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Backstage Country

Kane Brown Released ‘Blue Christmas’ With Elvis’s Voice

Kane Brown has released a cover of Elvis Presley’s classic “Blue Christmas.” Elvis’ voice starts off the familiar song, and Kane’s voice comes in on the second verse. Brown told…

Kane Brown in a green suit perform on stage and Elvis Presley publicity photo in a white shirt from the 1950s
Kevin Winter, Liaison/Getty Images

Kane Brown has released a cover of Elvis Presley's classic "Blue Christmas." Elvis' voice starts off the familiar song, and Kane's voice comes in on the second verse.

Brown told us of the new cover, "I chose to cover 'Blue Christmas' because it was probably one of my favorite Christmas songs. I don't have a lot. I used to sing it all the time whenever I was first coming up in the music scene, just while I was warming up and just playing around on stage, so when I got asked to do a Christmas song, of course, I'd have picked that one. And to reimagine it with Elvis is amazing."

He added, "I heard it for the first time the other day, so just to hear me and Elvis on the same song is crazy. "

Kane said of the King of Rock and Roll, "Elvis is awesome. I wish I would have been around to get to watch him perform, but I did get to watch his documentary, so it felt like I was kind of there."

Brown recently celebrated his 30th birthday (10/21) with a party at his Nashville area home. The party marked the end of his 20s.

Kane's wife, Katelyn, threw the Halloween costume party. She posted a video of what the party looked like with skull heads and dark-themed items everywhere, including a huge sign that said, "R.I.P. 20s." The footage also showed Brown, dressed as a bloody football player, pushing Katekyn in a wheelchair as she dressed as an elderly person. She captioned the post, "I'll celebrate you any day @kanebrown (party emoji). R.I.P. to your 20s, but can't wait for all the years to come!"

Kane also posted a bunch of images from the fun party. He captioned his post on Instagram, "Thanks, baby, for an unforgettable 30th birthday above and beyond! Thanks for all the birthday wishes and everyone who came out to celebrate. Love you guys!"

Carly Pearce in a white dress and Ashley McBryde wearing a black dress accepting their 2023 GrammyLeon Bennett/Getty Images

Country music is like no other genre because country stars are very much like family. In that family, many lifelong friendships emerge between superstars and have been through the years.

Like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in the 1970s and Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn's great friendship before that. It's hard to overlook Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers's friendship that began when he first appeared on her 1970s Dolly TV show. Then they started to make music together when they recorded the iconic "Islands In The Stream" in the early 1980s. And who can forget Parton's friends and trio partners Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, who won a Grammy in 1988 for their Trio album.

Miranda Lambert has many friends in country music and even started a group with her buddies Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley to form The Pistol Annies. The trio of songwriting friends have released four albums together since 2011, including a 2021 holiday album called Hell Of A Holiday. Lambert has also made friends in a songwriting sense with Jelly Roll and Morgan Wallen, just to name a few. Her latest co-write friendship can be found on Brothers Osborne's latest self-titled album. The song they wrote with Miranda is called "We Ain't Good At Breaking Up," and she sings on the song.

Jason Aldean joined Luke Bryan, his friend for many years, to celebrate Bryan's recent 30 number one song party last week (9/12). Luke is also good friends with his one-time ACM award show co-host Blake Shelton and is friends with his current CMA Awards show co-host Peyton Manning, who might as well be a country star (although he doesn't sing) as much as he loves the music.

Darius Rucker has many friends in the entertainment industry and counts Lady A's Charles Kelley as one of his closest friends. Many of his country music friends have joined Rucker every June in Nashville for his annual benefit concert to help St. Judes Hospital. Past buddies helping out include Jason Aldean, Brooks & Dunn, Brothers Osborne, Kane Brown, Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Sheryl Crow, Charles Kelley of Lady A, Ashley McBryde, A.J. McLean of the Backstreet Boys, Brad Paisley, and Kenny Rogers.

Let's look at five of country music's best friendships today.

Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde

These two friends will forever be linked not just for their duet "Never Wanted To Be That Girl" but because they won a Grammy for the performance in 2023 for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. When we interviewed McBryde recently, she told us of her friendship with Pearce, "We are opposites, especially in the way we enter a room. Carly always seems to me to be very well put together and has thought out what. She's about to say. I'm more likely to come in a room and be like (loud burst) 'Blahhhhh' and be kind of all over the place. I think that's why we got along so well. But that friendship started as a songwriter wanted. I wanted to write with Carly; I wanted to sing something with her."

Kane Brown and Chris Young

These two sealed their friendship with a collaboration called "Famous Friends," which Young co-wrote. The collaboration's video for "Famous Friends" won the 2021 CMT Music Award for Collaboration of the Year. Early in his career. Kane told us about being a fan of Young's music. He said, "I probably did as many Chris covers as I did other people's covers. And then when I got signed with Sony, it was the same label that Chris was on, and they knew I loved him right off the bat."

Blake Shelton and Reba McEntire

Blake told us what Reba McEntire did for him early in his Nashville career: "The ACM announcements/ nominees three years ago (2009), way before they were asking me, host, she agreed to go, and Reba doesn't do this; she agreed to be on CBS' Early Morning Show to announce the nominees for the ACMs if they would let me be on there with her. Normally, they send a couple of new baby acts to go do that because nobody wants to wake up that early and go do that, but Reba did that for me. If there's ever a time she can lend a hand, she's always been that for me."

Reba sat in Shelton's chair in "The Voice" semi-final in May. She is a Season 24 Coach.

Morgan Wallen and HARDY

These guys have been friends since the beginning of their respective careers in Nashville. HARDY told us about when he first met Morgan after he heard Wallen's debut single, "The Way I Talk." He said, "I think it was like Top 30, and I was just a huge fan of the song, and I had not met him before, and it was just kind of the publisher route," HARDY explained that he called his publisher and asked to be contacted with Morgan's booker asking to write with him. HARDY said, "And two weeks later, he was on the schedule, and I got a text at like 10 am, and he was like, 'Hey, this is Morgan Wallen, what's your address?' and he just showed up to my house."

Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson

Lainey and Jelly Roll are not just friends; they have an award-nominated collaboration together, "Save Me." Jelly Roll recently told ET of his friendship with Lainey, "That's just my sister. That's how I look at her." He added that there's such a kinship with Wilson and noted that and the fact that they're both where they are in our careers right now, at the same record label, with a song together that's "Just on fire."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.