Ever since Willie Nelson left Nashville in the early 1970s to return to Texas, there's been a large chasm between the "red dirt" country artists working primarily in Texas and Oklahoma and the polished, radio friendly music being produced in Nashville.
Even today, there's a separate country radio chart for Texas stations and the independent country acts that are popular there often get labeled in Nashville as just "regional artists."
East Texas-raised Cody Johnson spent more than a decade in that musical scene and heard the distrust that many Texas country artists had for Nashville record labels.
FILe - This April 7, 2019 file photo shows Cody Johnson at the 54th annual Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas. The Texas-born singer knew there was a lot of distrust of Nashville major record labels among his peers in Texas and Oklahoma. But after a decade as a successful indie artist, Johnson finally signed to Warner Music Nashville and he’s hoping to bridge that cultural divide by straddling the traditional and the modern. (Photo by Jordan StraussInvisionAP, File)
"There were a lot of artists from that era who were probably a bit arrogant in the fact that 'I'm from Texas and I've got this and you're not going to tell me what to do,'" Johnson said. "I think there has been something lost on some guys from Texas that maybe thought they were Willie or Waylon."
Johnson, a former rodeo cowboy turned country singer, wants to bridge that gap by straddling the traditional and the modern, Texas and Nashville, and he's finding an audience his own way.
Warner Music Nashville's executive vice president for A&R Cris Lacy tried to sign Johnson for years, but he kept rejecting their offers. Lacy knew that major labels often got stereotyped as being heavy handed with new artists by changing their sound or forcing they work with certain producers. But she was also trying to overcome a cultural challenge.
"There's so much pride in the Texas music scene because it is so special," Lacy said. "They are very protective of it. And each Texas artist has to think about when they move on to the next step, are they going to alienate the people that believed in them?"
As an independent artist, Johnson released two albums that reached the top 10 without major label support or distribution and sold out the Houston Rodeo with 74,000 tickets. But Johnson knew that he couldn't make the next leap without the support of a label and commercial country radio.
Last year, Johnson a signed a deal with Warner Music Nashville in a 50-50 partnership with his own imprint called CoJo Music. He made it clear that he wanted creative control, including choosing his own producer and songs, owning his own publishing and even deciding how he dressed.
"There were a lot of people that wanted to change a lot about me. This being a huge factor for a lot of people," he said, pointing to his cowboy hat.
His debut as a Warner artist, "Ain't Nothin' To It," hit the top of Billboard's country album chart in January, and his first single from that album, "On My Way To You," peaked at No. 11 on Billboard's Country Airplay Chart, his best charting single yet. He's opening up for George Strait and Blake Shelton at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, in August. He also opened for Luke Combs, one of country radio's fastest rising stars, on select dates this summer.
Johnson's album reflects the traditional country he idolizes but adds elements of gospel, rock and blues to sound fresh for younger ears. He chose a honky-tonk blues song written by Chris Stapleton, a rocking Charlie Daniels cover, a couple songs about the rodeo, a gospel song and a cover of Roger Miller's "Husbands and Wives."
But Johnson doesn't hold back his opinion of what he considers a bandwagon approach to contemporary country music — replicating over and over what's popular but lacks real creativity.
"It robs your listeners of authenticity," Johnson said. "I don't want to be bubblegum, and I don't care if there's a $50 million signing bonus to be bubblegum. It's not worth it to me."
He knows that he's not going to change the trend of country music back to the traditional sound he grew up listening to, but he's proving there's still a market for that music.
"I think that Warner is breaking new ground and they are giving power to artists who do know who they are," Johnson said.
Online:
www.codyjohnsonmusic.com
Follow Kristin M. Hall at http://twitter.com/kmhall
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nationwide protests in Iran sparked by the Islamic Republic's ailing economy are putting new pressure on its theocracy as it has shut down the internet and telephone networks.
Tehran is still reeling from a 12-day war launched by Israel in June that saw the United States bomb nuclear sites in Iran. Economic pressure, which has intensified since September when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on the country over its atomic program, has sent Iran's rial currency into a free fall, now trading at over 1.4 million to $1.
Meanwhile, Iran's self-described “Axis of Resistance” — a coalition of countries and militant groups backed by Tehran — has been decimated since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.
A threat by U.S. President Donald Trump warning Iran that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the U.S. “will come to their rescue," has taken on new meaning after American troops captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran.
“We're watching it very closely,” Trump said Sunday. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard by the United States.”
Here's what to know about the protests and the challenges facing Iran's government.
More than 390 protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Friday. The death toll had reached at least 42, it added, with more than 2,270 arrests. The group relies on an activist network inside of Iran for its reporting and has been accurate in past unrest.
Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult. Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations. Online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire. Journalists in general in Iran also face limits on reporting such as requiring permission to travel around the country, as well as the threat of harassment or arrest by authorities. The internet shutdown has further complicated the situation.
But the protests do not appear to be stopping, even after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday said “rioters must be put in their place.”
The collapse of the rial has led to a widening economic crisis in Iran. Prices are up on meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table. The nation has been struggling with an annual inflation rate of some 40%.
In December, Iran introduced a new pricing tier for its nationally subsidized gasoline, raising the price of some of the world’s cheapest gas and further pressuring the population. Tehran may seek steeper price increases in the future, as the government now will review prices every three months. Meanwhile, food prizes are expected to spike after Iran’s Central Bank in recent days ended a preferential, subsidized dollar-rial exchange rate for all products except medicine and wheat.
The protests began in late December with merchants in Tehran before spreading. While initially focused on economic issues, the demonstrations soon saw protesters chanting anti-government statements as well. Anger has been simmering over the years, particularly after the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody that triggered nationwide demonstrations.
Iran's “Axis of Resistance," which grew in prominence in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, is reeling.
Israel has crushed Hamas in the devastating war in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon, has seen its top leadership killed by Israel and has been struggling since. A lightning offensive in December 2024 overthrew Iran’s longtime stalwart ally and client in Syria, President Bashar Assad, after years of war there. Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels also have been pounded by Israeli and U.S. airstrikes.
China meanwhile has remained a major buyer of Iranian crude oil, but hasn't provided overt military support. Neither has Russia, which has relied on Iranian drones in its war on Ukraine.
Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials have increasingly threatened to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels prior to the U.S. attack in June, making it the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.
Tehran also increasingly cut back its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, as tensions increased over its nuclear program in recent years. The IAEA's director-general has warned Iran could build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program.
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. But there's been no significant talks in the months since the June war.
Iran decades ago was one of the United States’ top allies in the Mideast under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.
But in January 1979, the shah fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. Then came the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which created Iran’s theocratic government.
Later that year, university students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. severed.
During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein. During that conflict, the U.S. launched a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea as part of the so-called “Tanker War,” and later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the U.S. military said it mistook for a warplane.
Iran and the U.S. have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since. Relations peaked with the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran greatly limit its program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Mideast that intensified after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
FILE -A student looks at Iran's domestically built centrifuges in an exhibition of the country's nuclear achievements, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
FILE - An Iranian security official in protective clothing walks through part of the Uranium Conversion Facility just outside the Iranian city of Isfahan, on March 30, 2005. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
FILE - A customer shops at a supermarket at a shopping mall in northern Tehran, on Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
FILE - Current and pre-revolution Iranian banknotes are displayed by a street money exchanger at Ferdowsi square, Tehran's go-to venue for foreign currency exchange, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
FILE - People cross the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) street in Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
FILE - Protesters march on a bridge in Tehran, Iran, on Dec. 29, 2025. (Fars News Agency via AP, File)
People wave national flags during a ceremony commemorating the death anniversary of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
