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TRACE ADKINS WENT OVERSEAS WITH THE USO IN 2002. TWELVE TOURS AND 65,000 SERVICE MEMBERS LATER, HE WAS STILL GOING BACK. Trace Adkins did not make one trip overseas, take a few photographs with the troops, and call it enough. Beginning in 2002, he kept returning with the USO. Over the years, those visits became 12 tours, reaching more than 65,000 service members. He performed at military installations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Germany, Japan, Okinawa, Italy and Spain, as well as bases back home. By 2014, he was already a nine-time USO tour veteran. Two years later, he was back in Kuwait performing for troops again. For Adkins, these were never just another set of concert dates. He called spending time with service members some of the most memorable moments of his life. Twelve tours suggest he meant it.

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Trace Adkins and the Long Road Back to the Troops Trace Adkins did not treat a USO trip like a…

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COUNTRY RADIO BANNED HIS SONG OVER ONE LINE IN 1992. HIS BASS PLAYER WAS HIS OWN SISTER — AND THAT LINE WAS ABOUT HER. In late April 1992, Garth Brooks was in Los Angeles for the ACM Awards when the city erupted after the Rodney King verdict. He wrote “We Shall Be Free” with songwriter Stephanie Davis in response. It was released August 31, 1992, as the first single from The Chase. Country stations began refusing it over one line — about people being free to love whoever they choose. Brooks could have cut it. He didn’t, and the reason was already in his band. His half-sister, Betsy Smittle, had played bass for Stillwater since 1990. She was openly gay and performed at pride events across Oklahoma. Brooks credited her as the reason the song exists. Wade Jessen of WSM in Nashville told the Los Angeles Times that part of the country audience did not agree with that message. The single stopped at No. 12 — the first Garth Brooks record to miss the country top 10. Betsy Smittle died of cancer on November 2, 2013. She was 60.

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Country Radio Banned Garth Brooks’ Song Over One Line in 1992 In the spring of 1992, Garth Brooks was in…

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HANK WILLIAMS JR. FELL 500 FEET DOWN A MOUNTAIN AND NEARLY DIED. YEARS LATER, HE PUT THAT FALL INTO A COUNTRY SONG. On August 8, 1975, Hank Williams Jr. was climbing Ajax Peak in Montana when he slipped on an icy ledge and fell about 500 feet down the mountainside. He suffered massive injuries to his head and face, underwent several operations, and spent roughly eight months recovering. The accident changed the way he looked — but it also came during the period when he was fighting to become something more than Hank Williams’ son. The beard, cowboy hat and sunglasses that later became his trademark helped hide the scars. He never tried to erase what happened. Years later, he wrote the fall directly into “All in Alabama,” remembering the climb up Ajax and the moment everything changed. Hank Jr. went up that mountain searching for himself. He came down lucky to be alive.

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Hank Williams Jr., the Mountain Fall That Changed Everything, and the Song That Kept It Alive On August 8, 1975,…

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THREE GENERATIONS OF COUNTRY WOMEN SHARED ONE MICROPHONE AT THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BIKER BAR TUESDAY NIGHT. Miranda Lambert headlined the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis on August 11, one of the loudest nights of the 86th Motorcycle Rally, and she did not keep the stage to herself. She brought out Gretchen Wilson and Lainey Wilson. Gwen Sebastian, who has sung harmony behind Miranda for years, was up there with them. Gretchen sang “When It Rains.” Miranda and Lainey ran through “Good Horses,” their duet from Lainey’s album Whirlwind. The three of them also did “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home).” Then Gretchen took the lead on “Redneck Woman,” her 2004 debut single, with Miranda and Lainey harmonizing behind her. There is a line in that song where she names the country singer whose every word she knows. On the record it is Tanya Tucker, who turned up in the video herself back in 2004. Tuesday night Gretchen sang Lainey Wilson’s name in that spot instead, and Lainey was standing right beside her while she did it. That line had carried the same name for twenty-two years. In a South Dakota biker bar, it finally moved.

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Three Generations of Country Women Shared One Microphone at the World’s Biggest Biker Bar A Loud Night in Sturgis, and…

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NINE YEARS IN A ROW, AND MIRANDA LAMBERT STILL NEVER MADE WINNING LOOK ROUTINE. From 2010 through 2018, Miranda Lambert won ACM Female Vocalist of the Year nine straight times — a record no other woman had ever matched. The ninth came in 2018, the same night “Tin Man” won Song of the Year and pushed her past Brooks & Dunn as the most-awarded artist in ACM history. She didn’t stop there. In 2022, Lambert finally won ACM Entertainer of the Year, bringing her career total to 37 ACM Awards and completing the Academy’s Triple Crown: New Female Vocalist, Female Vocalist, and Entertainer of the Year. For all those trophies, Lambert has never built her image around acting polished or untouchable. She came out of Lindale, Texas, wrote songs about heartbreak, bad decisions and starting over, and kept sounding like the same woman even after the awards cabinet became historic. Nine straight wins can make a career look inevitable. Miranda Lambert somehow made every one of them look earned.

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NINE YEARS IN A ROW, AND MIRANDA LAMBERT STILL NEVER MADE WINNING LOOK ROUTINE There are artists who collect trophies…

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On September 28, 2010, Blake Shelton stood beside Trace Adkins at the Grand Ole Opry House during the special “Country Comes Home” show, celebrating the building’s reopening after the devastating Nashville flood earlier that year. The two friends had just finished singing their hit duet “Hillbilly Bone” when Trace stopped Blake before he could leave the stage. Trace joked about how much Blake loved using Twitter, then told him someone had sent him a message. Blake looked toward the screen and read the words waiting there: “Blake Shelton, you are invited to join the Grand Ole Opry! See you 10/23/2010.” For once, Blake had very little to say. He grabbed Trace in excitement and admitted that the moment was the highlight of his career. Less than a month later, on October 23, Trace Adkins was there again when Blake officially became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. A friendship that had already produced a No. 1 country duet had now given Blake Shelton one of the biggest honors of his life.

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Blake Shelton, Trace Adkins, and the Grand Ole Opry Moment That Changed Everything On September 28, 2010, the Grand Ole…

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SHE HAD BEEN AN AMERICAN IDOL WINNER FOR LESS THAN THREE YEARS. THEN RANDY TRAVIS WALKED UP BEHIND HER ON THE OPRY STAGE WITH A QUESTION THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING. Carrie Underwood made her Grand Ole Opry debut on June 10, 2005, just two weeks after winning American Idol. She was nervous, unsure how country music’s most famous stage would receive a young singer who had become famous on television. On March 15, 2008, Carrie stood on that same stage singing “I Told You So,” a Randy Travis song she had loved enough to record herself. When the song ended, Randy suddenly appeared behind her. Carrie looked stunned. Then he told her why he was there: the Grand Ole Opry wanted her to become its newest member. “Let me think about it,” she joked through the shock — then immediately said yes and began wiping away tears. Less than two months later, on May 10, Garth Brooks officially inducted her as her family watched from the audience. Randy Travis delivered the invitation. Garth Brooks welcomed her in. And Carrie Underwood became part of the family she had dreamed about since childhood.

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The Night Carrie Underwood Was Asked to Join the Family Carrie Underwood had already changed her life once by winning…

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BILLY CURRINGTON WAS ONLY 12 WHEN HE WATCHED HIS DRUNKEN STEPFATHER STUMBLE TOWARD HIM — AND A SONG STARTED FORMING IN HIS HEAD. Billy grew up with a stepfather whose drinking made home unpredictable. One day, Billy was outside with his brother and sisters when the man walked toward them and nearly fell. Billy remembered thinking, “Walk a little straighter.” He was only 12. He wasn’t trying to become a songwriter. He was simply a boy watching the man he called Daddy sway in front of him. Years later, Billy still remembered those words. With Casey Beathard and Carson Chamberlain, he finished “Walk a Little Straighter,” turning that childhood memory into a song about watching a father’s drinking — and fearing that one day the son might follow the same path. In 2003, it became Billy Currington’s first single and climbed to No. 8 on the country chart. The first song America heard from Billy Currington had actually begun twenty years earlier — with a 12-year-old boy wishing his father could simply walk straight.

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When Billy Currington Was 12, a Memory Became a Song Before Billy Currington became a country radio name, he was…

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WHEN JERRY JEFF WALKER WROTE THE SONG THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS, HE NEVER LEARNED THE MAN’S REAL NAME. He met him in a New Orleans jail cell in 1965. Walker had been picked up for public drunkenness in the French Quarter, early on a Monday morning after the Fourth of July weekend. The old man was in there because police had swept up the street people after a murder nearby. He was white, homeless, silver-haired, in worn-out shoes. He made his living dancing in Quarter bars for drinks. He called himself Mr. Bojangles — a name street dancers borrowed from tap star Bill “Bojangles” Robinson — so the police would never have his own. Then he started talking about his dog, dead years earlier, and the cell went quiet. Another inmate asked for something to lift the mood. The old man got up in his ragged clothes and danced on the concrete. Walker recorded the song in 1968. It reached No. 77. Two years later the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band cut it and took it to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. Sammy Davis Jr. made it his signature. Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, John Denver, Neil Diamond — hundreds of versions since. Not one of them carries the man’s name, because nobody ever knew it.

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How Jerry Jeff Walker Turned a Jail Cell Encounter Into “Mr. Bojangles” Jerry Jeff Walker’s most famous song came from…

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TOBY KEITH’S FATHER ASKED HIM FOR ONE THING, AND KEITH SPENT ELEVEN YEARS ANSWERING IT. His dad was a veteran, and he kept pushing his son to go play a USO tour. Keith’s answer was that he was already doing 150 shows a year and didn’t have the time. His father told him to find time. The year Keith finally agreed to go, his father was killed in a car wreck. Keith went anyway. He said he went for him. That one trip became eleven tours beginning in 2002 — nearly 300 shows in 17 countries for more than 250,000 service members, by the USO’s count. In April 2008 in Kandahar, mortar fire hit the base in the middle of a song and his band ran about a hundred yards to a concrete bunker. At Landstuhl in Germany, he walked the wards where the wounded arrived from Iraq, and said afterward that he had spent the visit searching for the right words to say. He kept going back for eleven years while other headliners stayed home. The morning after Keith died in February 2024, Kid Rock called in to Fox & Friends and brought up the joke the two of them had kept for years, arguing over which one went overseas more often. Then he settled it himself. Toby, he said, probably went more than he did.

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Toby Keith’s Promise to His Father Lasted Far Beyond One Trip Toby Keith spent years hearing the same message from…

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TRACE ADKINS WENT OVERSEAS WITH THE USO IN 2002. TWELVE TOURS AND 65,000 SERVICE MEMBERS LATER, HE WAS STILL GOING BACK. Trace Adkins did not make one trip overseas, take a few photographs with the troops, and call it enough. Beginning in 2002, he kept returning with the USO. Over the years, those visits became 12 tours, reaching more than 65,000 service members. He performed at military installations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Germany, Japan, Okinawa, Italy and Spain, as well as bases back home. By 2014, he was already a nine-time USO tour veteran. Two years later, he was back in Kuwait performing for troops again. For Adkins, these were never just another set of concert dates. He called spending time with service members some of the most memorable moments of his life. Twelve tours suggest he meant it.

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COUNTRY RADIO BANNED HIS SONG OVER ONE LINE IN 1992. HIS BASS PLAYER WAS HIS OWN SISTER — AND THAT LINE WAS ABOUT HER. In late April 1992, Garth Brooks was in Los Angeles for the ACM Awards when the city erupted after the Rodney King verdict. He wrote “We Shall Be Free” with songwriter Stephanie Davis in response. It was released August 31, 1992, as the first single from The Chase. Country stations began refusing it over one line — about people being free to love whoever they choose. Brooks could have cut it. He didn’t, and the reason was already in his band. His half-sister, Betsy Smittle, had played bass for Stillwater since 1990. She was openly gay and performed at pride events across Oklahoma. Brooks credited her as the reason the song exists. Wade Jessen of WSM in Nashville told the Los Angeles Times that part of the country audience did not agree with that message. The single stopped at No. 12 — the first Garth Brooks record to miss the country top 10. Betsy Smittle died of cancer on November 2, 2013. She was 60.

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HANK WILLIAMS JR. FELL 500 FEET DOWN A MOUNTAIN AND NEARLY DIED. YEARS LATER, HE PUT THAT FALL INTO A COUNTRY SONG. On August 8, 1975, Hank Williams Jr. was climbing Ajax Peak in Montana when he slipped on an icy ledge and fell about 500 feet down the mountainside. He suffered massive injuries to his head and face, underwent several operations, and spent roughly eight months recovering. The accident changed the way he looked — but it also came during the period when he was fighting to become something more than Hank Williams’ son. The beard, cowboy hat and sunglasses that later became his trademark helped hide the scars. He never tried to erase what happened. Years later, he wrote the fall directly into “All in Alabama,” remembering the climb up Ajax and the moment everything changed. Hank Jr. went up that mountain searching for himself. He came down lucky to be alive.

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THREE GENERATIONS OF COUNTRY WOMEN SHARED ONE MICROPHONE AT THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BIKER BAR TUESDAY NIGHT. Miranda Lambert headlined the Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis on August 11, one of the loudest nights of the 86th Motorcycle Rally, and she did not keep the stage to herself. She brought out Gretchen Wilson and Lainey Wilson. Gwen Sebastian, who has sung harmony behind Miranda for years, was up there with them. Gretchen sang “When It Rains.” Miranda and Lainey ran through “Good Horses,” their duet from Lainey’s album Whirlwind. The three of them also did “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home).” Then Gretchen took the lead on “Redneck Woman,” her 2004 debut single, with Miranda and Lainey harmonizing behind her. There is a line in that song where she names the country singer whose every word she knows. On the record it is Tanya Tucker, who turned up in the video herself back in 2004. Tuesday night Gretchen sang Lainey Wilson’s name in that spot instead, and Lainey was standing right beside her while she did it. That line had carried the same name for twenty-two years. In a South Dakota biker bar, it finally moved.