September 1, 2026
Hi Gang:
WHEW! What a summer it’s been! Lots of scorching heat, great memories in the rear view mirror, and hopefully lots more exciting things on the horizon. Let’s move into September together through the pages of our latest fan club newsletter. Welcome!
As most of you know, the past two months found me celebrating my 65th Grand Ole Opry anniversary in July and then being honored as a country music Icon by the Academy of Country Music in August….both of those once-in-a-lifetime occurrences.
We hashed over the Opry anniversary pretty well in our July newsletter, so we’ll focus mainly on the Icon evening this time around. It was a dressy event and part of the annual ACM Honors Awards held inside the new Pinnacle auditorium in downtown Nashville. We’ll have lots of pictures from the evening later on in our photo section.
The ACM named two Icons this year, yours truly and the legendary Mike Curb. I was extremely honored to share the recognition with Mike because as the founder of Curb Records, Curb Music Publishing, and a Music City philanthropist of the highest order, there’s not a more deserving “Icon” in this business.
The evening’s co-host, singer Parker McCullom, read some nice things about me off the teleprompter and introed a video collage of several big moments from my career on the large screen behind him. His co-host, Carly Pearce, then came back onstage to sing “Whiskey Lullaby,” and present me with the Icon trophy. I whispered a few words of appreciation that I hope made sense, thanked the mostly industry-filled audience for all the years of their allowing me to have a career in this business, and told them the Icon Award was the “cherry on top” of it all…which it truly is. Just when I think I can’t be blessed any more than I’ve already been, something like this comes along and proves me wrong. Thanks, ACM….I appreciate you more than you know.
What else is going on? Well, Rhonda Vincent released her new album last month with a song called “Even If I Tried,” as one of the featured tracks. Bobby Tomberlin, Will Jones, and I wrote it, and I hope you’ll like it when you hear it. It’s pure country, and nobody could have sung it any better.
Rhonda also plans to sing another song Bobby and I co-wrote with the late Jeannie Seely called, “When I Count My Blessings,” later this year. That cut will be part of a Jeannie Seely tribute album that’s already well into production and features vocal performances from Trisha Yearwood, Jamey Johnson, John Anderson, Lauren Alaina, and other friends and co-horts of Jeannie’s. Lauren’s cut is a song she and Jeannie and I laughed ourselves silly while writing it called, “I’ve Named The Kids.” I think you’ll get a kick out of it.
My own “Forevermore & Then Some” Limited Edition vinyl LP will be coming out later this fall as well, and will feature something very special that we’ve just received permission to include….the live performance of the song, “Thankful” from from my 65th Opry anniversary show! Four more previously unheard cuts will be included, too, along with the six recordings from the “Forevermore” EP that was released online last year. As you know, vinyl records are so old they are new again, and folks are collecting them like crazy. I can only hope you’ll want to add ours to your collection. Ordering information will be coming soon.
Well, I’ve yakked long enough for this time…I need to let you get to the Ask Bill section and the big stack of pictures we’ve saved to show you. Enjoy…have a great September…and come back to see us again right here when October rolls in. Thanks for everything!

