My longtime guitar player and band leader, Les Singer, and his wife, Lizzie, celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on July 15th, and the next day hosted a get together of family and friends in their new hometown of Franklin, Kentucky. We ate some good food and laughed at a lot of old road stories. Next to me in the picture, left to right, are  Lizzie, Les, and our former steel guitar player, Mike Johnson. Football season is almost upon us, and my alma mater, the University of Georgia Bulldogs are the defending national champions. Jeannie Seely gave me this picture of Uga, the Georgia mascot, and I’m encouraging him to lead the ‘Dawgs to another championship season. I hope he was listening! The bottom picture was taken the day we filmed our video for “Someday It’ll All Make Sense.” L. to R.: Danny Nozell, Dolly’s manager; Dolly; me; Trey Fanjoy, who produced and directed the video; and my manager, Lee Willard. What a special day it was!

The video for my and Dolly Parton’s duet of “Someday It’ll All Make Sense” centers around the two of us driving an old vintage car from a place of darkness into a place of light…just as the lyric of the song portrays. We used a 1936 Aero 30 convertible, made in Czechoslovakia I’m told, and loaned to us by the same folks who own the automobile museum where Jamey Johnson and I filmed our “21” video a few years ago, the Lane Auto Museum. There are worse things in this world than being cramped inside a small car with Dolly!! It’s a serious song, of course, but as you can tell, we had a few laughs along the way. In the bottom photo, you get the backstage view of my being introduced onstage at the Grand Ole Opry. There’s no thrill in show business quite like the thrill of heading for that special Opry circle. And even as many times as I’ve done it, it never gets old. 

“UMG Records wanted my upcoming album to have a “retro” look, so they found this old picture from somewhere back in the sixties to use on the cover. They also wanted the record to tie-in with my current display at the Country Music Hall of Fame, so they titled it after the exhibit, “As Far As I Can See.” Thanks to all of you who pre-ordered copies and made it the #1 most pre-ordered record on Amazon the week it was announced. The official release date is June 10th.The second picture here shows how happy I was to be standing next to the Atlanta Braves 2021 World Series trophy when it was unveiled in Nashville April 26th. I even got a text message from the Braves’ manager, Brian Snitker, saying that he thought I looked good with the trophy. I told him he looked a lot better with it when they won it! I didn’t get to wish Loretta Lynn a Happy 90th Birthday back on April 14th, but better late than never. This picture was taken the last time we were on the Opry together several years ago. What a great lady…and here’s wishing her many more happy birthdays.”