NTT INDYCAR Series Hits Nashville Streets August 4-6, 2023

The third annual Big Machine Music City Grand Prix announces the addition of a Saturday night race under the lights of downtown Nashville in addition to an earlier start time on Sunday for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES weekend August 4-6, 2023.  The Saturday night race will showcase the new SRO GR Cup and the returning SRO GT America Series, featuring super car manufacturers Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche, and more.

• GT America and GR Cup Saturday Night Race experience for fans. Don’t miss the great views as the cars race under the bright city lights.
• New start time at 11:30am on Sunday for the NTT INDYCAR Series main event.
• Turn 9 Club –  the most action-packed corner in INDYCAR.
• Increased capacity in NetJets Club RPM presented by Flatrock Motorclub.

• Cumberland Stage moved to the Fan Zone with live music throughout the day.
• Added additional free Water Stations throughout event grounds.
• New Family Fun Zone with Shade Tent and Misting Fans.

• The Super Trucks are back!  A crowd favorite, the high-flying trucks are back for three days of on-track action.
• The return of Wesley Mortgage Freedom Friday, our All-Star Concert honoring the men and women of our military.
• The return of our Saturday Night Concert under the stars with a top headliner.

 Triple Tigers recording artist Scotty McCreery recently launched his Damn Strait Tour and already has five sold out shows under his belt with full capacity audiences in Joliet, IL; Charlotte, NC; Greenville, SC; The Villages, FL; and Sarasota, FL. With an average attendance of more than 2,000 fans at those concerts, the in-demand entertainer has also sold out four additional shows in advance on March 18 in Shipshewana, IN; Mar. 19 in Nashville, IN; April 28 in Lancaster, PA; and April 30 in Hagerstown, MD. Minimal tickets remain at many of the other upcoming concerts on the tour.

“McCreery captivates with hit songs and personal stories on Damn Strait Tour,” headlined Country Now in its review of his sold-out Joliet, IL show at the Rialto Square Theatre on Jan. 27. When describing the opening of the show, they wrote “an overwhelming feeling of anticipation soared throughout the entire room as he sang the opening verse to his 2018 fan-favorite, ‘In Between.’ The energy suddenly shifted as the stage lit up and his five-piece band members joined in… A roar of applause bounced off the walls….”

“We’ve just started the Damn Strait Tour, but we’re already having a great time on the road,” said McCreery. “The audiences have been packed, singing along with every song. It’s been a blast.”

The tour is named after McCreery’s fifth consecutive No. 1 hit “Damn Strait,” written by Trent Tomlinson and Jim Collins, which spent three weeks at the top of both the Mediabase and Billboard charts. One of the highlights of McCreery’s concerts is his performance of his current single “It Matters to Her,” which he co-wrote with Rhett Akins and Lee Thomas Miller. “It Matters to Her” is the singer/songwriter’s fastest rising single of his career, currently at No. 20 on the Mediabase chart.

McCreery brought his three-month-old son Avery out on stage in Knoxville, TN on Feb. 2, introducing him to the crowd. Safe in his father’s arms and wearing his noise reduction headphones, young Avery seemed completely at ease as the audience cheered and snapped photos with their phones.

McCreery will guest-host the nationally syndicated radio program “American Country Countdown with Kix Brooks” this weekend, airing in markets across the nation on Feb. 18-19. As previously announced, McCreery will join Brooks & Ronnie Dunn for their Brooks & Dunn REBOOT Tour 2023 in May and June, with Megan Moroney as opening act.

McCreery will be one of the artists featured in the new “American Currents: State of the Music” exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, opening on March 8, 2023, and remaining on display through Feb. 4, 2024.

McCreery will perform on the Grand Ole Opry tonight (Feb. 14) and again on Thursday, March 9 for their “Opry Country Classics Show.” Tickets for both shows are available at Opry.com.

Those who’ve been following the trajectory of modern-day guitar hero Chris Shiflett—outside of his role in Foo Fighters—will already know of his musical mission to unite his SoCal rock roots and Nashville influences to create a fresh new sound altogether. In his latest installment, the longtime country-influenced-rocker called upon a couple of Nashville’s finest practitioners of rock-influenced-country, Jaren Johnston (The Cadillac Three) and John Osborne (Brothers Osborne), to join in on his brand new single, “Black Top White Lines.” In their initial writing session, the trio kept throwing in line after line until the story was mapped out. Without spoiling the ending for anybody, Shiflett hints, “Thematically it felt like it turned a classic Country trope on its head a little.”

Arriving on the heels of 2022’s “Born & Raised” and “Long Long Year,” “Black Top White Lines” picks up right where Shiflett left off; albeit a bit more amplified. The quick-tempo song opens with a wall of unison guitars and doesn’t once let up. Thick stacks of different guitar tones (some of which are provided by legendary session man Tom Bukovac and uber-talented multi-instrumentalist Charlie Worsham) ride the pulsing groove provided by drums and bass with lead licks punctuating the bars between each verse. Written with Johnston and Osborne via Zoom in the middle of 2020, it wasn’t until Shiflett and Johnston were working out which songs to record that they realized just how rad “Black Top White Lines” could be. “Jaren and I were going over song ideas, and it’d been a minute since we wrote it, so when we re-visited the track he was like, ‘Dude you gotta record this one…It’s a banger!’,” remembers Shiflett. “Right away in the studio I could tell it was a bit of a left turn for me musically but that’s also what I like about it.”

“Black Top White Lines” is the first listen from a brand new Chris Shiflett album due out in 2023 via his new label home at Blue Élan Records, the Los Angeles-based independent label celebrating its 9th anniversary this year. Fans will hear more about the Jaren Johnston-produced LP in the coming months but can count on hearing an album that represents Shiflett’s fully-realized vision of connecting L.A. to Nashville. “A big part of my inspiration to work with Jaren on this record was because I knew he’d push me out of my comfort zone into new territory,” Shiflett says.

With tomorrow’s release of his fourth studio album, I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell, multi-Platinum singer/songwriter Chase Rice re-introduced himself to fans and critics alike, earning early praise for the standout project which he will bring to television audiences nationwide via a performance on “Fox & Friends” this Friday, Feb. 17 as well as “Tamron Hall” this coming Monday, Feb. 20.

With Rice having turned inward for inspiration and motivation on the project, that process of “chasing self-respect developed his latest, best album yet,” declares the Tennessean, noting that despite “a glass ceiling both he and the industry had imposed on his career, he’s clearly blasted through that impediment” and even remarking of standout track “Bench Seat,” “the touching country ballad could be, by the end of 2023, one of the surprise candidates for Song of the Year.”

Cowboys & Indians further celebrates I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell for its “risk-taking and rule breaking approach,” proclaiming, “that gamble has paid off handsomely, resulting in vulnerable and personal music.” Billboard agrees, noting the album “refines his artistic voice,” creating an offering that is “still propulsive with arena-ready moments, but is laced with deeper, more introspective themes.”

PopCulture asserts that the project is already “the best country album of the year… and everybody’s got to live up to it,” remarking that instead of following the traditional “if it’s not broke don’t fix it” approach, “Rice and his team, somehow, simultaneously broke it AND fixed it — both on purpose.” Leading U.K. music publication Entertainment Focus also has high praise for the “absolute triumph” of an album, labeling it with the first five star review of the year – an honor that took the outlet until September to award in 2022 – and remarking that “it’s a songwriter’s album and a lyricist’s album but it also does all sorts of wonderful things with melodies that are both clever and yet infectious at the same time.”

In celebration of the critically acclaimed release, Rice treated fans across the country to stripped-back, and acoustic live performances of the album, beginning on release day itself. Starting in Golden, Colo. on Friday, Feb. 10, Rice stopped by Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, to perform atop the dugout before visiting the Coors Brewery for a special performance in honor of the album’s cover photo featuring his late father, Daniel Rice, with two Coors Banquets in hand. Rice then traveled to Phoenix, Ariz. to take part in the Super Bowl festivities with an album release show for football fans on Saturday, Feb. 11, before returning home to Nashville to grace the Grand Ole Opry stage last night, Feb. 14.

In addition to treating the full Opry audience to new songs “Bench Seat,” “Way Down Yonder” and recent No. 1 hit “Drinkin’ Beer. Talkin’ God. Amen.,” Rice also performed a post-Opry show for purchasers of the album, treating those fans to live renditions of album cuts “If I Were Rock & Roll,” “All Dogs Go To Hell,” “Life Part Of Livin’” and “I Hate Cowboys,” plus his triple-Platinum No. 1 “Eyes On You” and the Diamond-certified smash hit “Cruise,” which Rice co-wrote.

Soon, fans will get to hear even more of the new music live on Rice’s Way Down Yonder Tour, set to visit iconic venues such as Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Boston’s House of Blues and Athens’ Georgia Theatre beginning March 3.

Latest Collaboration Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Ryman Auditorium
Highlights the Many Connections Between Rock & Roll and Country Music

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Nashville’s Historic Ryman Auditorium continue to expand their inaugural “Rock The Ryman” event. As the date for the once-in-a-lifetime show draws closer, they are pleased to announce the addition of the three-time Grammy winning, six-time Country Music Association Vocal Group of the Year Little Big Town, ACM-nominated songwriter/genre-bending stylist Caitlyn Smith, and outlaw country/classic Southern rock trio The Cadillac Three.

Celebrating the intersection of rock & roll and country, this special night of music will honor the legacy and impact of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees who have graced the Ryman stage. Each artist will perform songs by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees that have moved them or influenced them in some way. Powered by PNC and sponsored by Gibson Gives, “Rock The Ryman” is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT, on Wednesday, March 1.

For Little Big Town, currently headlining an arena tour, the quartet of Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook, has been a dynamic force on radio since their harmony-forward sound arrived with 2006’s “Boondocks.” They’ve since delivered celebratory hits “Pontoon,” “Wine, Beer, Whiskey” and “Smokin’ and Drinkin’” with Miranda Lambert, as well as more provocative fare including the Taylor Swift-penned “Better Man,” “Girl Crush” and the acclaimed “The Daughters.”

“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Ryman hold so much music and so much history, it’s exciting to be part of bringing these places together for one special night. So many of the Rock Hall members are the soundtrack of everyone’s life,” says Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town.

Caitlyn Smith, a native of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, is a songwriter’s songwriter. A genre-defying artist in her own rite, she has written for Miley Cyrus, Aviici, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, as well as the No. 1 “Like I’m Gonna Lose You” for Meghan Trainor and John Legend and the Critics’ Choice Awards winner “Glasgow (No Place Like Home),” the theme song from the acclaimed indie film Wild Rose.

“Being part of such a special evening, honoring so many of the Rock Hall members’ influences on all of us is just such an incredible honor,” Smith says of the one night only concert. “And to do it at the historic Ryman Auditorium adds a whole other level of highlighting what makes Nashville’s music community so special.”

For The Cadillac Three, known for both their swagger onstage and songwriting savvy, their kind of country has always rocked. Lead vocalist/guitarist Jaren Johnston has written cutting edge hits for Steven Tyler, Jake Owen, and Keith Urban and Eric Church, as well as Tim McGraw’s Best Country Song Grammy-nominated “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s.” Joined by Kelby Ray on lap steel, bass and vocals, and Neil Mason on drums and vocals, the power trio has created a ballast all their own.

This diverse group of artists join previously announced 2020 Folk Alliance Artist of the Year and 2022 Americana Honors Duo or Group of the Year The War and Treaty; multi-platinum, multiple BMI Pop Awards winner Gavin DeGraw; groundbreaking country duo Maddie & Tae, and noted guitarist/songwriter Charlie Worsham, who will host the event and perform.

“More than 100 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees have performed on the Ryman’s hallowed stage throughout its 130-year history,” said Greg Harris, President & CEO of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. “We are thrilled to continue our collaboration with the Ryman by bringing together artists and fans for one incredible night to experience the power of rock & roll through some of Nashville’s great talent.”

Among the many Inductees who’ve graced the Ryman stage are Hank Williams, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, R.E.M., Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Chet Atkins, Neil Young, the Everly Brothers, the Staples Singers, Joni Mitchell, Carl Perkins, B.B. King, Jackson Browne, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Roy Orbison, Blondie, Pete Seeger, Ricky Nelson, Stevie Wonder, Bill Monroe, James Taylor, Mahalia Jackson, Bonnie Raitt, the Byrds, Foo Fighters, Brenda Lee and more.

Tickets are on sale now at ryman.com. Proceeds from the event will help preserve and celebrate the history of rock & roll at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Ryman Auditorium.

Last May, the Ryman was designated as an official Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Landmark, joining 11 other rock & roll institutions throughout the country.

In November, the Ryman opened a major exhibition Rock Hall at the Ryman to celebrate the Ryman’s mark on rock & roll history. The interactive exhibit is housed in the venue’s newly transformed 5th Avenue vestibule and features Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees including James Brown, The Byrds, Eric Clapton, Foo Fighters, Joan Jett and Dolly Parton in addition to country music icons like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Hank Williams, who were early practitioners of what would become rock & roll music.

PNC Bank has a history of supporting the communities it serves through music sponsorships and programming. In addition to The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Ryman Auditorium, PNC has sponsorship agreements with Austin City Limits and ACL Live, in Austin, Texas. The addition of three female-led artists also aligns with PNC’s emphasis/focus on driving awareness and support for gender equality and economic inclusion in traditional male-dominated industries such as music. Rock The Ryman is certain to build on PNC’s legacy of investing in music and advocating for broad engagement in the arts as a powerful avenue for advancing education, diversity and inclusion, and economic development by showcasing iconic women artists paying tribute to other women trailblazers in music.

More information about the Rock The Ryman concert, Rock Hall at the Ryman exhibit, daytime tours and shows can be found at ryman.com.