Today I must tip my imaginary Stetson to my pal Craig Poland Smith for unearthing this gem for me by the literally named family quartet Southern Raised.

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The sensational CMAT was the talk of Day One at Glastonbury 2025 with her superstar-making afternoon set on the Pyramid Stage.

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Kaylee Rose is a Nashville-based artist who taps into tradition with this song about a cheating partner, set to a simple backing. It’s the archetypal “three chords and the truth” – the phrase Harlan Howard used in the 1950s to sum up country music’s appeal.

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Marty Robbins topped the US charts and had a UK Top 20 hit with this classic country and western tune, El Paso, back in 1959.

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This powerfully emotional feminist anthem works like a sequel to Dolly’s Nine To Five, with a video to match.

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The Bee Gees song written for Otis Redding but redone as a hippie country-soul heartbreaker. Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers, give it a country twang replete with pedal steel guitar that was entirely absent from the original.

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Ringo Starr releases the first track from a new album of country songs written and produced with T Bone Burnett at the age of 84.

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Leroy Van Dyke’s first job as a livestock auctioneer inspired the song that brought him to fame back in 1956.

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Ray Charles is rightly credited with almost single-handedly inventing soul and R&B in the early 1950s. But in the 1960s he surprised his fans, and the whole of the pop world, by turning his hand to country-and-western.

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“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” That one line summed up Kris Kristofferson’s singular songwriting skill. It was like the entire Sixties ethos in a single phrase.

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