'This report will provide greater insight'

'I say there's a 30% chance'

Ringo Starr has a new country music album set for release on Jan. 10, and the legendary ex-Beatle appears to have recorded an LP that has more of a traditional country music sound than almost anything playing on contemporary country radio today or, for that matter, a good many of the songs feted Wednesday night at the 58th annual Country Music Association Awards. And the first two tracks Starr has released from “Look Up” are certainly more country than anything on Beyoncé’s overrated, pretend-country album “Cowboy Carter” released in late March, which was deservedly snubbed by the CMA. Perhaps not surprisingly, however, Beyoncé’s shutout has spawned baseless accusations of “racism”—the new last refuge of scoundrels. (More on that in a bit.) Beyoncé accepts the Innovator Award from Stevie Wonder at the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards in Los Angeles on April 1 after the release of her album “Cowboy Carter.” (Kevin Winter/Getty Images) To this old-school country music purist, Starr’s foray into country music is a welcome development, especially after listening to the “Hot 30 Weekend Countdown” on “The Highway,” Sirius-XM’s contemporary country channel, to get a sense of what country music today has become: It’s largely indistinguishable from jangly pop and rock, albeit in cowboy boots and ten-gallon hats and sung with a “y’all” affectation. For the most part, steel guitars, banjos, and mandolins are missing. My lament at the watering down of authentic country music reflects my personal Sturm und Twang. It stems from my decades-long love of twangy, old-school country music (the kind drenched with fiddles and steel guitars) that dates back to my senior year in high school, when I took a Greyhound bus 115 miles to see Charley Pride, Ronnie Milsap, and Gary Stewart in concert in Bangor, Maine. Two tracks from Starr’s forthcoming album were made available in mid-October for downloading ahead of the full LP’s release—perhaps strategically in hopes of getting mentioned at Wednesday night’s CMA awards show cohosted by singers Luke Bryan and Lainey Wilson and NFL legend Peyton Manning. That didn’t happen, but “Cowboy Carter”—released much earlier—didn’t get any recognition, either—much less any award nominations or trophies. (If it’s any consolation to Queen Bey, 91-year-old country legend Willie Nelson’s new album, “Last Leaf on the Tree,” also was not referenced at all.) Beyoncé’s deserved CMA shutout has less than nothing to do with her being black, though some in the legacy media and on social media alike are implying it’s due to—you guessed it—racism. Occam’s razor offers a much simpler explanation: One could stretch the definition of country music to the breaking point, and “Cowboy Carter” would still not qualify as country. As a former part-time DJ on a country music station much earlier in my career, I know C&W when I hear it, and I didn’t hear it on “Cowboy Carter.” What makes it more interesting, however, is the 2024 CMA awards’ snub came less than two weeks after the Recording Academy on Nov. 8 unveiled nominees for the 67th annual Grammy Awards, to be presented Feb. 2, and the Grammy nominators appear to have had an “eargasm” over “Cowboy Carter.” As the music industry trade publication Billboard magazine noted on Monday, “the differences in the two institutions’ approaches to country are even more glaring than in previous years. Houston native Beyoncé is the clearest example of the dichotomy. Her country-hybrid album, ‘Cowboy Carter,’ and seven of its tracks amassed 11 Grammy nominations, making her the leading finalist in the entire contest. Her portfolio includes entries in each of the four country-specific categories: best country song (‘Texas Hold ’Em’); best country album (‘Cowboy Carter’); best country solo performance (‘16 Carriages’); and best country duo/group performance (‘II Most Wanted,’ featuring Miley Cyrus).”   As a pop and R&B record, “Cowboy Carter” has sold several million copies, but Beyoncé shouldn’t win any country Grammys for it. The profanity-laced 17-track “Cowboy Carter” also includes a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” with its lyrics gratuitously rewritten, as well as two duets with Parton and two more with Willie Nelson. Still, none of it warrants treating “Cowboy Carter” as a country music album for awards purposes—or any other purpose, for that matter. None of its three Grammy-nominated singles even remotely qualifies as country music—which, I suppose, tells you all you need to know about the Grammys nominating committee’s apparent disdain for genuine country. By contrast, Starr’s first two releases from “Look Up”—“Time on My Hands” and “Thankful,” the latter featuring bluegrass virtuoso Alison Krauss—certainly offer up a more traditional country sound than “Texas Hold ’Em,” “16 Carriages,” or “II Most Wanted.” “Thankful” is smothered with steel guitar, whereas “Cowboy Carter” wouldn’t know a steel guitar if one fell in his lap. Music writers and others in their liberal echo chamber—reflexively and without evidence—suggest that the resistance by country music purists (like me) to Beyoncé’s non-country country music is somehow “racist.” They typically cite the minuscule number of black artists in the field, notably Darius Rucker, Mickey Guyton, Kane Brown, and Shaboozey. But that dearth is due less to “racism” on the part of the country music industry and its fandom than it is to career self-selection. Simply put, if more black singers pursued traditional country music careers, they would be welcomed in Nashville and beyond with open arms. Shaboozey—who had an enormous hit single, “The Bar Song (Tipsy)”—didn’t win either of the CMA awards he was up for, and that, too, was branded by his fans as racism on the part of the association, The New York Post reported. While “Tipsy” was in fact far closer to real country music than “Cowboy Carter,” it was as if the CMA judges were somehow obligated to give him one or both trophies. Newsflash: There were dozens of other nominees Wednesday, virtually all of them white, who also went home empty-handed. The country music “racism” charge is—and always has been, for decades now—a baseless canard, as Pride proved definitively across his 50-year career. He logged close to 80 singles on the country charts, with 52 of them making the Top 10 and 29 reaching No. 1, beginning in 1966. Further belying Shaboozey fans’ false accusations, Pride during his career won four CMA Awards: Entertainment of the Year in 1971; back-to-back Male Vocalist of the Year Awards in 1971 and 1972; and the 2020 Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. Legendary country singer Charley Pride attends the 54th annual CMA Awards on Nov. 11, 2020, in Nashville, Tennessee. He died a month later on Dec. 12, 2020, at age 86. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images) But I digress, again. Another thing that distinguishes old-school country music from today’s is this: Pride and most of the other big names in old-school country music had immediately recognizable voices. Within a few seconds of a song being played on the radio, you knew instantly who was singing—be it Merle Haggard, George Jones, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Conway Twitty, and countless others. In like fashion, Loretta Lynn’s and Tammy Wynette’s voices wouldn’t be mistaken for those of, say, Crystal Gayle (Lynn’s kid sister), Emmylou Harris, or Donna Fargo. Even the groups back then—the Statler Brothers, Alabama, and the Oak Ridge Boys (the latter among the awards presenters Wednesday night)—all had unmistakable sounds. Neotraditionalists George Strait and Alan Jackson, who burst on to the country music scene in 1981 and 1987, respectively, captured the angst I feel with their 2000 duet “Murder on Music Row.” It lamented the compromising, by the execs in the record company C-suites, of the distinctive honky-tonk sound in search of broader audiences—and, more importantly, revenues. (Strait—who was presented with a CMA Lifetime Achievement Award—has sold the second-most albums ever by a country singer, behind only Garth Brooks, proving that kind of compromise wasn’t and isn’t necessary.) But this week, listening to that Top 30 countdown of today’s country music, I was struck by how most of today’s “country” artists are all but vocally indistinguishable from one another. One final observation about the CMA Awards: Whatever else one can say about Jelly Roll and Post Malone, they aren’t really country singers, at least not by traditional notions of the genre. (And by the way, what’s up with their face tattoos? Are they aspiring to become Latin American drug gang members?) As for Starr, whose country bona fides trace back to his lead vocals on the Beatles’ cover of Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally” in 1964, he will be playing two nights at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium the week after his album drops in January. Maybe “Look Up” will then garner some award nominations from the rival Academy of Country Music at its 60th annual awards ceremony next May 8. Ex-Beatle Ringo Starr unveils his new country album, “Look Up,” on Nov. 15 in Los Angeles, adding country “starr” to his resume. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images) Until then, I’m going to take the off-ramp from “The Highway” back Sirius-XM’s “Willie’s Roadhouse” channel, where twangy old-school country rules the airwaves and where—to borrow a line from Nelson’s late BFF Waylon Jennings—“Bob Wills Is Still the King.” The post Country Music Awards’ Snub of Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Wasn’t ‘Racist.’ It Just Isn’t Country. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

When Trump was declared the victor in the 2024 election, Joe Biden surprised everyone with his cordiality toward his political opponent — the man he’s been calling Hitler and a fascist for years. The two presidents sat down and shook hands, and Biden congratulated Trump on his victory and promised a “smooth transition” of power. Sara Gonzales, however, thinks this was all an act. Biden’s actions following his faux goodwill toward Trump suggest that he’s actually trying to sabotage the country before the 47th president’s inauguration. “Capping off his list of failures before he just rides off into the sunset to his nursing home — he's weakening immigration policy, and he's seemingly launching World War III,” she says. “Just in the last week he has … escalated the war immensely with Ukraine and Russia’s direct involvement with the United States.” On top of that, he’s “moved to forgive $4.7 billion in United States loans to Ukraine,” Sara recounts. Further, “according to an anonymous senior Biden official, the administration plans to push forward to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible before Biden's term ends in February,” Sara reads from a Reuters report. “Why wouldn't you guys do that before if that's what you wanted to do?” she asks. The answer seems obvious. Biden is intentionally throwing monkey wrenches in the system before Trump assumes office. And yet it gets even worse. “As all of that's going on, Joe Biden launches a new app for ICE” that allows illegal immigrants to “bypass an in-person meeting” at an ICE office by digitally checking in on the app. The app doesn’t screen for past arrests or outstanding warrants, and it doesn’t collect GPS locations of the users. “They press a button that says ‘I super duper pinky promise that I am the person that I'm checking in as and also I'm not a criminal and also I am where I say I am,’ and they're just like, ‘cool,”’ says Sara in utter disbelief. “They're also loosening regulations on the electronic monitoring of the released illegals,” she adds. “Illegals can contest monitoring and tracking and request review at any time and then demand that … they are downgraded or terminated entirely, so that we don't get to track them.” “I can't fathom any reason why [Joe Biden] would be doing this with 59 days left to go unless it was just — I'm going to f*** things up as much as I can for you. Good luck to you, enjoy World War III and a bunch of acts of terror on your own soil, and I'm going to go to the nursing home and eat pudding now,” Sara lambastes. “They are just interested in, like you said, causing as much chaos and destruction as possible,” Blaze Media digital strategist Logan Hall agrees. “This is what the left does.” To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above. Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

A cabaret singer from Kansas City, Missouri, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after creating child pornography and selling it on OnlyFans and another site, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. 25-year-old Wyatt Christopher Maxwell was arrested in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he was living under an assumed name, according to a press release from federal officials. 'The court recommended that he be sent to federal prisons in Colorado or Texas so that the convicted child pornographer can receive "gender affirming care" as a non-binary transgender person.'The police department of Overland Park, Kansas, was tipped off in 2021 that Maxwell was producing child pornography with a 16-year-old and uploading the content to OnlyFans as well as other sites known for selling pornography. Police said when they questioned the teenager that the victim said Maxwell had produced videos with the victim for months at his residence as well as a nearby park. When Maxwell was interviewed by police, he admitted to producing the videos and uploading them to various sites in order to garner between $3k to $10k per month from subscribers. Investigators found dozens of videos of child pornography on Maxwell's phone, including 96 videos with the child victim. They estimate that Maxwell made more than $50k in total from selling the videos online. Maxwell pled guilty on April 17 to one count of attempting to produce child pornography. U.S. District Judge Roseann A. Ketchmark sentenced him to 20 years in prison without parole and ordered him to pay a fine of $10k. He must also register as a sex offender upon release from prison. Reduxx reported that Maxwell sang as a cabaret singer to mainly gay male audiences in Mexico and had a very public profile under the assumed name of "Louis Whitaker." In one post on Whitaker's Instagram account, he advertised the sale of penis-shaped popsicles. Officials dropped other charges of distribution of child pornography, transportation of a minor, and possession of child pornography against Maxwell to obtain his plea agreement. The court recommended that he be sent to federal prisons in Colorado or Texas so that the convicted child pornographer can receive "gender-affirming care" as a nonbinary transgender person. MSNBC host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki opined recently that the threat of the transgender agenda was so infinitesimal as to not even be worth of debate. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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