31st Annual Country Fest, Cadott, WI Lineup Just Revealed for June 22-25. Superstar Headliners Include Blake Shelton, Eric Church, Thomas Rhett, and Alabama plus Chris Young, Dan + Shay, Brothers Osbourne, Wynonna Judd, The Oakridge Boys, Cam, The Cadillac Three & more.
CADOTT, Wis. (Tuesday, November 22) – Country Fest, Cadott, Wis. Has just revealed its 2017 festival lineup, and it’s a historic celebration of the hottest acts in country past & present. The 2017 festival marks more than three decades of one of the largest and longest-running country music and camping events in the US. The multiple award-winning headliners announced this morning are BLAKE SHELTON, ERIC CHURCH, THOMAS RHETT AND ALABAMA.
Country Music Association’s 2012 “Entertainer of the Year,” five-time Male Vocalist of the Year winner, just announced American Music Award winner and GRAMMY nominee Blake Shelton continues to add to his superstar status. With 17 consecutive #1 singles, Shelton owns the record of successive #1 singles in the modern era, and has a total of 22 #1 singles.
His new album, If I’m Honest, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Album Sales Chart and the Billboard Country Album Chart. If I’m Honest has already yielded the #1 smash single, “Came Here To Forget,” and his new single “She’s Got A Way With Words.” The album features three songs written by Shelton which include the gospel tinged “Savior’s Shadow,” “Friends,” which is also featured in the #1 film, The Angry Birds Movie, and “Go Ahead and Break My Heart,” a song he wrote and performs with Gwen Stefani.
A member of the Grand Ole Opry, he has earned a host of awards throughout his career, including the recent People’s Choice Award for Favorite Male Country Artist. Shelton just celebrated his 10th season on NBC’s “The Voice” and recently hosted Nickelodeon’s slime-filled Kids’ Choice Awards. Shelton is the subject of a career-spanning exhibition at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. Blake Shelton: Based on a True Story. The exhibit explores the life and work of one of country music’s most popular and multi-dimensional artists.
With Eric Church’s fourth album, and a brand new CMA Award under his belt for Album of the Year, Eric has said “I really see this album as a game-changer for us,” Eric Church says of the follow-up to his platinum breakthrough Chief. “I want people to understand that we’re here and that we will be reckoned with.” He will be a force to be reckoned with in Cadott this June.
Although Church has already built a reputation as a restless creative force while blazing an unconventional path to country superstardom, The Outsiders represents an audacious quantum leap. The aggressive set, which consists almost entirely of Church compositions or co-compositions, finds the iconoclastic singer-songwriter-guitarist covering a dizzying amount of musical and lyrical ground, taking advantage of a wide range of sonic options to construct an adventurous, consistently thrilling ride. The result is Church’s most revealing, personally-charged statement yet—and one that challenges many of the accepted rules of contemporary country music.
“I’ve always felt like an outsider, and I still feel that way,” Church confides. “That feeling is something that you never lose, no matter how much acceptance you get. When you’ve been burned enough, you carry that feeling with you, and it becomes a part of you. That chip on your shoulder becomes a source of strength, and it drives you to push forward.”
“It’s an interesting time in country music—maybe in all music—because everything’s up in the air and all the genre barriers are breaking down,” he says. “With satellite radio, social media and the way people consume music now, people have access to every kind of music, and you just don’t run into people now who only listen to one kind of music. People are smart enough to discern what’s good, and if the music makes them feel something, then they’ll respond. “We’re still gonna fit in the country genre, and that’s fine, but it’s crazy that people try to put all these constraints on music,” Church concludes. “Music is universal; it breaks down language barriers and cultural barriers, and it speaks to people’s souls on the deepest level. It’s all just music, and The Outsiders is a stake in the ground, saying ‘This is where we are now…’ If it works, all bets are off. And that’s gonna be fun.”
Years before he kicked off his career with It Goes Like This, a debut album that spawned five Top 40 hits and three No. 1’s, Thomas Rhett spent his childhood listening to the sounds of FM radio. Rhett says he’d regularly flip from one station to another, cranking up a mix of country, pop, R&B, rap, rock, and oldies. It was a tangle of music. Decades later, he’s tipping his hat to those days with Tangled Up, an album that mixes the sound of his influences with equal doses of groove, melody and twang. The album has produced three chart-toppers including the 2X PLATINUM six-week No. 1 and ACM award-winning “Die A Happy Man,” as well as the PLATINUM certified No. 1 “T-Shirt” and “Crash And Burn.” Garnering two CMA nominations this year, Thomas Rhett was also recently chosen as one of CMT’s Artists of the Year and a new CMA Award winner at this year’s 50th anniversary celebration of the CMA Awards.
ALABAMA is the band that changed everything. They brought country music to the mainstream and from side stage to the main stage. ALABAMA introduced rock style guitars, lights, pyrotechnics and sounds to the country audience. They have also inspired many of today’s brightest country stars including Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan as well as pop and rock stars from Ed Sheeran to Jon Bon Jovi.
While their music continues to stand the test of time, their numbers and stats are beyond compare. They have charted 43 No. 1 singles including 21 No. 1 singles in a row, a record that will likely never be surpassed in any genre. They have won over 178 CMA Awards, Grammy Awards, ACM Awards and counting. They’ve earned 21 Gold®, Platinum® and Multi-Platinum® albums and were named the RIAA’s Country Group of the Century. They are members of the Country Music Hall of Fame and have a start on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And as they have for over forty years, ALABAMA continues to “Roll On.”
With his fifth major-label album released by the age of 30, a feat rarely accomplished in modern country music, Chris Young has ratcheted up eight No. 1 singles including I’m Comin’ Over’s title track, which earned three weeks at the top of the charts and “Think Of You” with Cassadee Pope, the fastest rising song of his career. Young has earned fourteen Gold and Platinum certifications, and been nominated for the industry’s most prestigious awards – Academy of Country Music, Billboard Music Awards, Country Music Association and The Grammys – taking home a handful of notable trophies, including the American Country Countdown Awards’ Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Single of the Year, and the Country Music Association’s Triple Play Award, given to songwriters who have co-authored three or more chart-topping hits in a year.
Country Fest’s 2017 lineup continues to impress with fan favorites Dan + Shay, Brothers Osborne, The Cadillac Three, William Michael Morgan and Cam. County music legends Wynonna Judd & The Noise and The Oak Ridge Boys and many more will also hit the stage this summer along with up-and-comers Tucker Beathard, Drake White, Ryan Hurd and more to be announced..
All tickets, campsites and fan Pit Passes are now on sale. Visit http://bit.ly/CountryFestOnSale to order, or call the Country Fest corporate office at 1.800.326.FEST. VIP sections sold out the last four years, and organizers of Country Fest expect the VIP sell-out to again happen very quickly as well as Fan Pit Passes, which are available in a limited amount to get the biggest fans the closest to their favorite artists.
To view full lineup online & get more information, visit: www.CountryFest.com.
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ABOUT COUNTRY FEST, CADOTT WI
COUNTRY FEST is an IEBA-nominated Festival of the Year, entertaining fans in its one-of-a-kind amphitheater venue for 31 years in 2017. Set on more than 360 acres in picturesque central Wisconsin, Country Fest is literally a city built on country music. With the best views from any location in the grounds and more than 7,000 campsites including Electric, VIP, General and Glampsites – no detail is overlooked and the fan and artist experience is second to none. Country Fest prides itself on being an all-out summer vacation destination, complementing the incredible musical acts with a huge variety of food and merchandise vendors, interactive games, exciting rides, photo booths, experiences and more. Catering to Midwest crowds, Country Fest each year sees over 100,000 fans travel from each and every state in the U.S., as well as more than 14 countries outside the U.S. Join the Country Fest action June 22-25, 2017.