After revealing his debut solo single on Rolling Stone Country, GRAMMY-award winning artist Kristian Bush takes the lead with “Trailer Hitch” hitting Country radio and digital retailers nationwide. Named USA Today's "Song of the Week," the infectious tune is the 3rd most added single at Mediabase with 32 first week stations. 
 
"This song has three of my favorite things in it: a beat that never stops, a message that lies underneath, and some of my best friends writing and playing it with me. There is so much joy in this new beginning, in watching people’s eyes when they discover my voice, and in watching them dance when they discover this song. I am thrilled to use this as an introduction to who I am as a solo artist,” says Bush.
 
Written by Bush along with his brother Brandon Bush and Tim Owens, “Trailer Hitch,” is a clever and light-hearted tune that subtly carries the message of enjoying the gift of giving back over the desire for materials things. The single is from his forthcoming debut solo album executive produced by Byron Gallimore for Streamsound Records.

Music critics across the country have embraced Bush’s solo debut with rave reviews: 

“The grainy, gravelly voice that was sublimated in Sugarland is presented with front-and-center clarity.” – Billboard

“Sugar-less but oh so sweet.” – The Boston Globe 

"'Trailer Hitch' has a loose, carefree vibe and extolls the virtues of living for today.” – Country Weekly
 
Bush has been leaving his mark on music for more than two decades. The singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist started his career with folk rock duo Billy Pilgrim in the early '90s, releasing a much-lauded pair of albums for Atlantic Records (self-titled debut and BLOOM). In 2004, he exploded onto the country music scene with Sugarland, surpassing sales of over 22 million albums worldwide, achieving five No. 1 singles and winning numerous awards, including GRAMMYs, AMAs, ACMs, CMT Music Awards and CMAs. To date, Bush garnered six BMI Awards for his songwriting, and in 2011 founded the music publishing company and songwriting collective Songs of the Architect. Recent producing/songwriting collaborations include Mike Elizondo, Rita Wilson, Dia Frampton, Ellis Paul, Matt Nathanson, the dB’s, Martin Johnson of Boys Like Girls, Pretty Little Liars star Lucy Hale, and up-and-comers including Larkin Poe, Natalie Stovall, Canaan Smith, Jaida Dreyer, Alana Springsteen, and The Voice contestant Savannah Berry.
 
For tour dates and more, visit kristianbush.com.
 
“Trailer Hitch” is available on iTunes, HERE.

Been waiting on new music from the Josh Abbott Band? Well, you won't have to wait much longer. The new single "Hangin Around" will be released to iTunes on August 5th. You can listen to the "Hangin Around" teaser that JAB tweeted out, below.

On August 2nd, Hill Country Live DC will host a special benefit concert for the Armed Forces Foundation with a performance by Matt Mason. It will be an evening of stellar live music benefitting a great cause. 

Matt Mason is the 2011 winner of CMT's Next Superstar. Mason's music combines a broad range of influences, from Springsteen and Waylon to Haggard and many other country greats. Since winning Next Superstar, he's written upwards of one-hundred new songs, and played shows with Blake Shelton, Little Big Town and Charlie Daniels Band. He has also toured with Luke Bryan, Lee Brice, and Josh Thompson on the CMT on Tour tour. 

There is no cover for this event, but donations of $5 or greater to benefit the Armed Forces Foundation are encouraged and appreciated.
Hill Country Live DC is located at 410 Seventh Street NW in Washington DC. For more information visit their official website.

Summer's not over yet and Logan Mize is here to make sure the party keeps going in his new video for "Can't Get Away From A Good Time." The video starts out with the band practicing in a garage but when a beautiful girl shows up, everything quickly turns into a good time. 

The Kansas native's blood runs deep with country music. His uncle, Billy Mize, played in a band with Buck Owens, helped Merle Haggard gain attention and played a key role in forming the Academy of Country Music.

Logan just finished the Workin' and Drinkin' Tour playing dates with The Swon Brothers and Wade Bowen.

"Can't Get Away From A Good Time" is currently being played on Sirius XM's The Highway. Be sure to request it! 

Tour Dates:
Aug 02  - Frontier Western Celebration - El Dorado, KS
Aug 14 - Capital City Ribfest - Lincoln, NE
Aug 22 - Smoky Hills Sportsman Expo - Salina, KS
Aug 23 Main Street El Dorado - El Dorado, AR
Sept 26 - 41-A Music & Arts Festival - Tullahoma,TN 

http://loganmize.com/
https://twitter.com/loganmize
https://www.facebook.com/LoganMize

You can watch the video for "Can't Get Away From A Good Time" here.

Micky & The Motorcars will release their new album, Hearts From Above, this Thursday, July 31st. The album, their first since 2011's Raise My Glass, was funded by the band's successful Kickstarter campaign and was recorded earlier this year at Austin’s 12th Street Sound. 

A solid listen from start to finish, Hearts From Above, contains twelve songs, including the title track (and current single) as well as the touching "From Where the Sun Now Stands," about the Nez Perce Indians, and a cover of Alejandro Escovedo's sentimental "Sister Lost Soul." Of course, there are songs of love and heartbreak too, like the rockin' "Hurt Again," which will grab you with Micky's delivery of the opening line "The taxi’s running waiting right outside/There’s a look of shame girl that you can’t hide," and standout "You Led Me the Wrong Way" on which Gary takes lead vocals.

Get your hands on a copy...or two.

MMC will have three album release parties in Texas, then head off to Challis, Idaho for the Braun Brothers Reunion Festival followed by the Livers of Steel Tour with Reckless Kelly and Cody Canada and the Departed.

For more information, and to order Hearts From Above, visit MMC official website. Hearts From Above will also be available at online retailers.

Track List: 
1. Hearts From Above 
2. Long Road to Nowhere 
3. Hurt Again 
4. Destined to Fall 
5. You Led Me the Wrong Way 
6. Fall Apart 
7. My Girl Now 
8. Sister Lost Soul 
9. Once In A Lifetime Girl 
10. Southbound Street 
11. From Where the Sun Now Stands 
12. Tonight We Ride

If you are headed out to Challis, Idaho for the Braun Brothers Reunion Festival, make sure you don't miss Chris Knight on August 7th. And if you aren't making the trek, you should definitely get acquainted with the music of this original singer songwriter.

 For fifteen years, seven albums and a career that’s been hailed as “where Cormac McCarthy meets Copperhead Road”, Knight has always let his music do most of the talking. And on record, as well everywhere across America, from roadhouse taverns to major-city concert halls, his songs have had plenty to say. But with his latest album Little Victories, which was released in September 2012, Chris Knight has taken the discussion to a whole new level.

Little Victories is a record of blunt honesty and the raw rural poetry of an artist who’s come into his own and intends to stay. For a performer who’s been compared over the years to Cash, Prine, Earle and Nebraska-era Springsteen, Knight now stands alone as a singer/songwriter who has carved his own sound and sensibility out of the dirt road American dream. 

“I don’t ever get in a big rush about things,” Knight says. “I can tour pretty good on what I got. I took my time, like I always do. Write a song every now and then. I don’t like to talk about politics, but I do write what I’m thinking about.” And if many of the songs on Little Victories seem to take a hard-eyed look at the current socio-economic climate, Knight – the former strip-mine inspector who still lives in the backcountry coal town of Slaughters, Kentucky (population 200) where he was raised – is upfront about their origins. “About 2 years ago, we had a big ice storm here in Slaughters that just devastated the whole area,” he says. “We were out of power for close to a month, cooking in the fireplace and living by candlelight to survive. Things slowed down to nothing. When we were finally able to head into town, we saw lines of cars for miles outside the gas station. There were hundreds of people outside the hardware store who had nothing even before the storm hit. They weren’t prepared for the situation or for each other. I watched their behavior and reactions, and that’s when I started writing a bunch of songs I knew would be a part of this record.”

The album’s eleven songs are among Knight’s finest. There’s busted luck in “Lowdown Ramblin’ Blues”, hardcore tenacity in “Nothing On Me” and bad tempered love in “You Lie When You Call My Name” (co-written with two-time Grammy winner Lee Ann Womack). Buddy Miller provides guest vocals on the ominous commentary of “In The Mean Time” and the ornery regret of “Missing You”. “Jack Loved Jesse” is a raging tale of criminal destiny co-written and featuring blistering electric guitar and vocals by former Georgia Satellite and frequent Knight producer Dan Baird. “You Can’t Trust No One” emerges as an unsettling paean to small-town American cynicism and anger, and “The Lonesome Way” is a gut-punch of slide-guitar, violin (courtesy Tammy Rogers of The Steeldrivers, who appears throughout the album) and bullheaded regret. The humble acoustic remorse of “Out Of This Hole” is Knight at his most plaintive, and the crushed dreams of “Hard Edges” carry a banjo-tinged melancholy. And if the title track not only finds Knight at his most cheerily optimistic (for Chris, at least), it also features vocals from his lifelong musical hero John Prine. “When I was 16, I got a John Prine songbook and learned about 40 of his songs,” Knight explains. “Used to play them for the kids in study hall at school every day. About 20 years later, I finally got to meet him when I opened a few shows for him. He asked me to come out and sing “Paradise” as part of his encore, and I got to play the blonde Martin guitar that was on the cover of his first album. I sent him Little Victories and he liked the song enough to be on it.” Chris treasures the moment when the two first listened to the playback of their distinctive twangs rasping joyfully together on the chorus. “‘Prine turned to me and said, ‘We sound pretty good together. Just like Phil and Don Everly.’”

So after fifteen years, eight albums and a still uncompromised reputation as one of the best singer/songwriters in America, what has he learned from it all? “I’ve learned that I’m pretty lucky to do what I do and make a living at it,” he says. “I’m really proud of this record, and it’ll be fun to play these songs live. For people who like my music and maybe even for someone hearing me for the first time, I think they’ll find songs on here that mean something to them and they can hang on to. I don’t want to talk about it too much, but I think people are gonna be surprised.” And for Chris Knight, that’s victory enough.

For more information on Chris Knight visit his official website.
Chris will be performing at the Braun Brothers Reunion Festival on August 7th. For more information visit here.

Country star Josh Thompson surprised an ill fan with a personal message after noticing a comment on his Facebook page. 

Josh Thompson is certainly active on his social media platforms and his latest YouTube video proves just that! After noticing a fan's comment on his Facebook page about having to miss the upcoming show in Boston due to surgery, Josh decided to do something special for her. The fan commented: "Can you just sing to me personally since I just got my appendix out and can't go?!" Apparently her wish is Josh's command!

Josh picked up his guitar and recorded a special rendition of his single "Wanted Me Gone" to include "Trisha wanted her appendix gone!"  

You can see the personal serenade from Josh HERE and you can watch the official video for "Wanted Me Gone" HERE. 

Joseph LeMay has been receiving many accolades since the independent release of his debut album, Seventeen Acres, on May 20th, 2014. Although a newcomer to the scene, Joseph LeMay has been developing his voice as a songwriter and producer for several years, observing and working with his longtime mentor and veteran producer, Charlie Peacock (The Civil Wars, Brett Dennen, Switchfoot, The Lone Bellow). LeMay's ability to tastefully wear the hats of both artist and producer is what makes his Seventeen Acres stand out as an album of note.

LeMay has been named as one of the 25 finalists by American Songwriter for American Songspace's Secret Road Pub Deal songwriting competition. “His music embodies the story-teller tradition of country/roots music,” notes American Songwriter. “His sound harkens back to a calmer, peaceful era and creates a timelessness that makes it easy to engage the listener.” 

In addition, CMT Edge recently premiered a video of "Redwing" performed live inside the trailer in which the album came to be, a song which CMT Edge’s Chris Parton calls a "careful, patiently swelling track.” 

PopDose’s Keith Creighton says of Seventeen Acres, “Rarely has an album by a complete unknown hit me like a ton of bricks the way Joseph LeMay’s stunning debut has...The music is an exquisite tapestry of Americana and Country... a stellar debut from an insanely promising artist… Seventeen Acres’ appeal extends way beyond the boundaries of the current Americana boom. Fans of Crowded House, Tom Petty, Iron & Wine, Paul Simon and countless others will welcome the tales of this gifted storyteller.”

The story of Seventeen Acres began unfolding when LeMay and his new bride, Molly, packed up their belongings and moved out of the hustle of Nashville and into a singlewide trailer in West Tennessee on her grandfather’s hand-me-down 17 acre farm. They patched up the old trailer, cleared the grass that had grown up through the cracks on the floors, freed the space of copperheads and spiders, and sorted through decades of stacked boxes filled with old family memories.

Joseph found himself in a drastically new season of life.  He was a married man, alone in the woods, between two towns you've never heard of.  With little to do but reflect and work on his craft, LeMay's new life and songwriting began to grow alongside one another.  They tangled to form the tapestry of reflection, prophecy, and fulfillment that became Seventeen Acres.

“It’s like sitting under a magnifying glass,” says LeMay of the isolation of rural Tennessee. “Writing this record, I was constantly alone and in a period of self-doubt. I was worried I wouldn’t measure up as a new husband and as a songwriter, more or less thrown out in the wilderness.”

“Music fulfills a need,” says LeMay. “It’s communicating across mediums. We don’t just want words. It’s the color and the canvas. The cadence and the lyric.” It’s with a balanced grasp of bare truth and pursuit of grace that LeMay channels this primal need in the desolation of his Seventeen Acres

For more about Joseph LeMay and tour dates, please visit www.JosephLeMayMusic.com. 
Find him on facebook.com/josephlemaymusic  and twitter.com/josephlemay. 

Watch “You Still Do It” here http://www.causeascenemusic.com/joseph-lemay-releases-new-album-seventeen-acres/

RUNAWAY SAINTS recently announced their August tour dates supporting Johnny Lang. As a bonus, they will be headlining two of their own shows; one in their home state of Rhode Island and one in NYC at the Mercury Lounge! Tickets on sale July 25th!
Listen to "Don't Mind If I Do" below.