Each week the Wide Open Country staff rounds up our favorite newly released country and Americana songs. Here are five new songs we can't stop listening to this week:
"Apartment #9," Mark Chesnutt and Georgette Jones
Mark Chesnutt's recent Numbers on the Jukebox EP includes a cover of the original ACM Song of the Year from 1966, "Apartment #9." The Fuzzy Owen, Fern Foley and Johnny Paycheck co-write became a country standard thanks in large part to the boost it got as Tammy Wynette's first big label single. Decades later, Chesnutt revisited one of the best songs of its time with Wynette and George Jones' daughter, Georgette Jones. If you love both classic country and '90s country, this creative decision by Chesnutt crosses those streams masterfully.
—Bobby Moore
"Mean Something," Caylee Hammack Feat. Tenille Townes and Ashley McBryde
Caylee Hammack jockeys for an enviable position among country music's most promising young talents with new album If It Wasn't For You, and she's not riding alone. The album includes a previously heard duet with Reba McEntire plus "Mean Something," a collaboration with newly crowned ACM New Female Artist of the Year Tenille Townes and Ashley McBryde, a country singer poised for even bigger awards.
The "Small Town Hypocrite" singer and her famous friends' "Mean Something" touches on finding purpose while chasing hard to catch dreams in a "10 year town" like Nashville.
—Bobby Moore
"The Last Cowboy (At the Bowling Alley)," Karen Jonas
Fans of John Prine and Nanci Griffith will love Karen Jonas' charming character sketch "The Last Cowboy (At the Bowling Alley)," a tune about an old cowpoke in search of his former glory. The song is the latest release from the Virginia singer-songwriter's forthcoming album The Southwest Sky and Other Dreams (out August 28).
— Bobbie Jean Sawyer
"Long Distance," Liz Longley
Nashville-based singer-songwriter Liz Longley captures the anguish of growing apart from your partner on the gorgeous, sorrowful "Long Distance," from her new album Funeral For My Past.
— Bobbie Jean Sawyer
"Thick Georgia Woman," Elizabeth Cook
Elizabeth Cook pays tribute to strong women on the rollicking "Thick Georgia Woman."
"'Thick Georgia Woman' is a song that is super close to my heart," Elizabeth Cook said in a press release. "When I say 'thick,' I mean strong in fortitude, devout, loyal, formidable. It's my light to shine on their story...my plea to consider any and all women, but southern women especially, who grapple with keeping tradition alive and family units intact, while also trying to find something to hold onto for themselves."
The music video features Atlanta-based dancer and entertainer Blondie Strange and singer-songwriter Kevn Kinney.
— Bobbie Jean Sawyer
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