Little Big Town Breaks a Record; Luke Bryan Apologizes to Jessi Colter; Rest in Peace, Tom Skinner

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• Video of young actress Alyvia Lind receiving the news that she got the part of young Dolly Parton in a made-for-TV movie… via a surprise visit from Parton herself.
• Via Gretchen Peters: “Culture Isn’t Free: Expecting artists to work for free hands the reins of cultural production to ruling elites” by Miranda Campbell (Jacobin magazine)
• Via Carolyn Dixon: “Is it even still possible to ‘sell out’?” by Chris Richards (Washington Post)
• If you’ve been dying to see Scotty McCreery sing “The Grand Tour,” you are in luck.
• That Nashville Sound has details on Jewel’s upcoming album on Sugar Hill Records.
• According to his Facebook page, Billy Joe Shaver has been forced to cancel all appearances through July and August to undergo an emergency hip replacement surgery.
• Tom Skinner, a founding father of the Red Dirt movement, passed away at 61.
• Farce the Music ran a guest-written review of Jason Isbell’s Something More Than Free.
• The Country Universe gang outdid themselves again, counting down the 20 best albums of 1993 in two parts. Female artists are well-represented.
• Pitchfork’s David Sackllah on the gentrification crisis in Austin.
• Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart for an eleventh week, besting a record for longest run at the top by a group that had been held by The Browns’ “The Three Bells” since 1959. “Girl Crush” is also the most-downloaded country song of 2015 so far, with sales approaching 1.4 million.
• Radio.com interview with Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris, including quick Emmylou shout-outs to Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, and Ashley Monroe.
• Shooter Jennings tells the Los Angeles Times that Luke Bryan phoned the Jennings family, including Jessi Colter, to apologize for his widely-reported comments about outlaw country: “He said some [stuff] and because of the Internet it came back on him. But he went above and beyond and manned up and apologized. In the long run I believe his image has improved.”
• Country Perspective’s Josh Schott grades Canaan Smith’s Bronco 1 out of 10, calling it “spectacularly bad.”

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