Maddie & Tae return today with the release of their highly-anticipated new single “Friends Don’t,” the duo’s first song since signing with Mercury Nashville. Recognized for their “superlative songwriting” (Vulture) and “sweet harmonies” (Tennessean), “Friends Don’t” matches the pair’s celebrated harmonies with an intimate take on the anticipation and excitement around a friendship’s developing possibilities.

“Friends Don’t,” written by Maddie & Tae’s Maddie Marlow and Taylor Dye along with Justin Ebach and Jon Nite, is the first single from the Platinum-selling duo’s forthcoming sophomore album. Set to impact country radio May 14th, fans can listen to and download “Friends Don’t” now HERE and view the lyric video HERE.

“I hope our fans love this song as much as we do,” says Marlow.  “Anything we ever do we have them in mind and want to always create music they can connect with. We have a big story to tell on this album, and ‘Friends Don’t’ is the beginning of it all.”

“It feels so good to be back with a song like this,” adds Dye.  “This song is everything we’ve always been.  Honest, vulnerable and confident.  We can’t wait for our fans to hear the rest of the record!”

It feels like Christmas morning!! Our new single, #FriendsDont, is officially available now! Listen here: https://t.co/IQ1OQFQiKy pic.twitter.com/MjbbCdPfwu

— Maddie & Tae (@MaddieandTae) April 27, 2018

The new album will follow Maddie & Tae’s critically-acclaimed, “highly polished” (Billboard) debut, Start Here. Maddie & Tae garnered instant praise with their Platinum-selling debut and No. 1 hit, “Girl In A Country Song,” and became only the third female duo in 70 years to top the country airplay charts with their debut single. In addition to earning multiple ACM, CMA and CMT award nominations, the duo scored a CMA Award for Video of the Year for “Girl In A Country Song” and Radio Disney Music Awards for Favorite Country Artist and Favorite Country Song for “Fly,” the Top 10, Gold-selling follow-up single. Receiving praise from NPR, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Glamour and others, country music’s hottest stars including Dierks Bentley, Lee Brice and Brad Paisley took notice and welcomed Maddie & Tae on tour before the award-winning duo launched their own headlining Start Here Tour.

For the latest news, tour dates, music and more, visit www.MaddieandTae.com.

Kassi Ashton, one of Nashville’s most compelling rising stars, releases “Taxidermy” to all digital partners today. Bringing her characteristic swagger and take-no-prisoners attitude to the title, Kassi makes the Natalie Hemby, Luke Dick and Rosi Golan-written song entirely her own.

“I knew the second I heard ‘Taxidermy’ I had to have it,” says Kassi. “It’s the perfect second piece of me. Dad used to always say he didn’t have to take a gun to the door when my date came,” she explains; then adds slyly, “I had my own.”

Listen to “Taxidermy” HERE.

Huffington Post gives Kassi “mad props for her songwriting and stage presence” while CMT calls Kassi “fearless” and notes “her point of view is inspired and her storytelling knows no bounds.” Kassi recently released her auto-biographical song “California, Missouri,” where she paints an unconventional portrait of life growing up in her small town.

Kassi, named “Who to Watch” by Huffington Post, The Tennessean and radio personality Bobby Bones’ Class of 2018, also caught the attention of country superstar Keith Urban. Describing her as “such a unique, original creature,” Urban featured Kassi on his song “Drop Top” for his latest album Graffiti U.

For more information on Kassi, videos and music, visit www.KassiAshton.com.

Multi-platinum global superstar Carrie Underwood will release Cry Pretty, her first studio album on Capitol Records Nashville on September 14th.  The title track and lead single was released worldwide on April 11th and is the most added song at Country radio this week.  “Cry Pretty” has already topped the iTunes Top Songs charts in 12 countries and quickly racked up over 1.3 million streams in the U.S. with only two days of reporting. In addition to co-writing the single with Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, and Liz Rose (aka The Love Junkies), Carrie is co-producing her album with fellow writer/producer David Garcia.

Underwood says, “At this point in my career, I feel stronger and more creative than ever.  I think you can hear that in this new album.  It’s emotional, it’s soulful, it’s real, and we also have some fun on there too.  I hope everyone loves it as much as I have loved making it.”

On Sunday night at the 53rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards™, Underwood took home her 14^th career ACM Award for Vocal Event of the Year for “The Fighter,” her collaboration with Keith Urban, after bringing the audience to their feet with her emotional performance of “Cry Pretty.”  Billboard ranked the “vocal dynamo” performance as the best of the night, touting “this is how you do an award show performance” while Rolling Stone noted that Underwood “channeled her inner country-soul diva” during the “knockout rendition.”

Underwood, who is a seven-time Grammy Award winner, gives fans an intimate look inside her recording and co-producing process for Cry Pretty in this exclusive album trailer.

Photo Credit: Randee St. Nicholas

CARRIE UNDERWOOD emerged from the promise of her 2005 American Idol win to become a true multi-format, multi-media superstar, spanning achievements in music, television, and film. A seven-time GRAMMY® Award winner, she has sold 64 million records worldwide and recorded 26 #1 singles, 13 of which she co-wrote.  In 2013, the Grand Ole Opry member starred as Maria von Trapp in NBC’s three-hour holiday blockbuster, the Emmy®-winning The Sound of Music Live!, whose airings attracted 44 million viewers.  Her latest platinum studio album, Storyteller, produced four #1 hits.  2017 marked her fifth season as the voice of primetime television’s #1 program, Sunday Night Football and last November, she co-hosted the CMA Awards for the tenth consecutive year.  Earlier this year, she released the hit event anthem “The Champion” featuring Ludacris, which she wrote with Brett James, Chris DeStefano and Christopher Bridges PKA Ludacris and was produced by Jim Jonsin to open NBC’s Super Bowl and was incorporated into NBC’s coverage of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

www.carrieunderwoodofficial.com

www.carrieunderwood.fm

Facebook.com/CarrieUnderwood

Twitter: @carrieunderwood

Instagram: @CarrieUnderwood

Sam Hunt was at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday night (May 20^th) and picked up the BBMA for Top Country Song for the five-time platinum “Body Like a Back Road,” which he released last year. Sam is still humbled by the reaction of the song, which spent a record 34 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.

“It’s awesome to have a reaction like that from a song, because that song was kind of uncharted territory for me,” says Sam. “So, it almost felt like I was putting out my first record for the first time where you conceptualize this idea and you’ve already conceptualized the reaction that you expect to have to this a song and you just hope that it all comes true. And this exceeded those expectations by a long shot, so it was just really great. I was just really humbled by how many people were anticipating new music, because that really helped this song have legs and really get going.”

The Georgia native just released his new song, “Downtown’s Dead,” which he co-wrote with Josh Osborne, Shane McAnally, Zach Crowell and Charlie Handsome.

Kip Moore continues to make an international impression, wrapping a five-show, sold-out run across Australia to roaring crowds and fervent encores this past week, alongside co-headliner Lee Brice. Moore kicked off the stint down under as he “lit up the main stage” (North West Star) at The Winton Festival in Queensland (4/20) followed by enthralling packed houses in Brisbane, QLD (4/21), Newton, NSW (4/22), Tamworth, NSW (4/22) and coming to a close in Melbourne, VIC (4/25.) A unrelenting road warrior, Moore will continue his headlining PLEAD THE FIFTH across the US and Canada beginning 5/10.

Kip Moore recently released the “equal parts powerful, heartwarming and tear-jerking” (Entertainment Tonight) new music video for his new single “Last Shot.” The track is the second taken from his revered third studio album SLOWHEART and follows his fourth No. One hit “More Girls Like You.” “SLOWHEART,” is continuing to garner praise by critics across the country as Moore “blends the passion and connection for which he’s known with a new self-awareness that will speak to both commercial and underground audiences” (USA Today) as well as wrapping 2017 on multiple “Best Of” lists including Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, UpRoxx, Bobby Bones Show, Taste Of Country, Sounds Like Nashville, The Boot, PopMatters and Whiskey Riff. SLOWHEART follows the acclaim that surrounded Moore’s sophomore album WILD ONES heralded as “an impressively singular release from Music Row” by The Guardian and his PLATINUM debut album UP ALL NIGHT that spawned three No. One hit singles. For more information, visit kipmoore.net.

Darius Rucker joined Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night (May 24th) to salute the troops during Fleet Week. They re-wrote the lyrics to “Only Wanna Be With You,” the huge hit from Hootie and the Blowfish in 1995. The song became “Only Wanna Thank the Troops.”

Darius is poised to enter the top of the country charts with “For the First Time.”

Little Big Town will be honored at the Recording Academy’s Grammys on the Hill Awards Wednesday (April 18th) in Washington, DC for their support of music education.

Dierks Bentley is set to perform on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday (April 18th).

Alan Jackson’s Precious Memories Collection will be released on vinyl May 11th.

The Billboard Music Awards took place Sunday night (May 20th), and a  of your favorite country artists went home with trophies

Chris Stapleton won the Top Country Album Award for From A Room: Volume 1, and he also won the award for Top Country Male Artist.

https://twitter.com/UMGNashville/status/998293563640307713

Luke Bryan took home the award for Top Country Tour.

.@LukeBryanOnline knows how to throw a party! Congratulations on winning the award for Top Country Tour at the @BBMAs. Get your tickets to see him on tour this year: https://t.co/60cRBeO6KE #BBMAs pic.twitter.com/RATrJTx0Q1

— UMG Nashville (@UMGNashville) May 20, 2018

Sam Hunt picked up the award for Top Country Song for the multi-platinum, “Body Like a Back Road.”

Nothing like connecting to a song when it's coming from the person that created it. @SamHuntMusic said it best! #BBMAs pic.twitter.com/gZjPaYnhL7

— Billboard Music Awards (@BBMAs) May 21, 2018

I know that song like the back of my hand. @SamHuntMusic is taking home the #BBMAs for Top Country Song! pic.twitter.com/BfNZAFr5v2

— Billboard Music Awards (@BBMAs) May 21, 2018

Alan Jackson won for Top Christian Album for his Precious Memories Collection.

.@OfficialJackson was just awarded this year’s Top Christian Album at the@BBMAs for the “Precious Memories Collection”. Listen to it here: https://t.co/caOYkjDssn #BBMAs pic.twitter.com/mAoNWnimaI

— UMG Nashville (@UMGNashville) May 20, 2018

Brothers Osborne recorded much of their new album, Port Saint Joe, in a beach house in Florida, and one of the songs they tracked — “Shoot Me Straight” — was recorded live in front of a bunch of friends who came down to hang out.

“We had just been on the road for months. We had taken a bus from a gig to Port Saint Joe and unloaded our gear off of it, so we were kind of in the mindset of playing like a band and that’s what [producer Jay Joyce] wanted to capture,” says John Osborne. “And ‘Shoot Me Straight’ literally is just us jamming in a room. We had tracked that song a few different times over the two-week course of staying there, and one of the last nights we were there we had some friends all come down from Nashville and we just set up in the room. It was late at night. We had all been drinking and partying a little bit, and he wanted us to get in front of like our friends and jam, and that was the take. He wouldn’t let us fix anything. I’m glad that he didn’t because music these days it’s so perfect. I mean you can go back and fix everything all you want until the cows come home, but this record is a snapshot of just what happened. The four minutes in time — this is what happened and that’s it. And some of our favorite music listening to is that. It’s just a live moment that was captured in time and you can’t really recreate that.”

The reigning ACM and CMA Duo of the Year will perform Saturday (April 28th) at the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California, before heading overseas to tour the UK.