With LANCO

Eli Young Band
What goes around comes around, and nearly 25 years since their founding in Denton, Texas, multi-Platinum country band Eli Young Band have come home.

Led by an unmistakable vocal and bringing a Texas-rock edge to modern country, the never-changing lineup of Mike Eli, James Young, Jon Jones, and Chris Thompson have spent two-plus decades on the run, growing from hometown heroes into globe-trotting, chart-topping pioneers. Yet in all that time, EYB never forgot its raising, and today the foursome reclaim the spirit behind their success.

Returning to their independent roots, the bold creative defiance that launched them into the mainstream – and in many ways to their old stomping grounds – it’s a new chapter driven by experience and a million miles of wisdom, from a band of brothers still very much in their prime.

“We started this thing when we were like 20 years old, and it’s been such a crazy road and such a longer road than any of us could have conceptualized at the time,” says Jones. “I think right now feels a little full circle, in a really nice way.”

“Now, we get to step back into our Texas shoes,” Eli agrees. “I think this new stuff finds us reaching deep into our past as a band. We’re remembering where the magic was – all those songs we wanted to record for our Level record, that felt way too edgy for Country Radio at the time.”

Indeed, after becoming icons of Texas’ vibrant college-bar scene – and then packing arenas all over the state (without label support) – that Level album from 2005 landed like a live wire, injecting EYB into the mainstream. They followed in 2008 with their Gold-certified breakout “Always the Love Songs” and Jet Black & Jealous, one of three career Billboard Top 5 albums which include the Number One 10,000 Towns and Platinum Life At Best.

Likewise, back-to-back Number One singles came with the 5X Platinum “Crazy Girl” in 2011 and 3X Platinum “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” (2012), plus the Platinum Number One “Drunk Last Night” and 2X Platinum Number One “Love Ain’t” after that. All along they kept the intensity of their live shows front and center, and with a following which now includes more than 1.4 million Facebook followers, 2.2 million monthly Spotify listeners and more, it’s time to get back to the point.

Ready to follow up 2022’s Love Talking, the band have returned to Panhandle House Studio in their hometown of Denton – the same studio where Level was born – bringing new tunes and new excitement along with them. All co-written as a band or with long-trusted collaborators, a fresh batch of songs return EYB to the raw, grassroots energy and emotional sting of their early work, geared for the stage and recorded without digital tricks.

For the band, being independent again for the first time in years isn’t a challenge, it’s a reward – and they took the chance to embrace not just renewed creative freedom, but the fun of their self contained live-band philosophy.

“Going back to Panhandle House where we recorded Level, it feels like we got to remind ourselves why we started making the kind of music we make,” Eli says. “When this music comes out, I think fans will know it is 100% coming from us.”

“Honestly, going to Panhandle House feels like going back to your childhood house in a way,” Jones notes. “It just evokes these memories, like this slightly-younger version of ourselves comes out.”

“One thing that’s really special is we’ve come full circle and remember that energy, but we’re also older and wiser,” Thompson adds. “We have years of studio, songwriting and performing experience under our belt, so we have more of a honed edge going in. That’s a really cool advantage.”

The comfort level is plainly evident. Exploring new corners of their patented sound by day, and going home to their families each night, the band were free to bring every ounce of the last 25 years to bear. Tracks like the lead single “Home In Hometown” are proof, featuring all the elements that made EYB what it is – from the electric vocal delivery to the deeply textured sonics and soulful theme.

A true-to-experience ballad of life on the highway, “Home In Hometown” stands as a heart-on-their-sleeve tribute to those the band loves most – and what they’ve learned from 20+ years away. While atmospheric guitars and a steady rhythmic pulse capture a sense of anticipation, another euphoric chorus helps the band unpack what “home” really means.

“I was digging deep into our Texas roots,” Eli says of the modern-classic midtempo. “I wanted to write something that felt like Pat Green or Jack Ingram would cut. And when you travel like we do, a lot of times you’re thinking about coming home and being with your family – but, it’s almost like if they meet you on the road, anywhere can be home. It just feels right. I wanted to capture that.”

More new tunes rolled out as their 25th anniversary arrived, with the band continuing to celebrate an EYB homecoming. The band’s newest album Strange Hours arrived on August 1, 2025 and features 13 songs – all co-written by Eli Young Band members. Jimmy Robbins and Eric Arjes produced 12 of the 13 tracks, while “Bad Luck” was produced by Julian Raymond and Scott Borchetta. From feel-good singalongs and heart melting wedding anthems to pure, untamable romance and clever comebacks of love, they show the same stage-rocking Texas-country hit makers fans know and love, undaunted and with new maturity baked in. We all know seasons change, but if you pay attention long enough, things have a way of coming back around.

“It’s been a blessing just to be able to do this for so long, and over our career we’ve seen a lot of bands come and go,” Young says. “It feels it’s family, and we can take that with us as we go down this next part of the road.”

“Our music, since it’s been the four of us making it from day one, has such a strong through line,” Jones agrees. “The way we sounded in the beginning, that’s the way we’re going to sound in the end.”

“There is no A&R, there’s no label head. There’s nobody saying, ‘Maybe you should do this, maybe you should push that,’” Eli explains.

“Yeah, we’ve got no one to blame,” Jones adds with a laugh. “Honestly, we just want people to know we still absolutely love making music, and this comes from a place of passion. Life is good and we’ve got stuff to say, we’ve got this thing we’ve built. I feel like we’re in a good place.”

LANCO:
Formed nearly a decade ago, LANCO has cemented itself as one of country music’s most
dynamic acts. Their debut album, Hallelujah Nights, landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Top
Country Albums chart and featured the 2X Platinum hit “Greatest Love Story” and the
Platinum-certified “Born to Love You.” Their discography also includes EPs Lessons Learned,
Honky Tonk Hippies, and Run, Run Baby. With their upcoming sophomore album, We’re Gonna Make It (Riser House Records), LANCO continues to evolve with a fresh and authentic sound. The band has been nominated for multiple awards, including Country Music Association, American Music Awards, iHeart Radio Music Awards, and Academy of Country Music Awards, where they won New Duo/Group of the Year. Their upcoming headline trek, the We’re Gonna Make It Tour, kicks off in Minneapolis, MN in February 2025. In addition to headlining their own dates, LANCO has shared the stage with Miranda Lambert, Luke Combs, Dierks Bentley, and Kane Brown.

When you wake up and want to put a smile on your face, you think of the songs that always manage to reach down and touch your soul the moment you hear the first note. The Marshall Tucker Band is one such group that continues to have a profound level of impact on successive generations of listeners who’ve been "Searchin’ for a Rainbow" and found it perfectly represented by this tried-and-true Southern institution over the decades. “I’ve been in tune with how music can make you feel, right from when I was first in the crib,” explains lead vocalist and bandleader Doug Gray, who’s been fronting the MTB since the very beginning. “I was born with that. And I realized it early on, back when I was a little kid and my mom and dad encouraged me to get up there and sing whatever song came on the jukebox. It got to the point where people were listening to me more than what was on the jukebox! There’s a certain gift I found I could share, whether I was in front of five people or 20,000 people. I was blessed with that ability and I’m thankful I can share with others."

The Marshall Tucker Band came together as a young, hungry, and quite driven six-piece outfit in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1972, having duly baptized themselves with the name of a blind piano tuner after they found it inscribed on a key to their original rehearsal space — and they’ve been in tune with tearing it up on live stages both big and small all across the globe ever since. Plus, the band’s mighty music catalog, consisting of more than 20 studio albums and a score of live releases, has racked up multi-platinum album sales many times over. A typically rich MTB setlist is bubbling over
with a healthy dose of hits like the heartfelt singalong “Heard It in a Love Song,” the insistent pleading of “Can’t You See” (the signature tune of MTB’s late co-founding lead guitarist and then-principal songwriter Toy Caldwell), the testifying “Fire on the Mountain,” the wanderlust gallop of “Long Hard Ride,” and the explosive testimony of “Ramblin,’” to name but a few.

Indeed, the secret ingredient to the ongoing success of The Marshall Tucker Band’s influence can be seen and felt far and wide throughout many mainstream digital outlets (Netflix, Amazon, etc.). In essence, it’s this inimitable down-home sonic style that helped make the MTB the first truly progressive Southern band to grace this nation’s airwaves — the proof of which can be found within the grooves and ever-shifting gears of “Take the Highway,” the first song on their self-titled April 1973 debut album on Capricorn Records, The Marshall Tucker Band. “We had the commonality of having all grown up together in Spartanburg,” explains Gray about his original MTB bandmates, guitar wizard Toy Caldwell and his brother, bassist Tommy Caldwell, alongside rhythm guitarist George McCorkle, drummer Paul T. Riddle, and flautist/saxophonist Jerry Eubanks. “The framework for Marshall Tucker’s music is more like a spaceship than a house,” Gray continues, “because you can look out of a lot of windows and see a variety of things that show where we’ve been and what we’ve done, and how we’ve travelled through time to bring those experiences out in all of our songs.”

The Marshall Tucker Band’s influence can be felt far and wide through many respected contemporaries and the artists who’ve followed the path forged by their collective footsteps and footstomps. “MTB helped originate and personify what was to become known as Southern rock, and I was privileged to watch it all come together in the ’70s, night after night,” said the legendary late Charlie Daniels. “In fact, The Charlie Daniels Band has played more dates with The Marshall Tucker Band over the past years than any other band we’ve ever worked with. Even after all these years — after the tragedies, the miles, the personnel changes, and the many developments in the music business.” Daniels added that he never got tired of seeing his MTB brothers on the road: “Whenever Doug Gray walks into my dressing room with that big ol’ smile of his and then we hug each other and sit and talk for a while, the evening is complete.”

“I remember seeing Marshall Tucker and The Outlaws play together in Jacksonville many years ago, when I was just a kid,” recalls Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer Johnny Van Zant. “And I heard them all over the radio back then too. They were just so cool and so unique that I fell in love with the band, and I also fell in love with the music. Having them open for us on all those dates was like a dream come true, and they’re still as good as I’ve ever seen them. It brought back a lot of memories for me, because I really looked up to those guys when I was first starting out.”

Ed Roland, the lead vocalist and chief songwriter for Collective Soul, adds “The Marshall Tucker Band had a big influence on me and they still do.” Roland, who’s lived the majority of his life in and around Atlanta, also proudly points out that his band’s biggest hit, “Shine,” owes a clear debt to the musical structure of “Can’t You See,” and he’ll often start off by singing the opening line to that song — “I’m gonna take a freight train” — whenever Collective Soul performs “Shine” live. “We don’t want to stray from what we grew up listening to,” Roland continues. “I think that’s something important for people to hear. It’s just who we are, and I don’t think we should run from it. Hopefully, people see that southern connection to the bands we love like Marshall Tucker in our music.”

Doug Gray sees no end to the road that lies ahead for The Marshall Tucker Band, whose legacy is being carried forward by the man himself and his current bandmates, drummer B.B. Borden (Mother’s Finest, The Outlaws), bassist/vocalist Ryan Ware, keyboardist/saxophonist/flautist/vocalist Marcus James Henderson, guitarist/vocalist Chris Hicks, and guitarist/ vocalist Rick Willis. “You know, I think it was Toy Caldwell’s dad who said, ‘There’s more to gray hair than old bones,’ and we still have a lot of stories yet to tell,” Gray concludes. “People ask me all the time what I’m gonna do when I turn 80, and I always say, ‘The same thing that we’re continuing to do now.’ We’re road warriors, there’s no doubt about that — and I don’t intend to slow down.” May the MTB wagon train continue running like the wind on a long hard ride for many more years to come. One thing we absolutely know for sure: If you heard it in a Marshall Tucker Band song, it certainly can’t be wrong.

—Mike Mettler, this ol’ MTB chronologist

Back On The Blacktop Tour

It is one of the most storied careers in modern music. Clint Black surged to superstardom as part of the fabled Class of '89, reaching #1 with five consecutive singles from his triple- platinum debut, Killin' Time. He followed that with the triple-platinum Put Yourself in My Shoes, and then a string of platinum and gold albums throughout the '90s. Perhaps most impressively, Clint wrote or co-wrote every one of his more than three dozen chart hits, including "A Better Man," "Killin’ Time," "When My Ship Comes In," "A Good Run of Bad Luck," "Summer's Comin'," "Like the Rain" and "Nothin' But the Taillights," part of a catalog that produced 22 #1 singles and made him one of the most successful singer/songwriters of the modern era.

Along the way, Clint has sold over 20 million records, earned more than a dozen gold and platinum awards in the U.S. and Canada including a GRAMMY, landed nearly two dozen major awards and nominations, and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition to touring across North America, Clint hosted his own talk show, Talking in Circles, on Circle TV.

Colt Ford’s bringing all your favorite country-rap hits to the stage at Foxwoods Resort Casino!

Trailblazers veer off the beaten path and break every rule along the way. Colt Ford consistently blazes his own trail. By doing so, the Georgia singer, songwriter, rapper, musician, performer, and co-founder and co-owner of Average Joes Entertainment keeps up pace as country’s preeminent independent maverick. By 2019, Colt built a series of staggering successes as he rose to mainstream notoriety. He notched five consecutive Top 10 debuts on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart with Declaration of Independence bowing at #1 in 2012. Two years later, Thanks for Listening ascended to the Top 10 of the Top 200, with the album reaching #1 on Billboard Rap & Independent charts. Meanwhile, he lobbed six songs onto the Hot Country Songs Chart with “Back” [feat. Jake Owen] going Top 40. Among many accolades, Ford received a nomination in the category of “Vocal Event of the Year” at the Academy of Country Music Awards for “Cold Beer” with Jamey Johnson. Selling over 3 million albums, attracting millions of followers on social media and hitting1 billion-plus streams, the country rap pioneer’s dynamic discography spans collaborations with everyone from Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, and Jermaine Dupri to members of No Doubt, Lit, and Lady Antebellum. Additionally, he co-wrote Jason Aldean’s #1 hit “Dirt Road Anthem” and Brantley Gilbert’s #1 hit “Country Must Be Country Wide” as a behind-the-scenes force in the studio. Moreover, Ford’s solo tradition of genre-blurring continued on Love Hope Faith in 2017 by way of cuts such as “Reload” [feat. Taylor Ray Holbrook]. Ford’s latest project, Must Be The Country, which emerged amidst his courageous battle against eye cancer, showcases his deep vocal range and impeccable delivery. Following a rigorous surgery to eliminate the tumor, Ford's resilience shone through as he confronted another obstacle: a diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis, an autoimmune disorder impacting facial muscles and neural connections. Undeterred by his personal health challenges, Ford has remained an inspiration, continuing to play over 120 shows per year and crafting new projects that are slated for release later this year. His unwavering human spirit permeates his music, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to his artistry.

See The Million Dollar Experience: A Celebration of Sun Records live at Foxwoods Resort Casino!

It was a thrilling time in music history. Now, experience it live on stage. The Million Dollar Experience, a celebration of Sun Records and the birth of rock and roll. Relive the music of icons like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, the “man in black” Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, the historic Million Dollar Quartet and more.

“In the midst of Sun Records’ 70th anniversary, we’re so excited to partner with Gershwin Entertainment to debut an all-new live show celebrating the evolution of Sun Records and its iconic music catalog,” says Dominic Pandiscia, Chief Strategy Officer of Sun Label Group. “Their team shares the same level of passion and respect that we do for Sun’s influence in popular music.”