I am very much looking forward to the New Year! 2017 is going to be a fantastic year for America’s Country! We’re still working our way back to where we were before we were forced to pull the plug almost a year ago. It’s been a slow climb but I’m more than happy to keep pushing and pushing. Due to some major differences in the financial aspects of how we are able to be on the air, we have to be a little more creative. I am proud to say we have some interesting changes coming in 2017.
Internet radio is not “regular” or terrestrial radio. Yes, we can certainly do the same things and play the same songs as regular radio stations do, but why? In choosing music we play on America’s Country, I’ve always retained my love for the great hits of the 90s and early 2000s. We play today’s biggest hits, newcomers, and some tunes you may never hear anywhere else. I also play songs that were hot in the past months or year that radio has stopped playing. Some examples are Burning House by Cam and Better Than You Left Me by Mickey Guyton. I play these tunes because they are just great songs and sound good. I also play a bunch of 90s hits that are just fantastic to hear again and again. Shania Twain, The Tractors, and of course, George Strait and Garth Brooks are always amazing to hear.
The Plan
What I will be doing over the next weeks and months is gradually shifting our musical focus away from today’s Top 40 hits and more towards this great library of hits from the 90s and early 2000s. America’s Country will still play these Hot Country Hits and continue to break new songs when they sound good and fit in with the sound of America’s Country. I love Country Music and I know you do too.
I am very excited for these changes and will absolutely keep my hand to the pulse to make sure these changes are good changes. The New Year is going to be amazing and I can’t wait!
Friends, I’m excited to start sprinkling in some Christmas Music into the regular playlist over the next month! We’re going to be starting slowly. At first, we’ll be adding in about one song per hour. We will feature some of the biggest classics from Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Brenda Lee as well as your favorite Country performers. Garth, Carrie, Lonestar and Lady A.
Christmas Music is fantastic and I love it deeply. I also know that sometimes, it can get overwhelming. We’ll try to keep it fresh and interesting. We’ll crank up how many songs we play every week or so. Finally, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we’ll play 48 hours of commercial-free Christmas Music!
Thank you all for listening to America’s Country and Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Season’s Greetings!
We have some really great upgrades and fixes we need to apply to our main station server. It will require some downtime, but we plan to have a backup server running. Hopefully the transition between will be seamless and we won’t have any actual downtime.
We have a new SSD drive to install, plenty of updates and other tweaks we’ve been holding off on. Ultimately, the main purpose is to make our station more reliable, robust and available.
We’re also making adjustments to our music selection. We’re trying to play even more big hits, more often so you can enjoy listening all day. We are excited to have excellent programming to compliment our already fantastic music selection.
Each weekday, we have The 90s @ Noon and The 90s Drive @ 5. Two full hours of commercial 90s Country hits. On the weekends, we have several shows that bring diversity and excitement to you. On Saturdays, we have two shows that feature and celebrate Texas Country. Also known as Red Dirt, this fun and gritty music plays for two hours at Noon with the CD-Tex Radio show and for another two hours at 7pm on the Texas Country Music Countdown. On Sundays, we have Big Country USA at Noon with two hours of the best country and artist interviews, contests and a lot of fun. At 7pm, The Hot Country Countdown presents the 20 biggest songs in the industry.
We thank you for choosing us. Out of the thousands of Country stations online and on the radio, we’re extremely humbled and honored that you continue to choose us! We welcome and encourage your feedback and ideas. Please comment here or any of our social media pages with anything you’d like to share. Thank you again for being the best fans and friends!
Thank you so much for being the loyal and most outstanding fans a little internet radio station could ever wish for! 2014 was such a fantastic year of growth and maturing of America’s Country. We were able to generate some income and use that for hardware and software upgrades. We’re now running on a much more powerful and modern server that has been rock-solid. Our music playback software is top-notch and working like a champ. And it’s all thanks to you listening and visiting and patronizing our excellent sponsors!
2015 is looking very promising for even more expansion! America’s Country is poised to make explosive growth this year! Internet radio is growing and becoming more and more accessible with in-dash car stereos that feature built-in streaming and other mobile internet applications. 4G LTE and other wireless data technologies are growing and spreading further and further allowing more people to listen to internet stations like America’s Country in their cars more and more! I’m incredibly excited and have shivers from the anticipation!
To help gear up for this explosive growth, in the next few weeks, I’ll need to perform some additional maintenance on our server to ensure we’re setup and prepared. I’ll post on our Social Media and this website for the planned maintenance periods in advance to help you be aware. Any down-time or outages should be very minimal.
Again, thank you very much for being a part of America’s Country! I am deeply grateful for your support and your help in moving us to the next level! Please share your love and passion for America’s Country by sharing our Facebook, Twitter, Google + pages and feeds with all of your friends, loved ones and co-workers! We need your help to grow!
I am a huge fan of Holiday Music! In the past, we’ve played all Holiday music for the entire month of December. While my family, a few others, and myself have really enjoyed it, it’s not always the best strategy. This year, beginning the day after Thanksgiving, we will begin to slowly add Holiday songs to the normal rotation of Hot Country Hits. As we get closer to Christmas Day, we will have up to 4 or 5 songs per hour. For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I will be playing 48 hours of Christmas Music and hopefully some long-form specials from our providers.
I want to share my love of the Season without overwhelming you all. Holiday music can sometimes be a very polarizing thing. A lot of people really love it, some folks really don’t like it at all. And yet further, some folks are just kinda OK with it. I hope to strike a good balance and provide the best to everyone.
I will be playing some of the well known classics from Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole that you all know and love along with some of the best from our stable of incredible Country artists like Blake Shelton and Martina McBride. As always, I will ask for and encourage your constant feedback. Please post on Twitter, Facebook, or on this post if things need to be adjusted. “Play More Holiday Music!”, “Don’t play so much Holiday Music!”, etc… I want to know!
Again, we wish all of you Happy Holidays and thanks for listening to America’s Country!
Friends! It’s time to clear out the old stock of FREE CDs in our Stash! Be watching our Social Media for your opportunity to win! We want to get rid of these CDs to make room for all the new albums that are coming out soon and have been released recently. We will be having listen-to-win contests as well where you MUST listen to win. Nothing will be announced on anything but our audio stream. Cruise over to our Stash page now and get ready to WIN!
Debuting this coming Sunday, September 7th, Tom McK presents 2 hours of the best and brightest straight from Nashville! Big Country USA kicks off Sunday at Noon Mountain!
Aside from all the Hot Country Hits you could ever want, we strive to provide other programming that compliments and enhances our musical selections. We want to always entertain you and give you the BEST Country Music programming you can find the world over. This special programming is high quality and here you’ll find some new information as well as some near-term plans we have for you.
Currently, we give you some great morning show content with the very talented and funny Bobby D on The Bobby D Show. From 6am-9am Monday through Friday, Bobby D gives us updates on news and celebrity gossip as well as other great features and info. At 10am and 5pm each weekday, Tammy Swanson gives us a quick checkup on everything Country Music and Nashville on the Music City Minute.
Our weekends are a lot of fun as well. Starting at 9am-10am, on Saturdays, Steve Southard gives us Nashville’s New Country. A show that offers an advanced look at what songs will be coming soon and be future hits. We repeat Nashville’s New Country at 9pm as well. At Noon, The Cowboy Bobby Lopez presents 2 hours of Texas Country, also known as Red Dirt Country. Based on your feedback and your clear interest in this alternative genre of Country music, we hope you enjoy the CD-Tex Radio Show each Saturday. Following the CD-Tex Radio Show, at 2pm, we join John Stevens as he counts down the top 20 country songs in the USA with Prime Country USA’s Hot Country Countdown.
On Sundays we switch gears a bit to bring you 24 hours of uplifting, creative and inspiring music. Talented musicians, singers, groups and artists who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are featured exclusively all Sunday long on An Inspired Selection. Calm down, enjoy and feel this great music as it enhances your Sunday mood.
Coming up on the day after Thanksgiving, we present 100% Christmas Music. The name says it all. Christmas Music with no commercials and very little interruption. This continues a long tradition of playing a huge variety of styles, genres and types of Christmas Music. 100% Christmas Music continues through New Year’s Eve. Christmas is a personal favorite time of year. I love the sights, feelings and the sounds of the Season.
We truly hope you enjoy and appreciate the variety of programming we offer. If you ever have a question, complaint or suggestion, always contact us directly. Find out how to reach us on our Contact page. Also, all times listed are Mountain Time.
Here’s the skinny: wrap those snazzy earlobes around the incredible sound of America’s Country and when you hear the Cue To Text, text us at 801-788-4916 and BAM-O!! you win a FREE CD!!
Thanks to the incredible folks at Curb Records, Average Joe’s Entertainment, Warner Bros. Nashville, Universal Music Group and many others, we have boxes full of great country music CDs to give away! Here’s the current list of CDs we have in our stash:
Trace Adkins – Love Will
Colt Ford – Declaration of Independence
The LACs – 190 Proof
Montgomery Gentry – Rebels on the Run
JB & The Sunshine Band – Beer For Breakfast
Lee Brice – Hard 2 Love
Rodney Atkins – Take A Back Road
Randy Rogers Band – Trouble
Jana Kramer – Jana Kramer
Gloriana – A Thousand Miles Left Behind
Big & Rich – Hillbilly Jedi
Eddie Bush – Calloused Hands
I also have some other older ones hanging around. When you text in, you’ll get a reply back asking for your information and a choice of CD. If you ask for something I have, you’ll get it. If I don’t have it, I’ll politely let you know and you can pick another.
Here are the limitations: 1) This contest (and all others) is only open to US Residents. 2) You may only win a contest if you’ve not won within the previous 30 days. 3) I cannot guarantee you will get the CD you want but I will try my best and let you know otherwise.
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Country. Here’s the link you’ll need to listen and win:
I recently had the pleasure of talking to Matt Thomas of Parmalee followed by seeing them at The Grizzly Rose this is a combination of the 2 experiences.
Parmalee is comprised of brothers Matt Thomas (lead vocals/guitar) and Scott Thomas (drummer). Barry Knox (bassist) is their first cousin as for Josh McSwain (guitar and keyboards) “we met Josh in college and have been together ever since.” With no hesitation Matt went on to say “he is family now we’re family with his mom, we’re just all a big family.” That sentiment is also relayed on stage when
he referred to the band as a family band. As I talked to Matt and saw them in concert, my mind kept going back to the fact that not long ago he, they had a gun pulled on them during a robbery. His brother Scott was seriously injured when it ended in gunfire. Without Scott having his concealed weapons permit and the fact that he was carrying and was able to shoot the intruders it’s one of those situations that make you wonder “what if.” What if Scott didn’t have his own gun? Pretty powerful thought when you consider the most obvious answer – I surely wouldn’t be sitting here talking to Matt about the great music they make. Powerful ~ Thought Provoking. We started our conversation talking about that night. When asked how it affected the band emotionally, in his answer you can hear the deep rooted emotion and yes even feel it through the phone lines as he talked about the aftermath of that September night. “Well I mean it brought everybody tighter obviously. Because we had to go through all that together with Scott ~ he spent 35 days in the hospital ~you know we were being a nurse ~ the good thing that came out of it once that happened we got so much support mainly from our fans, but our family, and friends and everybody that was around us. You realize even though we’ve been kind of beatin up and down the roads for years doing our thing you touch a lot of people. They respect that and reached out to help us out. The biggest thing that came out of it minus the whole new look on life, was the fact there were people out there who cared about what we were doing and wanted see us continue to make music and they kept us a float for 4 months. Paying our bills, donating money doing benefits all kinds of just crazy fundraisers ~ all kinds of help they gave us.” You could hear the sincerity in his voice as he continued “That was the great thing if something like that had never happened we would never have known that kind of kindness. But we got the chance to see it.” He sounded humbled by the whole experience and obviously it touched them all deeply. Matt did write a song called “September” the night Scott got out of the hospital you can tell it’s still pretty “private” as he explained it’s a “personal song that you do for your fans that know you and know what went on its not an album cut.” Hmm maybe if you catch a show near Parmale you’d get to hear the song or hopefully perhaps one day we’ll all get to hear it on an album. Since emotion makes a song real and it seems as the deeper rooted that emotion is the better the song, the better the performance I for one would love to hear it. He did tell me about a song “Another Day Gone” that is on the album “it is based around the mentality of the fact you’re never guaranteed the next day and you need to take advantage of what you have in front of you. Kind of a reflection on the whole aspect of life is fragile better take advantage of it.”
Speaking of the CD they are in the studio now – in fact he jumped on our call just out of the studio where he had been “writing with Blair Daly laying down tracks.” That was rousing news to hear for me. The CD is still a work in progress; they have 12 songs worked out and they are writing and recording more. He was expecting it out by summers end. As far as songs on it he said “we have co- written with lots of wonderful people in Nashville we have written with in the band and we’re taking outside songs.” Hearing things like “our mentality is the best song wins” makes the anticipation for the album grow more intense. “Fortunately most songs are songs we’ve written.” He attributes that to “we know who we are. After we come out with a record you’ll have Nashville writers writing songs right down our alley. But as of right now most of the stuff we have on the record will be ours.” Talk about collaboration. As a band they write together. They write solo. They write individually with other people, the band works with other people and then they bring it all together. That’s just the beginning. Throw in their producers, Rich Redmond, Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy (Jason Aldean’s band) and David Fanning which make up Indie New Voice Entertainment, one of Nashville’s hottest productions companies. Another key player is Benny Brown from Broken Bow records. He helps determine songs as part of the process. A big part of the final song selection is what Matt feels he can perform with honesty and what they feel is real for them. Matt said fan reaction goes a long way in helping to determine as well, “especially people who have never heard you, everything is new to them you get a good feel for what is sticking and which ones aren’t” One of Matt’s favorites to do live is one of their new songs “Day Drinkin” I can see why and it was a crowd favorite at The Grizzly Rose when I saw them. Fun song great beat and great musically! Matt did go on to say “’Carolina’ takes the cake it is kind of the Golden Child” It is their current single released on iTunes January 22, 2013 and officially released to radio February 4, on February 5th it was the #2 most added song at stations for the week. “It’s been a good blessing – it is the
song that got us out here” The song has kind of come full circle in a sense. They wrote the song, released it in 2008 on an independent thing in 2010 it was picked it up to be released as a single by Benton Blount. “That’s how we got the whole deal” after the it garnered so much interest they decided “we’re going to roll out to Nashville because we’re song writers. We’re going to try take up every opportunity we get as the writers of the song. We co-wrote with New Voice and that led to the deal with Stoney
Creek. I’ll always stand behind its release to country radio without us behind the song” he chuckled as he finished “you know not being the performers just being the writers.”
Now let’s go to a show … they came out with a bang! Super infused music which lead into “Musta Had A Good Time” They are some hard rocking guys up on stage. Matt is full of personality, very cute. The talent oozes off the stage from all of them! Very impressive! They intermingle with one another and the crowd. One of Matt’s favorite covers he does is “Night Moves” by Bob Seger, and I can
tell you they do an amazing job on the song! They did an amazing montage of covers (“Midnight Rider” Allman Bros – “Can’t You See” Marshall Tucker – “Let’s Get It On” Marvin Gaye & “Seven Bridges Road” Eagles) that was simply stunning! They ran through some great originals that I sure hope made the “cut”. One of my favorites was “Calling You Mine” I fell in love first time with that song. Another favorite is “Can’t Tell My Heart What to Do” all about that tug of war relationship I think we all experience at some point. I didn’t hear one song that if it came on the radio I would change the station. No question about it they were all right at home on stage – it was a pretty full house that night and they had the crowd well entertained. They ended much the same as they started they hit up “MHGT” again and went out with some strong hard hitting finish! After the show they stayed to meet the fans and sign for them.
They again were very comfortable and seemed to really enjoy this part of the night.
Matt lights up as he talks about music you hear his appreciation for MUSIC. He is well versed –I get the impression he is a musical connoisseur and I for one would love to spend an evening listening to tunes talking to him about music, about some of his experiences, I’d bet the farm it would be fascinating. The band’s music evolved from the exposure they had growing up, it led them to where they are now as a band. They all 4 had exposure to some degree from their families being involved with music. Matt and Scott’s dad (Jerry Thomas) was in a cover band, “My dad was a soul southern soul singer with country roots. He sounded like Travis Tritt and Bob Seger kind of mixed together. We (Matt, Scott and Barry) grew up in that world. When we were kids he was playing in a cover band doing things like Travis Tritt, Kentucky Headhunters, Bob Seger, Allman Brothers all that southern stuff he also did soul greats like Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye that kind of stuff. We were exposed to all that music” Matt calls it “southern country soul music. For me Scott and Barry it was a big part of growing up.” They didn’t just listen to his dad’s band they got to play in it. Josh’s dad was in a blue grass band and he grew up going to blue grass festivals all the time.
“What you’re exposed to real early on kind of holds a little place in your heart and that’s kind of where we’re back to now.” They’ve dabbled in it all pop, rock, hip-hop country soul “It’s like taking parts of it all and putting it together in what we do.” He talked about so much music, such a variety and when you see them, hear them it all makes sense. It is an accumulation of their broad exposure to music growing up as well as them experimenting with many different genres that have brought them to where they are now. I got to see a video from 2008 of Matt, Scott and Barry playing “Feelin Alright” with Jerry.
It is a 6 minute musical extravaganza. You see how deep rooted the talent on the “music” side really is. Hearing all this and getting a good sense of his appreciation for music, it’s no surprise Matt has a wide variety on his iPod – one of his most listened to is The Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East. It reminds him of his dad. I imagine one day there will be people listening to Parmalee because it takes them back home to their family – to their parental units.
They’ve always known that they would be doing something in music. There was no “backup plan,” Matt and Scott were loggers, Barry was a furniture reposseser and Josh was a pizza maker. Making music was always in their sights, they always had their focus on it. It is all starting to pay off as the “wish list” is starting to get some pretty significant check marks on it. They’ve signed with a
great label, in the middle of putting together their first CD with some top notch producers; “Musta Had a Good Time” broke the top 40 on the charts. Matt is hopeful that “Carolina” will help a couple more of those dreams come true, like playing at the Opry, or maybe breaking into the to 20. One of their aspirations I am in full agreement with is they want to play at Red Rocks “that’d be on that list for sure.” You could hear his excitement as he talked about wanting to tour with people like Jason Aldean, Brantley Gilbert, Eric Church and yes Kenny Chesney would be the ultimate to tour with if they could swing it.
For now they are taking it piece by piece just soaking it in and appreciating it all along the way. They are enjoying seeing the country, meeting the people behind radio and meeting and making fans all along the way. If they come to a venue near you I would recommend checking them out! Don’t forget to visit iTunes to download “Musta Had a Good Time” and “Carolina” – rate and review them. Be sure to request their music wherever you listen to it.
Be sure to follow @parmaleefans and like their fb page as well.They are the official fan site for Parmalee. They will keep you well informed as to what the guys are up to and what you can do as a fan to help them keep on keeping on this journey of theirs.
Friends,
Friends! It’s time to clear out the old stock of FREE CDs in our 
