Mark Hagen
Mark Hagen is one of the UK’s leading media producers, a former country music TV & radio presenter and member of the Country Music Association’s board of directors. He is a double CMA winner, a BCMA winner and some of his work with Bruce Springsteen won a Grammy.He has been blessed by Little Richard, kissed by Paul McCartney, slapped by Dolly Parton and told the meaning of life by Jaren Johnston of the Cadillac Three which he later forgot due to beer.He believes that Billy Joe McAllister was throwing the body of Emmett Till off the Tallahatchie Bridge, that Prince’s Hot Chicken has the superior recipe and that consequently country music is best served with a little spice, preferably ginger.
COUNTRY CLASSICS•Willie Nelson - Always On My Mind
As with all of Willie’s albums, there are things to love here. It also remains a fascinating look at an artist trying to work out his place in the world.
ESSENTIALS•The Best Country Break Up Songs
Holler picks out 15 of country music’s best break up songs
LONG READ•Wanda Jackson: Doing It On Your Own Terms
There are not that many people who have both kissed Elvis Presley and recorded with The Cramps. It’s a reasonably safe bet, in fact, that there is only one: the redoubtable Wanda Jackson.
INTERVIEW•One Hot Minute: Pokey LaFarge
Right from the start it was apparent: here was a man with eclectic and unusual tastes, fusing a mixture of ragtime, swing, jazz and blues to create a sound that was simultaneously old and new, speaking to the present in the language of the past.
LONG READ•The King & Country: How Country Music Shaped Elvis Presley
In the exact moment before Elvis popularised rock’n’roll, he was singing a country song. Holler looks back at how the genre shaped one of the greatest cultural icons in history.
ALBUM REVIEW•Christone "Kingfish" Ingram - 662
662 is an outstanding collection of music from an outstanding talent. If you have any interest at all in what traditional electric blues can do in 2021, then you need to hear this.
ESSENTIALS•The Best The Chicks Songs
The biggest country group of the 90s? You would be hard pressed to argue against the Chicks. We take a look back at band’s discography to create the definitive list of their best songs.
COUNTRY CLASSICS•Eric Church - Chief
Chief took you away from the world for three, four, five minutes and then dropped you back where you began - only now somehow changed, in touch with a feeling that you didn’t know you already had, in exactly the way that The Boss' own records do.
INTERVIEW•In Conversation: Zac Brown Band
Clay and Coy from ZZB delve into their new album The Comeback, supporting The Rolling Stones and the communal influence of Zac himself.