Forever Country

"Forever Country"
Song

"Forever Country" is a medley performed by the Artists of Then, Now & Forever, a one-time gathering of thirty country music artists. The song, which was recorded to honor the 50th annual Country Music Association awards, is a medley of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads", Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", and Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You".

All profits from the sale and streaming of the song will go toward music education causes supported by the CMA Foundation.

Development

Background and development

Joseph Kahn conceived the idea of assorting three songs together sung by numerous artists after rebuffing the idea of just presenting one song.

The song was recorded to honor the 50th annual Country Music Association (CMA) awards. Its recording was produced by Shane McAnally, and it is a medley of three existing songs: "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver, and "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson. Along with Nelson and Parton singing portions of their own songs, the song features Alabama, Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Brooks & Dunn, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Brett Eldredge, Vince Gill, Faith Hill, Alan Jackson, Miranda Lambert, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, Ronnie Milsap, Kacey Musgraves, Brad Paisley, Charley Pride, Rascal Flatts, Darius Rucker, Blake Shelton, George Strait, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and Trisha Yearwood; Randy Travis, who was incapacitated by a stroke in 2013, makes a silent cameo appearance in the music video and is credited as an artist. Parton, Nelson and Denver are all former CMA Awards Entertainer of the Year nominees.

The idea for the song (not the medley but for honoring the shown's anniversary) and its accompanying video was born at a CMA board meeting as a way to celebrate the milestone of 50 years of the CMA Awards. Everyone were brainstorming about an interesting, unique way that might bring light to the 50th anniversary." The CMAs then approached Joseph Kahn and solicited his opinion about whether there were any country songs that he would like to do a video for, for the 50th anniversary. Kahn began to think about different possible songs but felt that the choices were too limited in terms of trying to get the entire history of country music into one song. So he pitched the CMA board the idea of doing a mash-up, of three different songs, so that one will get more of a breadth of the history. Kahn then came up with the concept of blending the three songs together into one song. He told CNN, "I didn't think one song could encapsulate all of country music, so I pitched the idea of doing a mashup of a couple songs and blending them together." But Kahn was told that this would never work and the reaction was the same to whoever he approached.

Shane McAnally produced the song.

After the idea coalesced, Shane McAnally was asked to take up the assignment to execute Kahn's idea. He was among the first person who was approached to take up the task, being on the CMA board partly as a result of his star-making work with Kacey Musgraves and Old Dominion. He happily took on the job, but admists that he was hesitant to make a medley of the songs at first saying that the process might work for pop genre but not for country since "...we tell stories. And we can’t just cut into them and take a piece." He admitted that the mashing together a bunch of country classics was "a very scary process."

The two of them started with songs in mind that had the same tempo and same chord progressions. Originally, Kahn wanted to incorporate songs like "Gentle on My Mind" by Glen Campbell and "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers in one of the original mash-ups. But everybody would keep coming back to "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton saying that it was sort of a quintessential song in the country genre. But Kahn kept rebuffing the suggestion since his choices of music would not blend together with the song. Even after presenting a demo of a second medley he made that everyone loved, they would still request him to incorporate "I Will Always Love You". Kahn didn't object to this idea but felt wary as to how a ballad would fit into a mash-up full of movement without making the entire thing a ballad. McAnally was also initially worried about approaching Parton to sing on the recording, as he thought that she might see including "I Will Always Love You" in a medley might compromise the song.

Then one day, as co arranger, Josh Osborne and Kahn were playing around in the latter's office, the two realized that one could sing the verses of "I Will Always Love You" in the same tempo as "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and blend them without changing the chord structure, and it worked. Kahn went on to credit those people who were so persistent in incorporating the song for without him he said he would have never tried on his own.

Recording

Of the thirty artists that took part and the three main artists from which their songs were borrrowed, John Denver (pictured) was the only artist that was absent as the late singer died in 2007.

Initially, it was unknown how many stars would participate. Artists like Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, and Brad Paisley who came in early had to cover a lot of ground, since it was not known if every line would be covered. Lambert for one would record almost the entire "Take Me Home, Country Road" and pieces of "On the Road Again". MaAnally kept saying, "I need your voice, if I don't get all these singers, to cover these patches." In an interview with Billboard magazine, McAnally said that "some of those people were really generous with their time, singing a lot more than what ended up on the track. As we neared the finish line, it came down to some folks literally having just one line left they could sing, and it was like, "Please, God, just let this work with their voice.""

Recording session took place in Nashville a few days before the CMA Music Festival in June 2016. Most of the artists recorded their part as they came through Nashville on tour stopovers. And by the time it was scheduled to shoot the video two days leading up to the CMT Awards and CMA Festival, nearly everyone was in town to stop by the soundstage, although for George Strait, a couple of last-minute vocals were recorded the same day the singer shot a video cameo. Nearly every artists that were approached made it into the finish product, although a few artists either couldn't do the vocal or couldn't do the video. Randy Travis was the only one artist appears in the video but not on the music track due to his health problems which have taken him out of performing. Kahn siad that that "even though he's not singing, he's connecting."

McAnally said that he wanted Paisley, a native of West Virginia, to open the song with Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Road" since Denver was also a West Virginia native and the song is about the place and he wanted Carrie Underwood specifically to open Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You". While most of the artists who sang the same line together were pre-planned, Lambert's and Bryan's duet happened accidently. Underwood was skeptic when she first heard the idea of the mashup and questioned how it would work since they're three very different songs by three very different artists. She later said she felt honored to be a part of it, and to be singing parts on "I Will Always Love You," which she actually performs on her tours recurrently. Miranda Lambert said she felt the same way but later on commented saying, "It's really cool that almost everybody that's part of the project had a duet together or performed together or toured together or something as a combo." When Blake Shelton received the call to be a part of the project, he didn't even asked what song it was since he was very much enthusiastic and honored to be collaborating with other accompanying artists.

Commericial performance

The song was released to country radio on September 16, 2016 via Universal Music Group Nashville's MCA Nashville branch. The single is projected to have a huge debut on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. Industry forecasters suggest the song could sell around 90,000 downloads in the week ending September 22. Combined with streaming figures (due to the release of the accompanying music video) and airplay, the song is aiming for a possible No. 1 bow.

On the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the song is aiming for a top 40 start.

The song debuted at No. 39 on the Country Airplay chart dated for the week ending October 1, 2016, from less than three full days of airplay (September 16–18).

Music video

Randy Travis was the only artist who made an appearance in the video but did not record any part in the music.

Joseph Kahn directed the song's accompanying music video, which features all thirty artists involved performing in front of a green screen on which "graphics of railroad tracks transform into major cities and back again". Filming took place in Nashville, Tennessee for three days in June 2016 during the CMA Music Festival. The video is filled with numerous landscapes like fields, farms, backroads, raidroads tracks, and iconic locales like Nashville's Lower Broadway and the Eiffel Tower. It marks the first time that he directed a country music video since Faith Hill's "The Way You Love Me" in 2001 and the director's most star studded video since Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" which featured 15 artists.

Kahn said he don't have a predilection for special-effects driven music videos and generally hates green-screen videos. He wanted the video to feel stylized, but also organic, like they were actually in the places they were put. But this was a big challenge due to time contraints. Because the song itself had three different melodies that laid on top of each other, that's when he came up with the idea of layering the locations, where "you see them constructing and deconstructing and each leading naturally to the next." Kahn had to pre-visualize everything – where everyone was standing, how he was going to light it, how it would blend – and film it with plates. And by the time the artists arrived to shoot their parts, it was already pre-edited.

George Strait recorded his part and shot the video on the last day at the same day. He went to the recording studio in the morning and after which he drove to the warehouse where some of the other artists were having their shooting. McAnally recalls, "Literally as he's driving from the studio to the warehouse, we're dropping his voice in and sending a track over for him to (lip-synch) to."

The video premiered during Dancing With the Stars on September 20, 2016. Billboard said the video contains "more special-effects scenarios in these four minutes as anything short of an Avatar sequel, albeit with churches, forests and Ryman Auditoriums standing in for other planets.

Chart performance

Chart (2016)	Peak position
Australia (ARIA)	43
Scotland (OCC)	34
US Country Airplay (Billboard)	39