Today, Priscilla Block announced that she will be releasing her debut album Welcome To The Block Party on Friday, February 11th! 

 

 

 

 

 

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All of the songs on the 12 track album were co-written by Priscilla including her new single "My Bar", tonight's New at 9 New Song Spotlight! 

I remember when Maren Morris came to the station a few years ago and we had her on the morning show for about an hour.  She was an unknown new artist with a big voice, and a really nice debut song, My Church.  We all loved that song and it was a big hit for her. 80's Mercedes was next and more have followed.  I thought that morning there was something special there in every regard.

Maren Morris is an interesting artist.  She is a Grammy, CMA, ACM, and AMA multiple award winner, and has recorded two very sucessful albums, with a third on the way in March (Humble Quest)  Hero is especially fantastic.  I featured that album as one of My Desert Island Country Album choices.  And even though at times it seems there is some wandering away from the center of country, she seems to bring it back to that very place.  Her new song, Circles Around This Town is a real nice reminder of that, as it chronicles her march to and through Nashville. It is country in her traditional sense.  This song reminds me in ways of My Church. 

There are not many artists that earn the extraordinary opportunity to really help define a style within a genre of music. But for us, because of her massive popularity, Maren Morris is one of the lucky ones that can -  and do. 

Great new song!

Box Office Results -   Spiderman 

New This Week - Scream   /   Hotel Transylvania:Transformania

The 355 - Very disappointing last week -  4 million   (Story)

Eternals – Now Streaming   ALSO – Gucci will stream in February on Paramount  (Story) 

The Oscars - WILL have an emcee this year, first time since 2019  (Story) 

The Morning Show - With Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston has been renewed for a third season at Apple TV+  (Story) 

Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds - Will make more Red Notice movies - 2 more - Netflix’s most-watched movie of all time.  (Story)

The Screen Actors Guild – Award nom's were announced yesterday Squid Games and Ted Lasso House of Gucci the big nominees. Yellowstone snubbed - Feb 27 -   (Story) 

NOES - The house featured prominently in 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street has sold for $3 million (Story)

This Weekend – Check out my Country Music Memory Lane (link)

Gabby Barrett's new single "Pick Me Up" is one of the four new songs on the deluxe version of her album Goldmine, and was tonight's New at 9 "New Song Spolight". It's a love song about her husband Cade Foehner and the comfort and smiles he brings her even on a not so great day. Gabby co-wrote the song with Ross Copperman and Jon Night and describes how sometimes the cure to a rough day can just be a drive through the backroads, under the moon with the person you love. 

Gabby will be at The Country Fest on Thursday, June 16th, click here to purchase tickets! 

Old Dominion released a new single from their latest album Time, Tequila & Therapy and it's the song that inspired the title of the album. You'll hear that in the first line of "No Hard Feelings", an everyday phrase that caught the attention of lead singer Matthew Ramsey. He carried that phrase around as a song title for a while before sitting down and writing a song around it with his bandmates and songwriter Shane McAnally. 

Tiffany asked me about a song from the 80's she loved called, Meet Me In Montana and who was the woman that sang on that song.  Tiff, it was Marie Osmond in a duet with Dan Seals who himself was getting ready for a real nice run of country hits. (I'll feature him soon). I played all of her songs on great radio stations across the country and was proud to do so.  She brought a star-powered last name to us, when we needed it.

You may only know Marie from Dancing With The Stars a few years ago, her weight loss ads today, your parents music collection, or her decades long Las Vegas run with brother Donny.  Truth is, Marie has done everything there is to do in literally every avenue of entertainment, and done it with success. Music, stage, commercials, movies, TV, Vegas, everything.  So it should be no surprise that in her very short, but dedicated run in Country in the mid to late 1980's she had good charting success.  Her run ended because of the complete changing of the format from pop-country to a far more traditional sound that gave way to the wave of 1989 and through the 1990's -  till today. (Read my links about those years too)  Her exit was nothing out of the ordinary then, there was a complete turnover on the charts in a short period of time.

This Got Her Started Off Going #1

When announced she was "going country"  there was real excitement and some of the biggest names in Nashville were behind her.  This was not a rarity in this era, as many pop stars were attempting to go country, including Dan Seals, also Paul Davis, the group Exile and others. It still is a popular thing to do for some reason, the list over the decades is painfully long.  There was no doubt of her popularity, and her very strong singing talent, but could she make a go of it?  Her 1973 song, Paper Roses (a remake from a 1960 hit - Anita Bryant)  was a #1 country hit for her when she was 14, but that was a long time and a few country music phases ago. Now it wasn't about the novelty of being a teenager like Tanya Tucker or her - this was a new era.  Marie was now in her mid 20's, all grown up, with a new beautiful womanly image and some real firepower in her corner.  We were finally gonna find out if she was "A little Bit Country" after all.

Big Song -  Won A CMA   - Still A Much Loved Song

The first album in this new venture was, There's No Stoppin' Your Heart  (1985) and that was a single as well and it went #1.  Meet Me In Montana was also a #1 song and won a CMA for Vocal Duo Of The Year. That was a very popular song with listeners and was heavily requested.  Meet Me In Montana is a song that fans totally loved and it still holds up quite well as a fantastically written song (Paul Davis).  The success of both of these songs was undeniable and she was off to a fast start.  The album had one more hit off of it, Read My Lips which went to #4.  Her next album, I only Wanted You came out in late 1986 and her duet with Paul Davis, You're Still New To Me was a big hit going to #1. And even though there were two more singles off that album, neither did well, with I Only Wanted You going only to #14 and it was now late 1987.  The traditionalists were here and pop country was on the endangered list.

True Pop Country

When I think back to that era, I know fans really loved Marie Osmond, and it was there for a longer run if only it had started earlier.  Just about the time she was dedicating herself to the format, country was beginning to pivot rapidly away from the middle of the road poppy stuff.  Randy Travis, George Strait, Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, The Judds, Holly Dunn, Patty Loveless and others were here. And by the late 1980's the change was complete, with many very established artists quickly ushered aside, young and old, men and women and groups too. No one was exempt.  The pop country era was over.

Big Song - With Paul Davis

It was a very different time then.  We didn't sell a lot of concert tickets in those days as compared from 1989 till today, or albums either.  Many artists were simply "radio artists"  who had great success on the charts and radio, but not widespread appeal or big commercial success.  The Osmond's of course did for a few decades as their family has sold about 80 million albums. Much of the music was good then, but a lot of it was format-less in the 1980's and we didn't have a lot of mainstream popular stars like today.  So it was good to have Marie Osmond for a while to bring her spotlight to us when we needed it.  Her name alone was star powered.

Clearly, Too Far Pop For The Changing Nashville At The Time

Clearly, everything worked out well for Marie and the rest of the Osmond's well before, and well after. But just in case you were not aware of the fact she had a country career, it's fun to look back and remember. Much in the same way Olivia Newton-John was country in the 1970's. (My feature on her) In those short couple of years, 2 albums, 7 singles, 4 top 5's  3 number ones and a CMA.  (Plus -  Paper Roses #1 from 1973)

Very Fun Old Clip - Marie 1973  - Paper Roses #1

For a short while Marie was ours, with good success.

Kip Moore's latest single "Crazy One More Time" is actually a deep cut from his 2012 album Up All Night. A fan favorite, Kip is re-releasing it as a single on what is possibly a new album, see his tweet below: 

Been tough to stay quiet with what I got comin..and I ain’t talking about just 1 tune. A year in the making is coming soon. Cheers to the rock solid Slowhearts out there.

— Kip Moore (@KipMooreMusic) January 7, 2022

Here's a performance of the song from Nashville back in 2012: 

Maren Morris released a new song, the first single from her forthcoming third album. "Circles Around This Town" is about Maren's journey from her home state of Texas to Nashville to break into the music industry nine years ago. She sings about her early days in Nashville and about chasing her dream. 

The official music video was also released today for the new single co-written by Maren, her husband Ryan Hurd, Julia Michaels, and Jimmy Robbins.

Well cold weather is here again and for some reason I have some of the same memories go through my head every winter. Most of them from long ago, and generally deal with the extreme cold days in my life. 

Like the  (-26 degree)  Superbowl Sunday when I lived in Columbus in the mid 80's.  I left my two-tone Buick Skyhawk running all night on the curb so I could go in and do the show at 4 am!  I started it about 5PM Sunday afternoon when it was only (-10), I locked it up and left it running, watched the game and went to sleep.  Also pumping gas at the Phillips 66 Station in Jefferson City one morning with my Red Buick Skyhawk T-Type at about 430 AM in an ice storm about 5 below and 50 mph winds late 80's.

There are plenty more, but the one that always stays with me is the winter of 1981-82 when I was working at WOBL in Oberlin, Ohio before I moved away for 20 years.  I had a beautiful 1974 Chevelle Malibu Classic  (above)  that I loved and I didn't drive it in the winter.  I had a "winter beater" as we called them.  Mine was a 1974 Mustang II that my older brother had driven, wrecked, and left for me in the driveway.  It was a piece of work.  All of my friends had one then, Joe Red had an old AMC Gremlin, Beef had the Ford  "Maverust", and Kurt Zing had an old Ford Galaxy that looked like the Andy Griffith show patrol car.

My beater at one time had been brown, now it was rusted.  It had been sideswiped front to back on the passenger side.  It burned oil and had a 4 on the floor shifter.  Only the driver door opened until my friend Bill took a small sledge hammer to the passenger door and it then worked.   It got terrible gas mileage but it did run well.  BUT it had NO REVERSE GEAR.  When you put it in reverse it would just grind.   I have no pictures of this amazing car, as there was no reason to take any at  the time!

So that winter I drove a car, every day with no reverse gear.  I always had to park it where I could go out nose first.  At home, at work, at the store, the bowling alley, friends houses, everywhere.  At the radio station, I was doing mornings there, so I'd go in at 4AM, and make a big turn in the parking lot and face it out before anyone got there.  Somehow I did it. I made it till spring and the nice weather with that car, until I could bust out the Malibu again. 

When I left for Columbus in 1983, I left the Mustang at my moms house in Berea, and someone stopped by one day and bought it for about $100.  I'm guessing for parts?  It was the only time I parked it front ways in my moms driveway, and the buyer said there was no reverse, which I admitted.  My mom asked how I drove it all those months, so I told her, she was mortified!  LOL. The buyer just laughed....

I sold my beautiful Malibu and moved to Columbus where I bought my first Skyhawk, which I did drive in the winter, as my "winter beater" days were over.

What was I thinking?  I wasn't - I was 20.

Ingrid Andress and Sam Hunt released a new duet that describes the emotion behind a break up. This is her first collaboration since the release of her album Lady Like and the official music video stars Ingrid and Sam in a Nashville dive bar, featuring vintage-inspired fashion and ‘70s glam.

“I’ve never done anything like ‘Wishful Drinking’ before,” Ingrid said in a press release. “I’ve always wanted to work with Sam and have been such a fan of his for a long time. I admire how he stays so true to himself and am so happy to have him join me for my first collaboration. The song was co-written by my friend JP Saxe, and it became this amazing sad bop, which we all know I love.”

Sam Hunt added, “I heard Ingrid’s music a while back and knew right away she was a very talented singer and songwriter. “I met her not long ago at a Nashville Sports League kickball game and I really enjoyed getting to know her a little bit. When the opportunity came along to be a part of this song with her, I was all in.”

Ingrid will be opening for Keith Urban on his The Speed Of Now Tour that will make a stop at Blossom Music Center on Friday, July 15th! Click here to purchase tickets.