Country Music

Country Music Hits

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25 MILLION COPIES. 7 HIT SINGLES. AND IT ALL STARTED WITH THIS ONE SONG ON A TV SHOW IN 1987. August 1987. Def Leppard walked onto the set of Countdown — the Dutch TV show on Veronica — and performed Animal. Adam Curry hosted. Joe Elliott and Rick Allen did an interview right after. What most people didn’t know: this song had been rewritten and re-recorded three times. Three completely different versions. They kept feeling something was off — until one day they changed the bridge, and it just clicked. But here’s the part nobody talks about. Animal was actually written in 1984. Joe recorded the final vocal in a Paris studio in 1985. By the time it aired, the song was already three and a half years old. It became Def Leppard’s first-ever UK Top 10 single, peaking at No. 6 — and it opened the door for Hysteria, the album that sold over 25 million copies with seven hit singles.

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How One Song on a Dutch TV Show Helped Launch a Rock Classic In August 1987, Def Leppard stepped onto…

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“IF EDDIE WAS HERE, I WOULDN’T BE DOING THIS.” — SAMMY HAGAR Sammy Hagar just sat down for a new interview. And the man didn’t hold back. Two years in, the Best of All Worlds tour keeps changing. Kenny Aronoff replaced Jason Bonham on drums. A young keyboardist named Spider Cherry stepped in. They even brought back “Mine All Mine” and Chickenfoot’s “Soap on a Rope” during the Vegas residency. But what he said about Alex Van Halen… that changes everything. Over 20 years of silence between them. No calls. No texts. Hagar compared it to Gilmour refusing to ever play with Roger Waters. His words: “They’re negative people.” The thing is, before Eddie passed in 2020, Hagar only played about 5 Van Halen songs in a 2-hour set. He was saving them. Waiting for a reunion that never came. Now he plays them all. Every single night. For the fans Eddie left the music to. A new solo album is somewhere in the works too — but Hagar says he’s in no rush. The stage still calls louder than the studio.

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Sammy Hagar Reflects on Van Halen, Loss, and a Tour That Keeps Evolving Sammy Hagar has never sounded like a…

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TOM MORELLO DIDN’T JUST WRITE A PROTEST SONG. HE HANDED HIS 15-YEAR-OLD SON THE GUITAR AND SAID: YOUR TURN. Tom Morello and Serj Tankian go way back — they co-founded Axis of Justice in 2002 to fight racism in rock and metal. For over two decades, brothers in that fight. But what nobody expected was the third name on this track. Roman Morello. Tom’s son. Fifteen years old. And the kid closes “ADJOURN IT” with a guitar solo that hits like a fist through a wall. The song takes direct aim at ICE raids, anti-immigrant crackdowns, and what Morello calls “the rising tide of fascism.” Tankian’s vocals cut through every second of it. And the music video? Footage from the 1954 film Salt of the Earth — a movie about Mexican-American miners fighting exploitation that was so threatening, Hollywood blacklisted it. All three will share the stage October 3 at Morello’s Power to the People festival alongside Springsteen, Foo Fighters, and Dave Matthews. Some people pass down guitars. Tom Morello is passing down the fight.

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Tom Morello Didn’t Just Write a Protest Song. He Handed His 15-Year-Old Son the Guitar and Said: Your Turn. Tom…

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53 CONCERTS. 11 COUNTRIES. AND IT ALL STARTS IN DENVER. Of all the cities Il Volo could open their World Tour 2026–2027, they picked Denver. April 15. Boettcher Concert Hall. Not LA. Not New York. Denver. And the venue itself tells you something — the first “in the round” symphony hall in America. 2,700 seats circling the stage. No distance between voice and skin. Here’s what most fans haven’t connected yet. Denver is just night one. After that, 10 US cities in 18 days — San Jose, LA, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, Columbus, Detroit, closing May 2 at Rosemont Theatre. But even that isn’t the whole picture. They quietly added a fall leg. 8 more East Coast cities. Philadelphia. Boston. Madison Square Garden. Three Italian voices, singing bel canto across America. And Denver gets to hear it before anyone else.

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53 Concerts, 11 Countries, and It All Starts in Denver There are tour announcements that feel routine, and then there…

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“I WAS MAYBE ONLY WEEKS AWAY FROM DEATH” — AND THEN HE WROTE ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONGS EVER RECORDED. In 1968, Cat Stevens was hospitalized with tuberculosis. Collapsed lung. Pneumonia. Three months in a ward, possibly weeks from death. His early career was already fading. Depression, heavy drinking, a body breaking down at 19. Then everything stopped. But what happened inside that hospital room changed everything. He couldn’t perform. Couldn’t tour. Couldn’t do anything — except write. Song after song poured out of him. Among them was “Wild World,” the track that would anchor Tea for the Tillerman — an album now in the Grammy Hall of Fame. He later said he was trying to hold on to life itself. That he was at the point where things were just beginning, and he was going into the world on his own. The song wasn’t written from some peaceful place. It was written by a kid who didn’t know if he’d make it out of that room.

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I Was Maybe Only Weeks Away from Death: How Cat Stevens Turned a Hospital Room into a Classic In 1968,…

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“HE WROTE OVER 500 FILM SCORES. AFTER HE DIED, 3 YOUNG ITALIAN MEN SANG JUST 1 — AND ALL OF VERONA WEPT.” June 5, 2021. Arena di Verona — nearly 2,000 years old — opened its season for the first time since the pandemic. And it opened with three young Italian voices singing for a man who was no longer there. Il Volo stood where gladiators once stood, under the same sky Ennio Morricone had filled with music for over 500 films. But that night, only one melody mattered: “Your Love,” from Once Upon a Time in the West. Here’s what most people didn’t see. The orchestra was led by Andrea Morricone — the maestro’s own son. And Ignazio, one of the three singers, had just lost his father too. So when their voices rose into that ancient stone, it wasn’t performance. It was grief holding grief. Three voices, 6,000 people in the open air, and a melody written decades ago that somehow said everything no one could.

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How Verona Wept When Three Young Voices Sang for Ennio Morricone On June 5, 2021, the Arena di Verona opened…

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“HOW COME YOU DIDN’T USE THESE?” — STEVE LUKATHER’S FIRST WORDS AFTER HEARING EDDIE VAN HALEN’S UNRELEASED TAPES.That was Lukather talking to Alex Van Halen. Straight up. No filter.He and Alex have been going through over 3,000 tapes sitting in Eddie’s 5150 home studio. Recordings nobody has ever heard. Full performances by both brothers — not scraps, not rough ideas thrown together.And here’s what hit Lukather the hardest: these tracks were never used because no one could write lyrics to them. The music was too far ahead.Lukather won’t play a single guitar note on any of it. He made that clear. He’s there as a friend, a co-producer, someone Eddie trusted for over 40 years.Alex says there’s enough material for three to four albums. And every piece has to meet the standard they left it at — nothing less.Lukather put it simply: this is not throwaway stuff being pieced together to cash in on fans. When he heard those tapes, he couldn’t believe they’d been sitting there all along.

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Steve Lukather, Alex Van Halen, and the Unreleased Eddie Van Halen Tapes Steve Lukather did not respond with polished caution…

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“YOU DO MISS THEM. I START TO GET VERY SAD.” – PAUL MCCARTNEY. This week he put out his 20th solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. Fourteen songs. And somewhere in the middle of making it, the memories caught up with him. There’s a song called Down South. It’s just about three teenage boys hitchhiking — Paul, George, John. Two of them are gone now. He told The Guardian that he gets very sad thinking about it. Then he stops himself. He remembers something — everyone misses them, not just him. And that, oddly, makes it a little easier to carry. There’s another song too. It points to a small house at 20 Forthlin Road in Liverpool — the room where he and John first sat down with two guitars and started throwing ideas at each other, bouncing back and forth. He still remembers exactly what John said to him there. And what Paul said back, all these years later, says everything.

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“You Do Miss Them. I Start to Get Very Sad.” Paul McCartney on Memory, Music, and the Friends He Never…

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A KID FROM TERRELL, TEXAS STOOD NEXT TO ANDREA BOCELLI AND SANG “MY WAY” — IN FRONT OF 17,500 PEOPLE. Sold-out night at the Hollywood Bowl. Bocelli was on stage doing what he always does — making thousands of people forget how to breathe. Then for the final duet, he brought someone out. Jamie Foxx. But what happened backstage before they walked on… that’s the part most people never saw. Bocelli sat at the piano. Foxx stood next to him. No crowd, no lights. Just two of them going back and forth on Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” verse by verse, like nobody was watching. Foxx grew up in a small town in Texas, raised by a grandmother named Estelle Marie Talley. She once told him his music would take him all over the world. When they finally hit that stage together, the whole place erupted. Foxx posted five words that night: “Grannie, we did it.”

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A Kid from Terrell, Texas, Sang “My Way” with Andrea Bocelli in Front of 17,500 People Some nights in music…

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“WHEN YOUR BACKING SINGERS ARE NEIL YOUNG, JONI MITCHELL AND DR. JOHN — YOU KNOW IT’S INSANE.” The cameras were rolling. Then Scorsese did something nobody expected. He reached into the front crowd and pulled out two men — Ronnie Wood and Ringo Starr. They hadn’t come to play. They’d come to stand with the audience and just feel it. But for the final song, Scorsese wanted them up there. So they climbed onto the stage. No plan. No rehearsal. Just instinct. Behind Bob Dylan, the voices began to rise — Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Dr. John. One legend leaning into the mic after another. What almost no one in that room knew: minutes earlier, Dylan had nearly refused to go on at all. Someone had to stop him backstage. It was The Band’s last night. Sixteen years on the road, all of it folding into one song — “I Shall Be Released.” People who were there still swear nothing has ever sounded that good again.

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When Your Backing Singers Are Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Dr. John: The Night Everything Changed Sometimes a concert becomes…

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MOTT THE HOOPLE WERE READY TO BREAK UP. THEN THEY TURNED DOWN THE FIRST SONG DAVID BOWIE OFFERED THEM — SO HE WROTE THEM ANOTHER ONE. By early 1972, Mott the Hoople had made four albums without the commercial breakthrough they needed. The band had reached the point of calling it quits. David Bowie was a fan. When he heard what was happening, he offered them “Suffragette City.” They turned it down. Bowie could have walked away. Instead, he came back with another song written for them: “All the Young Dudes.” This time, they said yes. Bowie produced their recording, and the song changed everything. Released in 1972, “All the Young Dudes” climbed to No. 3 in Britain and gave Mott the Hoople the breakthrough they had been unable to find on their own. They had already decided their story was over. Then they rejected David Bowie once — and he gave them the song that allowed it to continue.

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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN COULDN’T FINISH “BECAUSE THE NIGHT.” JIMMY IOVINE PUT THE DEMO IN PATTI SMITH’S HANDS — AND SHE TURNED IT INTO THE BIGGEST HIT OF HER CAREER. In 1977, Bruce Springsteen was working on Darkness on the Edge of Town when he recorded an unfinished song called “Because the Night.” The music was there. So was the chorus. But Bruce struggled with the verses and eventually decided he wasn’t going to finish it. Jimmy Iovine was engineering Bruce’s sessions while also producing Patti Smith’s next album. He heard something in the unfinished song and brought the recording to Patti. She took it home and wrote her own lyrics around what Bruce had started. Patti Smith Group recorded “Because the Night,” with both Smith and Springsteen credited as writers. Released in 1978, it climbed to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 in Britain — the biggest hit of Patti’s career. Bruce couldn’t find the words to finish it. Patti Smith did.

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TIMOTHY B. SCHMIT LOST THE POCO JOB TO RANDY MEISNER. A YEAR LATER, HE REPLACED HIM. EIGHT YEARS AFTER THAT, IT HAPPENED AGAIN — THIS TIME WITH THE EAGLES. In 1968, Timothy B. Schmit auditioned for a new country-rock band called Poco. He didn’t get the job. The bass position went to Randy Meisner instead. But Randy left Poco the following year, and Timothy was called back. In 1969, he finally joined the band he had wanted so badly to be part of. For the next eight years, Timothy built his career with Poco while Randy went on to become a founding member of the Eagles. Then, in 1977, Randy left the Eagles. Once again, Timothy B. Schmit was the man chosen to take his place. This time, the opportunity changed his life. With the Eagles, Timothy would co-write and sing “I Can’t Tell You Why,” one of the defining songs of The Long Run. The first time Randy Meisner got the job Timothy wanted. The next two times Randy left, Timothy was the man who followed him.

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JOE WALSH LOST HIS DAUGHTER WEEKS BEFORE HER THIRD BIRTHDAY. HE WROTE HER A SONG — THEN PUT SOMETHING IN HER FAVORITE PARK FOR EVERY CHILD TOO SMALL TO REACH. On April 1, 1974, Joe Walsh’s daughter Emma Kristen was riding with her mother on the way to nursery school when another car ran a stop sign and struck them head-on. Emma died from her injuries. She was only two years old, just weeks away from turning three. Joe was devastated. Later that year, he closed his album So What with “Song for Emma,” a quiet goodbye to the little girl he had barely been given time to know. But the song was not his only memorial. At North Boulder Park in Colorado, where Emma had played, Joe had a small drinking fountain installed in her memory — low enough for little children to reach. Years later, he took Stevie Nicks there and told her about Emma. Stevie went home deeply moved and wrote “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?” for Joe. Joe had written a song for his daughter. Years later, someone wrote one for the father who never stopped missing her.