pplpod

At 11 years old she was leading worship from a church piano in an Arizona Pentecostal congregation, her mother an ordained preacher. By the leather-clad 1970s, that same girl — born Miriam Johnson — h...

11 Jun 20min

A Georgia kid taught himself guitar from chord charts his dad hand-drew on notebook paper — and grew up to become country music's most polarizing superstar. Jason Aldean's journey runs from DIY living...

11 Jun 21min

Moe Bandy spent 12 years bending sheet metal by day before becoming one of honky tonk's most authentic voices. The factory worker turned country music star built a 1970s career on hard-edged drinking ...

11 Jun 17min

A masked man with a booming bass-baritone stepped onto the country music stage and refused to show his face. Orville Peck, the South African-born former punk drummer behind the fringed mask, has becom...

11 Jun 21min

Don Gibson dropped out of school in the second grade because a paralyzing stutter left him unable to speak. That silenced North Carolina kid grew up to become country music's "sad poet," writing some ...

11 Jun 17min

Luke Bryan wrote the soundtrack to a million carefree summer nights, but the king of country music party anthems built that beaming stadium persona on top of unthinkable family tragedy. Just as the Ge...

11 Jun 20min

Time magazine crowned Gary Stewart the King of Honky Tonk, Bob Dylan was mesmerized by his sound, and the Allman Brothers counted him as a friend. Yet today the man with a number one Billboard country...

11 Jun 17min

A kid from Ada, Oklahoma whose signature song is about a prison dog named Ol' Red somehow became People's Sexiest Man Alive and married pop icon Gwen Stefani. Blake Shelton is one of modern country mu...

11 Jun 21min