Hillbilly Live!

Here’s another innocent thing for some people on the left to get pissed off about. Again.

Kid Rock took a ride with Pete Hegseth on a U.S. Army Apache helicopter. He also met with service members and filmed videos for Memorial Day, America’s 250th birthday, and his Freedom 250 tour, which kicks off Friday.

People online of course are criticizing Pete for allowing it, and saying taxpayer dollars are spent on Kid’s “joy ride”.  Another person pointed out something very important saying, “this is called an incentive flight and it is very common. All of you just want to find any reason to bitch.”

For reference, a helicopter costs about $7,000 an hour to fly.  Kid’s flight was reportedly 10 minutes long and was just a few loops over the base. So, if you’re up in arms about this, please direct your energy elsewhere, because this is a nonissue.

A new study analyzed 100 of Billboard’s most-streamed songs of 2025 to find which are the worst to listen to while working. It’s based on tempo (beats per minute), loudness (decibels), and danceability.

“Smile” by Morgan Wallen was ranked the worst, which is surprising considering how laid back it really seems. It has a tempo of 127 beats per minute and relatively high danceability, and sits outside the range needed to focus. Of course I wasn’t a part of putting together this list, because I would’ve argued how this song shouldn’t be added to this list.

Here are the five worst songs:

1. “Smile”,  Morgan Wallen

2. “Just in Case”,  Morgan Wallen

3. “Wildflower”,  Billie Eilish

4. “Ordinary”,  Alex Warren

5. “House Again”,  Hudson Westbrook (as a Texas native…it’s seeing a young Texas artist making a big list like this too)

Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job And Shove It” should’ve made the list for obvious reasons. Mainly because every time I hear this song, I want tell my boss or any boss that “this job sucks and I’m out”. That’s just me though.

There’s been a lot of changes for Zach Top.

Some of his band mates have changed and now he’s also making some life changes. He’s only 28 years old, and he’s making baby steps to adjust his tour rider. He still likes to have a bunch of booze and beer, but instead of having cigarettes, he gets electrolytes for water.

Zach said, “I thought we had at least 10 to 15 years of debauchery in us, but now we get up in the morning and hit the gym before sound check.”

Getting up early and going to the gym is ridiculous…but it’s good for actually living good and hopefully keeping your heart ticking longer.

Stagecoach Festival needed to hear this tribute.

It’s still hard to accept the fact that the country music world lost Big Dog Toby Keith back in February of 2024. He passed away at the young age of 62 after a long battle with stomach cancer. Now we’ve already passed the two year anniversary of his passing…which still sucks to live with.

This past weekend at Stagecoach, Post Malone brought the tribute that California needed to hear. During his headlining finale of the country music festival, he paid respect to Toby with one his greatest, patriotic bangers, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”

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Kacey Musgraves is releasing her new album, “Middle of Nowhere”, on Friday (5/1/26). It includes a song with Willie Nelson called “Uncertain, TX”.

Or as Kacey calls him, “everyone’s favorite gangster great grandpa” and the, quote where she said he the, “patriarch of truth [and] country music”. She says when she recorded with him, he did it in one take.

She said, “he walks in, does the take, and literally, that’s it. So, it better work. He’s like, ‘I’m in my 90s…I’m giving you 30 seconds, and then I’m out.’ He’s earned that. He’s a true American legend, transcends space and time. He’s amazing.”

This was their third time recording together. Their other two songs are “Are You Sure” from Kacey’s “Pageant Material” album and “A Willie Nice Christmas” from “A Very Kacey Christmas”.

King George Strait brought out his opener, Miranda Lambert, Saturday night to help him perform “She’ll Leave You With A Smile”.

George offered her the opportunity after she sang “Run” at his induction as a Kennedy Center Honoree. He asked her to pick a song she wanted to sing with him onstage in Lubbock. It took her four days to come up with a song to sing with George onstage obviously…and it would’ve taken me longer to be honest. Especially knowing how many songs he has that I’m in love with.

Miranda said, “like four days ago, I finally made my decision. I mean, I get to sing with King George, y’all.”

Luke Combs tied his own record as the only artist in history to have the top two songs on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as a solo artist. Then on the U.S. Country Radio chart, he’s also the first artist to occupy the top two spots as well.

This week (4/27/26), “Sleepless in a Hotel Room” remained #1 for its third week, drawing a hefty 32.3 million audience impressions throughout the week. And Ironically, Luke actually blocked himself from scoring his 21st #1 and simultaneously tied his own record.

His other surging single, “Days Like These” rose from #4 to #2 this week, which makes Luke the proud owner of the #1 and #2 songs on country radio this week. This makes Luke the only artist in the history of the chart to occupy the top two with two songs as a lead artist…again.

The last time we saw this news was back in September of 2023 when “Love You Anyway” and “Fast Car” also reached #1 and #2 simultaneously on Billboard.

Luke also made history on country music’s other radio chart, Mediabase. In direct contrast to Billboard’s Country Airplay, this week, “Days Like These” rose to #1 on the chart with “Sleepless in a Hotel Room” falling to #2. In turn, he also became the first artist on Mediabase’s chart to occupy the #1 and #2 spot simultaneously in a single week with two solo, non-feature tracks.

.@lukecombs is officially the first artist in history to occupy the top two positions at US Country Radio (Mediabase) with solo songs:

#1 Days Like These
#2 Sleepless In A Hotel Room pic.twitter.com/xIz8cwkpqz

— U.S. Radio Updater (@USRadioUpdater) April 26, 2026

The record-breaking doesn’t stop there for Luke. On Saturday, he broke Ohio Stadium’s concert attendance record with 97,367 fans. The previous record was held by Pink Floyd with 75,245 fans in 1994.

Last year, “Rolling Stone” released their 250 Greatest Albums of All-Time. Guess how many country albums are on that list?  Only TEN.  Apparently, they think that country music only makes up 4% of the best music since the turn of the century?  To save you some scrolling, here are all ten country albums and where they placed:

#40…“Golden Hour” (2018)…by Kacey Musgraves

#43…“Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” (2014)…by Sturgill Simpson

#48…“Platinum” (2014)…by Miranda Lambert

#79…“Southeastern” (2013)…by Jason Isbell

#103…“Traveller” (2015)…by Chris Stapleton

#121…“Chief” (2011)…by Eric Church

#126…“Cowboy Carter” (2024)…by Beyoncé…and this joke needs to stop. Because this is not a country album.

#130…“By the Way, I Forgive You” (2018)…by Brandi Carlile

#207…“Hero” (2016)…by Maren Morris

#247…“Purgatory” (2017)…Tyler Childers

Some quick thoughts here. “Traveller” not making the Top 100 is laughable…and no Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, George Strait, Ella Langley or Lainey Wilson? Seriously. Whoever the hell put this shit list together left out a lot of great country artists.

People really showed up in Lubbock m, Texas for King George Strait.

I read that 133,000 attended Jones AT&T Stadium on Friday and Saturday night for George’s little two night residency in Lubbock. Traffic jams started in Snyder, Texas, which is about an hour 15 minutes away from Lubbock too. People in Texas don’t mess around when comes to seeing King George in concert. He’s real Texas royalty to us Texans.

One man in attendance at Jones AT&T Stadium was having a damn good time and he was actually getting paid to be there. The best part was his dancing skills were caught on camera.

He was easy to spot too. Considering he was wearing a bright yellow shirt like most of the other staff was.

Stagecoach Festival 2026 went down this past weekend. Well, most of it did. 

Riley Green and Journey’s sets were canceled on Saturday due to high winds. And Lainey Wilson’s headlining set was delayed but still went off without a hitch. She was even nice enough to let Riley come out during her set to perform since his set got canceled.

Here are the biggest stories:

1. At least Riley wasn’t shut out for good. Lainey brought him onstage during her set…and he sang “I Wish Grandpas Never Died”.

Duckman back in the desert @RileyGreenMusic

Watch the @amazonmusic livestream, only on @primevideo and @twitchhttps://t.co/oVtHIARbM6 pic.twitter.com/yh9R8vSvav

— Stagecoach Festival (@Stagecoach) April 26, 2026

2. Cody Johnson sang with Boyz II Men.

3. Noah Cyrus brought out her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus.

4. Sydney Sweeney sang some karaoke with Diplo.

5. Ella Langley did her duet “I Can’t Love You Anymore” for the first time solo. And she said Morgan Wallen couldn’t be there because he’s on “dad duty” this weekend.

6. And instead of Riley Green, you’ll never believe who sang opposite Ella for her song “You Look Like You Love Me”…it was Theo Von. He did Riley’s spoken word verses.  And even sang a bit too.

.@ellalangleymsic 🤝 @TheoVon pic.twitter.com/JbrHxldCE8

— Stagecoach Festival (@Stagecoach) April 25, 2026

7. And last night, Post Malone was the headliner…with Brooks & Dunn and Hootie & the Blowfish supporting.