Mavis Staples, Rosanne Cash, Rhiannon Giddens Set to Appear at Americana Music Assn.’s Thriving Roots Virtual Conference

Brian Mansfield “American Idol” finalist and contemporary Christian singer Chris Sligh has COVID-19 and has developed pneumonia. Sligh, who finished tenth on the 2007 season of “Idol,” shared a picture of himself in a Nashville-area healthcare facility on Instagram late Monday, but was back at home Tuesday night.Sligh began exhibiting symptoms in late June that worsened over the weekend.

#BeyondLegendary.

Chris Morris Music ReporterSinger, songwriter and instrumentalist Charlie Daniels, whose fusion of traditional country and Southern rock made him a popular cross-genre artist during the ‘70s and ‘80s, died Monday of a hemorrhagic stroke in Hermitage, Tenn.

Amid a rise in novel coronavirus cases across multiple states, CAA will keep offices in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville shuttered through the end of the year. The agency had previously set an August 1 timetable for a decision to return to its major offices, including London.

Bruce Haring pmc-editorial-managerAs coronavirus cases continue to rise across the nation, CAA has decided to postpone plans for an Aug. 1 return to its offices in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville.The agency has other offices in the US and worldwide, but it is unclear if those will also be on lockdown.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterCreative Artists Agency is shuttering multiple domestic locations through the end of the year, as coronavirus cases explode in the United States, Variety has learned.A late-hitting internal memo to staff informed agents and others that CAA headquarters in Los Angeles, as well as offices in Nashville and New York, will remain closed as the pandemic surges.“In carefully studying a wide range of factors, with employee health and safety as a top priority, we have

The morning after a night of protest in downtown Nashville, Matt Stell snuck into the Fleet Street Pub in the city’s Printer’s Alley, occupying the space for 12 hours as he portrayed 13 different characters for the video to “If I Was a Bar.”

Chris Willman Music WriterThe storm may have been too strong for most music-biz awards events or conferences to go on in anything resembling their traditional form this year, but the Americana Music Association likes to think of itself as, well, more rooted than that.

Ryan Reynolds is pledging $50,000 in a new challenge to conserve the Great Bear Rainforest.

Matt Signore will be leaving the company at the end of the year, according to an internal memo sent by WMN chairman/CEO John Esposito today (June 30) that was obtained by Billboard.Signore has spent 15 years at the Warner Music Group in different capacities, and had been COO at Warner Nashville since January 2017. He first joined the major from Island Def Jam in 2005, as chief financial officer of Warner’s artist and label services division WEA.

Chase Rice has responded to criticism that his recent Nashville show appeared to ignore US social distancing guidelines.Despite a new spike in the USA’s coronavirus cases, Rice played a show for thousands of fans at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Tennessee on Saturday, June 27.

A posthumous live album from the Man in Black is on the way, courtesy of Jack White’s Third Man Records.

cases of COVID-19. After he posted a video on his Instagram Story showing of hundreds of people singing along to his recent hit "Eyes On You," captioning it "We back" and adding a smiley face sunglasses emoji, fans, peers and other bold-faced Nashville names including Kelsea Ballerini, Bobby Bones, Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton publicly criticized Chase and the venue, the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee, which is a former prison-turned-event center."Imagine being

Jeff Vasishta Listening to CeeLo Green’s new album, “CeeLo Green Is … Thomas Callaway,” is like getting into a time machine and heading to 1968 — not the ’68 of Motown or Stax but that of Elvis, Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash and Dusty Springfield.

When We All Vote for the event.The June 27 show--executive produced by Shawn Gee (Live Nation Urban), the Roots' Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq Trotter (Two One Five Entertainment) and Dan Parise (DPS)--will be hosted by Quest, Black Thought and Obama, with sets from The Roots, H.E.R., Roddy Ricch, Lil Baby, SZA, Kirk Franklin, Snoh Aalegra, Earthgang, G Herbo, Polo G, D Nice and Musiq Soulchild (backed by The Roots).Lin-Manuel Miranda, Chris Paul, Tom Hanks, Liza Koshy, Kerry Washington,

Grammy and CMA Award-winning songwriter Hillary Lindsey has signed an exclusive, worldwide co-publishing deal with Concord Music Publishing.

Calling it quits after eight months of marriage…

Black lives matter.

On May 15, Jason Isbell celebrated the release of his latest album, Reunions, with his band the 400 Unit by christening the stage at the newly-built Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville alongside his wife musician Amanda Shires. The music venue and bowling alley was scheduled to make its grand opening in March, but remained shuttered after a tornado hit Music City and the spread of COVID-19 halted live shows around the globe.

Comedian D.L. Hughley gave fans a scare on Friday night when he collapsed on stage in the middle of a joke at a Nashville comedy club.