The 9513 - Country Music Blog

Randy Travis and his wife Elizabeth finalized their divorce last Friday. No details were given and the couple asks for privacy, but a statement did say Elizabeth will continue to be Randy’s personal manager. Bill Anderson turned 73-years-young today. Check out this video of Anderson and Roy Acuff performing “I Wonder If God Likes Country [...]

Continue reading "Randy Travis Divorces; Asleep at the Wheel to Celebrate 40 Years; Broken Bow Records Signs Kristy Lee Cook"

The answering machine turns 75 this year. Though many of us have upgraded to cell phones and voicemail, let’s pay tribute to our old pal. References to answering machines abound in country music (Bruce Robison’s “Every Once in a While” is one of my favorites, but there are several others), and today we’ll be looking [...]

Continue reading "Friday Five: Songs About Answering Machines"

The 9513, Country Universe and (no doubt) other websites and publications are busy finalizing and publishing their Best Albums of the Decade lists. It is, of course an impossible task as there are hundreds of country and bluegrass albums issued each year, amounting to thousands of albums released during the last decade. When we add [...]

Continue reading "An Alternate Take on the Decade’s Best Country Albums"

Whether real or imaginary, the figure of the angel has wormed its way into all facets of country music. From church pews to bar stools, you just can’t escape these heavenly helpers…or the real life folks who may just look angelic. The list of potential songs for this month’s playlist was quite lengthy, but after [...]

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Based on a compilation of more than 10,000 songs, artists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg put together a data visualization chart that lists the most common body parts (pictures included) referenced in music by genre. Eyes and hands are the most referenced parts in country music. They even compiled a rebus glossary of all the [...]

Continue reading "Eyes and Hands Declared Most Prominent Body Parts In Country Music"

Capitol Nashville/EMI will honor the legacy of Chris LeDoux on April 29th with a new CD/DVD collection titled Classic Chris LeDoux. Among the 15 audio tracks and 15 videos on the new collection are LeDoux’s “Bang A Drum” with Jon Bon Jovi, “Whatcha Gonna Do With A Cowboy” with Garth Brooks, and the music video [...]

Continue reading "Chris LeDoux To Encore With “Ridin’ For A Fall” Video"

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. To start the new year off, we’ve compiled a list of the best songs from 2007. The staff had a lengthy discussion about which songs should be available for nomination for such a list and we decided that a song had to be an original recording on an [...]

Continue reading "The Best Country Songs of 2007"

I don’t know how long they’ll be available, so start downloading. Sugar Hill Records has three free mp3 downloads on their MySpace from Sugar Plum: Holiday Treats From Sugar Hill. You have to be logged in with pop-ups enabled to download these: “That White Christmas Song” – Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers; “Silent Night” – [...]

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I’ve posted a number of interviews with Billy Joe Shaver and I may be a little biased, but I think the interview that Brady scored for The 9513 is the best yet. I was giddy like a school girl when he walked next door to Waterloo Records and played me the recording. On November 20 [...]

Continue reading "Rodney Crowell, Vince Gill, & Barbara Mandrell Inducted Into Music City Walk of Fame"

Despite their musical prowess, Bruce Robison and his wife Kelly Willis like to keep their careers separate for the sake of their own sanity. John Goodspeed says they “could portray the everyday American married couple — if the average family had four children under age 6.” Willis mentions that their four year-old twins write songs [...]

Continue reading "Digital Dolly Parton Wants You To Give Her A Play"