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      By Day, Sun Studio Draws Tourists. At Night, Musicians Lay Down Tracks.

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      The day’s last batch of tourists filed out of an exhibition space and entered a room overflowing with the sound of Johnny Cash’s “Cry! Cry! Cry!”They’d spent the late afternoon soaking up stories about this small space with an outsize weight — Sun Studio, in Memphis, Tenn. — where the nascent sound of rock ’n’ roll took shape in the mid-1950s. It’s where Elvis Presley became Elvis and Sun Records made household names of Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and others. It happened between the same well-worn acoustic tiles that still line the studio walls and its rolling, wavelike ceiling, and on top of the same linoleum where a hand-taped “X” marks the spot where Sun vocalists once stood.The visitors took turns with a nonfunctional but studio-original Shure 55-series microphone, made available under two conditions: no stealing it and no kissing it. They settled for photos instead before exiting into the hot, late-July evening.Then, almost as soon as the front entrance was locked, the back door opened and the local indie-rock band Blvck Hippie began to trundle in with gear.The no-kissy mic was swapped for a working one and cables were threaded across the studio floor in an electric web, as the drummer screwed down cymbals and riffs rang from warming fingers on two guitars and a bass.Before long a room intended to keep alive the memory of old songs had transformed, and was wired to capture new ones.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Interview’: Jelly Roll Cannot Believe How His Life Turned Out

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      We’ve all had the experience of being in a bad emotional place and, in response, putting on a song. We know that song isn’t going to fix the problem, whatever it may be, or even change the feeling. But the music we turn to when we’re struggling can be like a hand on our shoulder. For a legion of Americans today, the music that does that is by Jelly Roll.Listen to the Conversation With Jelly RollFrom jail and addiction to music stardom — the singer tells David Marchese he’s living a “modern American fairy tale.”Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppJelly’s real name is Jason DeFord, and he’s from Antioch, Tenn. He’s 39-years-old, burly (though he’s trying to lose weight), with a face covered in tattoos. In a sign of the breadth of his audience, he has been able to score on the country, rock and pop charts with hit singles like “Need a Favor” and albums like 2023’s “Whitsitt Chapel.” His southern-rock and hip-hop-inflected country songs are almost all about clawing toward some semblance of stability, which is an experience that informs a lot of his music, because it’s one he knows well. Jelly was in and out of prison starting as a teenager and into his mid-20s. He has dealt with personal loss and substance-abuse issues — both his own and that of his teenage daughter’s mother. He has also dealt with the professional despair of a long run to nowhere as an aspiring rapper. But that’s before he switched to singing and, beginning in 2021, started to hit it big.The musician — one half of a down-home power couple with his wife, Bunnie Xo, who hosts the popular Dumb Blonde podcast — will set off on a cross-country headlining arena tour later this month. He also has a new, highly-anticipated album, “Beautifully Broken,” scheduled for release this fall. He is, by any measure, a star — and still figuring out just what that means.Can you share some of the things that fans come up and tell you? I’ve heard it all, Bubba. I’ve heard everything from “Your music was played at my daughter’s funeral; she had an accidental overdose” to “Your song helped me get through rehab; I listened to ‘Save Me’ on repeat for 30 days straight.” Or “It was our morning song before we did our gratitude list.” Yeah, everything from funerals to hospitals to recovery centers. I’ve heard the good stories, too: “I got sober.” It’s crazy, the range of emotions.Is it ever hard for you to be the recipient of that? Nah, I feel honored that I have a purpose. I spent so much of my life being counterproductive to society that to be in a place where I’m able to help people has completely changed my mentality. More

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      Lainey Wilson’s Exhausting (but Rewarding) Country Music Hustle

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      The singer and songwriter struggled for years to break through. Now she’s staking a claim for herself — and other women in the genre — with a new album, “Whirlwind.”Lainey Wilson was born and raised in Baskin, La., population 210. Her dad is a fifth-generation farmer. “We grew corn, wheat, soybeans, oats. We did cotton back in the day,” she said proudly in a recent interview. While her ascent to country-music stardom means that her family’s finances are secure, she noted that lately there’s been a lack of rainfall in the northeast part of the state. “This year’s going to be pretty rough,” she added. “Farming has a lot of ups and downs. It’s very similar to the music business.”After years of struggle in Nashville, where she was repeatedly told she was “too country for country,” things are decidedly looking up for the 32-year-old singer-songwriter. In November, Wilson took home five Country Music Association Awards, including album of the year for her breakthrough, “Bell Bottom Country.” She also won the night’s most prestigious honor, entertainer of the year, beating out stadium-filling acts like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs, and becoming the first woman to win that prize since Taylor Swift in 2011.“It’s like I’ve been running for mayor for the past 13 years,” Wilson said of the relentless hustle required to land a publishing deal, to say nothing of scoring hits both solo and as a duet partner, a scene-stealing role on TV’s “Yellowstone” and now, a major C.M.A. achievement. She recalled the six-hour drives to gigs where the bar’s staff was the only audience, endless auditions in front of po-faced music executives, dispiriting meet-and-greets with radio programmers. “People could have cared less about me,” Wilson said with a good-natured smile. “I guess I was just too naïve to quit.”“I have always been blown away by Lainey’s work ethic,” Combs said in an email. The country star used to write songs with Wilson in her camper trailer, back when they were both Nashville greenhorns. “She’s impossible not to root for,” he added.Wilson believes that Nashville is “changing daily” and becoming more inclusive, but there’s plenty of work still to be done.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesWilson had taken a couple of days off from a cross-country tour in support of her Aug. 23 album, “Whirlwind,” to attend the Los Angeles premiere of the summer blockbuster “Twisters.” Its soundtrack features her wistful “Out of Oklahoma,” a ruminative ballad about never forgetting where you came from (“And if I ever get a little too far/I remember where I left my heart”).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Shelby Lynne Meets Her Moment, Again

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      Twenty-five years after the album that reshaped her career, the singer and songwriter unlocked a new creative groove, with the help of an all-female team in Nashville.Shelby Lynne left Nashville both physically and metaphorically behind two and a half decades ago.In 2000, she released “I Am Shelby Lynne,” a genre-defying declaration of self that helped land her first Grammy, for best new artist. She’d spent a decade in Nashville, putting out five albums that never quite harnessed her sweltering Southern soul, then moved to Palm Springs, Calif., and jettisoned country music. While she found success with the bluesy rock and retro pop of “I Am,” produced by Bill Bottrell (Sheryl Crow’s “Tuesday Night Music Club”), she floundered in a life of her own intractable artistic standards, bad decisions and drinking.Back in Tennessee, sitting on the patio of Soho House, the Nashville outpost of the British social club, in rust-colored Dickies overalls over a crisp white dress shirt and tailored black jacket, she laughed, a slow-rolling molasses tumble, looking back at it all.“I’d come back here to be near Sissy,” Lynne, 55, explained in a slow, vowels-extended drawl, referring to her younger sister, the singer and songwriter Allison Moorer. “I was always kind of making records in California, but I thought that part of my life was over. I just wanted to write some songs, maybe get a publishing deal, which I never had.”Nashville being Nashville, the creative hive often rises to meet legacy talent. With the 25th anniversary of “I Am” on the horizon, Katie McCartney of Monument Records offered to reissue it. But Lynne also had new songs on her mind, which she was starting to realize with help from the country stalwart Ashley Monroe, whose introductions led to female collaborations that proved to be wildly different from anything Lynne had experienced. The result is “Consequences of the Crown,” her 17th studio album, due Friday.Lynne’s all-woman core creative team for the LP includes Monroe, Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town and the producer and engineer Gena Johnson. Lynne, in the midst of heartbreak, poured her emotions into songs, often live in the studio surrounded by this supportive tribe.“This is maybe the record everybody wanted after I made ‘I Am,’” she said. “Maybe all that time between was getting ready for this one, you know?”Eric Ryan Anderson for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Shawn Mendes Returns Full of Questions, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Leon Bridges, Ravyn Lenae, Kelsea Ballerini and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Shawn Mendes, ‘Why Why Why’“I stepped off the stage with nothing left,” Shawn Mendes sings, referencing his headline-generating 2022 decision to cancel a scheduled world tour and focus on his mental health. The stomping, acoustic-guitar driven “Why Why Why,” from his forthcoming album “Shawn,” represents a new level of candor and pathos from the 26-year-old pop star, who has returned to the spotlight but admits he still doesn’t have all the answers: “I don’t know why, why, why, why,” he croons as the instrumentation builds around him, offering fleeting catharsis in the form of a folksy, singalong chorus. LINDSAY ZOLADZLeon Bridges, ‘Peaceful Place’Leon Bridges, the singer and songwriter based in Texas, sets aside past troubles to enjoy unexpected contentment in “Peaceful Place.” His recent collaborations with Khruangbin have moved him away from soul revivalism toward hybrid, open-ended grooves. “Peaceful Place” hints at funk and Nigerian Afrobeat, with a steady-ticking beat and a hopping bass line as he reassures everyone, “I found something no one can take away.” JON PARELESRavyn Lenae, ‘Genius’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Post Malone Went Country (Carefully, With a Beer in His Hand)

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      Post Malone emerged from a porta-potty on a recent Wednesday afternoon to meet his new Nashville public.The face-tattooed pop chameleon had been cruising slowly across downtown, hidden on the back of an 18-wheeler that carried just a couple of speakers, some beers, two to-go toilets and a pair of superstars. As usual, Post — born Austin Post and known as one or the other, or the cuter variation, Posty — had brought a friend along as a local emissary.So when the truck’s flatbed cover fell and the bathroom doors opened, revealing both him and the burly country hitmaker Luke Combs, everyone in sight — giddy children and grizzled grandfathers, wasted tourists and jaded locals — lost their minds as planned.“Posty, we love you!” fans shouted from cars and skateboards amid a sea of raised cellphones. Professional cameras rolled, too, the herds thickening down Broadway as the truck eased past Nudie’s Honky Tonk, Jason Aldean’s Kitchen and the Whiskey River Saloon.Like Nashville Pied Pipers, the once-unlikely duo were using the stunt to film a last-minute, lightly slapstick music video for Post’s new single featuring Combs, “Guy for That.”Post Malone theorized that the pace and over-digitalization of modern life made people crave “simpler lifestyles” and “more guitar.” “I think they miss, you know, some authenticity,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hear Billie Eilish and Charli XCX’s ‘Guess’ Remix

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      Hear tracks by MJ Lenderman, Miranda Lambert, ASAP Rocky featuring Jessica Pratt and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish, ‘Guess’In the slightly less than two months since its release, Charli XCX’s sixth album, “Brat,” has transformed from a clubby cult classic into a mainstream phenomenon, fueled by a sense of cool so elusive yet galactically powerful that a CNN panel recently convened to discuss, with magnificent awkwardness, its potential impact on the presidential election. Strange times indeed. Luckily, Charli is still keeping it light, not allowing the new patina of Importance to cloud the fact that “Brat Summer” is, above all things, about messy, hedonistic fun. So let’s just say that the latest “Brat”-era remix, the deliriously suggestive “Guess,” is unlikely to appear in an upcoming Kamala Harris campaign ad.“You wanna guess the color of my underwear,” Charli winks atop an electroclash beat produced by the indie-sleaze revivalist the Dare, who interpolates Daft Punk’s 2005 single “Technologic”; Dylan Brady of 100 gecs also has a writing credit. It’s an underground loft party crashed by a bona fide A-lister: Billie Eilish, making her first guest appearance on another artist’s song, purring a playfully flirtatious verse that ends, “Charli likes boys but she knows I’d hit it.” It’s refreshing to once again hear Eilish on a beat as dark and abrasive as those on her debut album, but she and her brother and collaborator Finneas know they are ultimately on Charli’s turf, reverently endorsing the trashy aesthetic and if-you-know-you-know humor of “Brat.” “You wanna guess if we’re serious about this song,” Charli intones at the end, as Eilish lets out a conspiratorial giggle. Against all odds, reports of Brat Summer’s death seem to have been slightly exaggerated. LINDSAY ZOLADZOkaidja Afroso, ‘Kasoa’Okaidja Afroso, from Ghana, sings about cycles of nature and human life in his childhood language, Gãdangmé, on his new album, “Àbòr Édiń.” But his music exults in modern technology and cultural fusions. The six-beat handclaps and bass riffs of “Kasoa” look toward Moroccan gnawa music, while the vocal harmonies exult in computerized multitracking. “There will be meetings and partings, and joys and sorrows,” he sings. “May we journey with ease, and hope to cross paths again in another lifetime.” JON PARELESWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dave Loggins, Who Wrote Hits for Himself and Others, Dies at 76

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      After tasting fame with “Please Come to Boston” in 1974, he became a major Nashville songwriter. He also wrote the theme to the Masters golf tournament.Dave Loggins, a chart-topping Nashville songwriter for the likes of Kenny Rogers and the Oak Ridge Boys who also notched his own Top 10 pop hit with the wistful “Please Come to Boston” and wrote the enduring theme for the Masters golf tournament, died on July 10 in Nashville. He was 76.His death, in a hospice facility, was confirmed by his son Kyle, who did not specify the cause.Mr. Loggins, a second cousin of the pop star Kenny Loggins, released five albums as a solo artist in the 1970s, but he scored only one hit single himself.“Please Come to Boston,” a soft-rock weeper about a rambling man trying to woo a lover to follow him as he chases his dreams in one city after another, climbed to No. 1 on Billboard’s easy listening chart and No. 5 on the magazine’s Hot 100 in 1974. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for best pop vocal performance by a male artist — the first of Mr. Loggins’s four Grammy nominations.For Mr. Loggins, the song almost seemed to have divine origins. In a 2021 interview with the singer-songwriter and vocal coach Judy Rodman on the podcast “All Things Vocal,” he said he wrote the song early in his career “with chords I had never even played before.”“There was this beautiful, glowing feeling that came over me,” he added, “a godlike feeling, that said, ‘Here, go ahead and play, I’ll move your fingers.’”While “Please Come to Boston” was his only mainstream hit, Mr. Loggins was considered anything but a one-hit wonder in country music circles: He wrote hits for Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker, Wynonna Judd and Toby Keith, among others.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More