.  With The Legend of Charlie Daniels, the hologram of Dad will be used more sparingly … While we may be able to present the hologram of Dad in various eras at some point, the decision was made to concentrate on his look in the later years of his life, in which he was still vibrant and energetic for an octogenarian.” Of course we’ve also seen various other artists resurrected as holograms in the past, including Tupac making an appearance at Coachella all the way back in 2012, and Roy Orbison going on a hologram tour back in 2019. As for Charlie Daniels, there haven’t been any plans announced yet to take the hologram on tour, but it’s not something his son is ruling out: “After the July 4th show, if there is a demand for it, there could be more performances. We may stick to the military bases for 2026, but we hope to be able to put the show on the road in 2027.” Technology is incredible.The post A Charlie Daniels Hologram Will Be Performing a 4th of July Concert In Kentucky first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

There’s going to be a lot of country star power representing at the wedding of pop superstar Taylor Swift and her fiancé, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. If you’re on social media, you’re probably already sick of hearing about this weekend’s wedding between Swift and Kelce, and after months of secrecy, it’s finally been revealed that the wedding will take place tomorrow, July 3 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Permits filed with the city for street closures from July 2-4 reveal that the couple expect to host around 1,000 guests at the event, which will reportedly feature performances from Tim McGraw and Stevie Nicks. And trucks have been spotted unloading massive amounts of gear, with TMZ reporting that the couple would construct a giant garden inside the New York City arena. Some still think it might be some sort of decoy, though most signs seem to be pointing to an MSG wedding, and honestly I think it’s a terrible place to have a wedding, but I get they want tight security so from that standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. The guest list is expected to include a ton of people, I mean 1,000 guests is just insane, but considering Taylor’s country roots, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that there will be quite a few country star on-hand to help celebrate the couple. It’s been rumored that Tim McGraw will performing, along with Stevie Knicks, and he certainly won’t be the only country artist in attendance (I assume his wife Faith Hill will also be there, as they’ve known Taylor forever now). Page Six also confirmed that Mrs. Miranda Lambert herself received an invitation, along with country artists in Kane Brown, Little Big Town, Kelsea Ballerini, Maren Morris, Kenny Chesney and even Lainey Wilson, who just got married herself and recently performed with Swift at Kelce’s TightEnd University concert in Nashville. Of course, Taylor has worked with most of them before seeing as she got her start in the country genre, and she and Miranda go pretty far back, and have even shared the stage before. They performed together in Greensboro, North Carolina in October of 2015 during a stop on Swift’s 1989 World Tour, where she brought Lambert out as a surprise special guest to duet Miranda’s hit song, “Little Red Wagon.” Taylor put out her debut self-titled country album in October of 2006, just about a year after Miranda put out her debut album Kerosene in March of 2005, and Miranda is only about six years older than Swift, so they really did come up in country around the same time. I have to imagine most of them will attend, and I’m sure at some point, we’ll get all the photos and videos and see everything about this wedding which has really become a massive event that the world is watching. The post All Of The Country Stars Expected To Attend Taylor Swift And Travis Kelce’s Wedding first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

One Landman star will now make as much as Billy Bob Thornton. Continue reading…

Can’t imagine a Fourth of July without hearing this song. There’s no Fourth of July playlist that’s complete without Toby Keith, who did more than maybe any country artist to support our country and our military. Where it was through his music or his extensive work with the USO, Toby was at the forefront of the post-9/11 wave of patriotism that swept country music. Over the course of his life, Toby participated in nearly 20 USO tours throughout his career, performing for over a quarter of a million service members in 17 different countries as they fought overseas. And of course one of the most popular songs on those tours was “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).” The song was a patriotic rallying cry in the wake of the tragic 9/11 terrorist attacks that went on to become one of Toby’s signature songs (and a staple of 4th of July playlists). But we were never supposed to hear it. Toby originally wrote the song to perform for troops on his USO tours, after growing frustrated with media coverage in the wake of the terrorist attacks. And when he performed the song for the troops, they went wild. He had never intended to actually record the song. But then-Commandant of the Marine Corps James L. Jones told Toby that he didn’t have a choice, calling it “the most amazing battle song I’ve ever heard in my life.” “It’s your job as an entertainer to lift the morale of the troops. If you want to serve, that is what you can do.” Well with a charge like that from your military, Toby didn’t have a choice. He took “The Angry American” into the studio, and released it as the lead single from his album Unleashed. The song went to the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, and has since been certified 4x platinum. Of course it wasn’t without its controversy. Toby was scheduled to perform the song on an ABC patriotic special in 2002, but Canadian-born host Peter Jennings requested that he tone down the lyrics. Toby refused, and was removed from the show, later speaking on the controversy: “I thought it was hilarious. My statement was, ‘Isn’t he Canadian?’ to a bunch of press. They laughed and then I said, ‘Well, I bet Dan Rather wouldn’t kick me off his show.'” Then of course there was his highly-publicized feud with the Dixie Chicks (now just known as The Chicks) after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized the song in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: “I hate it. It’s ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture – and not just the bad people who did bad things. You’ve got to have some tact. Anybody can write, ‘We’ll put a boot in your ass.’ But a lot of people agree with it. The kinds of songs I prefer on the subject are like Bruce Springsteen’s new songs.” Keith responded by attacking Maines as a songwriter: “She’s not a songwriter, so we can’t discuss the mechanics of the song. Why don’t you just go down on Second Avenue and pick one of those homeless guys and ask him what he thinks about it? To me it’s the same.” But that wasn’t the end of the beef: After her comments, Keith began displaying a doctored image of Maines and Saddam Hussein on the screen behind him at his shows. And the feud came to a head at the ACM Awards in 2003, when both Toby Keith and the Dixie Chicks were nominated for Entertainer of the Year. During their performance that night, Maines took another shot at Keith by wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “F U T K.” You can use your imagination to figure out what that one stands for… But the Chicks weren’t even at the ACM Awards that night – instead, they performed in front of a more friendly crowd, live from one of their concerts in Austin, Texas. And it’s probably a good thing they weren’t in Vegas for the awards. On a night that featured tributes to our soldiers, bold proclamations from Wayne Newton celebrating the then-recent death of Saddam Hussein, and patriotic performances like Darryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten,” the Dixie Chicks didn’t exactly receive a warm reception at the ACM Awards. In fact, it was downright hostile. Every time the Dixie Chicks’ name was announced, the crowd in Vegas rained down boos. So when it came time to give out the Entertainer of the Year Award, presenter Vince Gill jokingly mumbled their name as he announced them as a nominee –  because he knew what was coming. Sure enough, the audience erupted in boos, while nice-guy Vince made a futile plea for forgiveness. But when the camera quickly cut to the next nominee, Alan Jackson, he seemed to be enjoying the moment as he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. So who won the night’s top prize? Well, none other than Toby Keith – thanks, no doubt, in large part to “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” and his support for the troops. And it’s thanks to the troops that we ever got to hear that now-classic song from Toby in the first place. The post Toby Keith Didn’t Plan On Releasing “Courtesy Of The Red, White & Blue” Until A Marine General Told Him It Was His Duty As An American first appeared on Whiskey Riff.