When I met KC Johns at CRS 2025, I was instantly drawn to her energy. More importantly, her music matched her electrifying can-do attitude. Johns was born in Memphis and raised in Hernando, Mississippi, a small town along the Tennessee-Mississippi line. Most of her family hails from Florida. Her mother and stepfather met on the rodeo circuit, where her mother participated in barrel racing, and her stepfather was a bull rider. While neither of her parents was a musical performer, she was always surrounded by it and was even named after KC and the Sunshine Band.

Ira Dean comes from a musical family. His brother is Billy Dean, but not that Billy Dean. "It's a joke because Billy Dean's royalty checks used to go to my brother," Ira Dean said. But his brother and father were both very much in the business. His father played guitar, sang, and even had his own radio show when he was 13, so the music business is all Dean's ever known. "It was either make it or wear a hairnet and say, 'Do you want fries with that?'" he joked.

The leap from rodeo bullfighter to country music singer may not be as vast as you think. Lane Smith was raised in Branch Springs, Texas, just north of San Antonio. The tough, unpredictable nature of rodeo culture mirrors the challenges of building a country music career from the ground up. He soon realized he couldn't be a bullfighter forever. Country music and rodeo go hand in hand, with concerts following most rodeos. Smith saw them and thought, "I really want to be an artist."

Two-time CMA Entertainer of the Year and Columbia Nashville artist Luke Combs was inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame this week.

When I first heard a few Six Gun Sally songs, I knew immediately that this band was meant to be heard live. The members, who have various musical pursuits, remind me of a supergroup bringing the best of what they do together to create the rowdy, eclectic southern rock band Six Gun Sally.