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Riley Green Recalls Hilarious Story Meeting Sam Elliott At The CMA Awards: “He Didn’t Say A Word… Just Growled At Me”
Well, it makes for a good story.
This week, Riley Green appeared on the Like A Farmer podcast to talk about his huge year, songwriting, hunting, and he also answered some fan questions, and someone wanted to know who the coolest person he met was and where it happened.
Just last month, Riley took home three awards at the CMA’s for his viral duet with Ella Langley “You Look Like You Love Me,” and he met Landman star Billy Bob Thornton on the red carpet, which he says was really cool.
But best part of that story was when Riley recalled he had met Thornton’s Landman co-star Sam Elliott several years ago at the CMA Awards when he was there promoting his Netflix show The Ranch with Ashton Kutcher.
He recalled seeing him somewhere backstage and saying hello and asking Elliott how he was, though he didn’t get much of a response… Elliott just “growled” at him and didn’t say anything:
“Billy Bob Thornton the other day at the CMA’s. That was cool. I met Sam Elliott several ears ago at an award show, him and Ashton Kutcher were there promoting ‘The Ranch’ show on Netflix. And we spoke, but he didn’t say a word.
I just said, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ when I walked by… he just growled at me. Which was awesome, but we didn’t really meet, so I’ll just say Billy Bob Thornton.”
It sounds pretty on-brand for Elliott, who has a booming, incredibly unique voice but comes across as a man of few words in many ways, but like I said, it makes for a great story.
If you scroll to the last slide of the carousel below, you can see that photo of Riley with Billy Bob:
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Over the weekend, Riley Green scored his fourth Country Airplay #1 with his second duet with Ella Langley, “Don’t Mind If I Do.” It’s Ella’s second on that chart, and they’re now just the second pair since the list launched in January 1990 to have earned multiple collaborative #1s, after Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani led in 2020 with “Nobody but You” and “Happy Anywhere.”
For Riley, he becomes the first artist since Taylor Swift to land back-to-back Country Airplay #1s with songs written entirely on his or her own. One of his other solo writes, “Worst Way,” led the chart for two weeks in June.
He has been saying that he’s working on new music, and has already been in the studio cutting new songs, which he says they’re even more raw and stripped back than his aforementioned recent album.
He explained that all of the new cuts are built around an acoustic track, and are much less produced than anything he’s done before… which is saying a lot, because I think Riley tends to keep it pretty simple all the time, which is what I love about his music. He’s been vague on when we might expect to hear some of them, but I would guess he will probably release a new album, or at least several songs, before he hits the road on his 2026 Cowboy As It Gets tour.
The full podcast is available below.
The full list of dates for 2026 is available below.
Cowboy As It Gets 2026 Tour Dates:
April 16th, 2026 – Southaven, MS – Landers Center#~$
April 17th, 2026 – Louisville, KY – KFC Yum! Center#~$ *ON SALE 10/3
April 18th, 2026 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena#~$
May 7th, 2026 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion#~•
May 8th, 2026 – Alpharetta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre#~•
June 18th, 2026 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center#~•
June 19th, 2026 – Saratoga Springs, NY – Saratoga Performing Arts Center#~•
June 20th, 2026 – Wantagh, NY – Northwell at Jones Beach Theater#~•
June 25th, 2026 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Music Center#$*
June 26th, 2026 – Burgettstown, PA – The Pavilion at Star Lake#$*
July 16th, 2026 – Green Bay, WI – Resch Center#~•
July 23rd, 2026 – Salt Lake City, UT – Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre#~•
August 6th, 2026 – Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake Amphitheater#/•
August 7th, 2026 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH – Blossom Music Center#/•
August 8th, 2026 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live#/•
August 13th, 2026 – Camden, NJ – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion#/•
August 14th, 2026 – Hartford, CT – The XFINITY Theatre#/•
August 15th, 2026 – Bangor, ME – Maine Savings Amphitheatre#/•
August 21st, 2026 – Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford#$*^
August 22nd, 2026 – Grand Forks, ND – Ralph Engelstad Arena#$*^
#Justin Moore
~Drake White
$Mackenzie Carpenter
•Hannah McFarland
*Adam Hood
/Zach John KingThe post Riley Green Recalls Hilarious Story Meeting Sam Elliott At The CMA Awards: “He Didn’t Say A Word… Just Growled At Me” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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