The country music industry may be centered in Nashville, but much of the talent and sound behind Music City’s best-known export originates elsewhere.

The Country Music Hall of Fame medallion ceremony on Oct. 16 provided a strong reminder that the genre synthesizes people, style and abilities from across America. Late honoree Keith Whitley found his way to Nashville from eastern Kentucky through a bluegrass portal. Record executive Joe Galante brought marketing savvy to town from New York after working rock records by David Bowie and Lou Reed.

And Jerry Lee Lewis — forced by an illness to stay home — developed his flashy piano playing and performance skills after hanging out at R&B/blues club Haney’s Big House in Ferriday, La., before launching his recording career in Memphis ahead of his shift to country in 1968.

The first performance during the induction — Alabama’s “My Home’s in Alabama,” a song that was key in the band signing with Galante at RCA in 1980 — clung to that concept, celebrating the group’s hometown roots despite exploring a range of American cities. 

The rest of the guest list similarly represented multiple facets of popular music and geographical backgrounds. Oklahoman Garth Brooks found all the dramatic high points of Whitley’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes” in a guitar/vocal format, ironically closing his own eyes during the chorus while seemingly channeling the song’s lead character. Texan Lee Ann Womack created spine-tingling sensitivity in her version of Lewis’ “Middle Age Crazy,” infusing the late-’70s ballad with fierce sympathy and just a touch of scorn. East Tennessee-born Kenny Chesney fought through the emotionally challenging country love song “The Good Stuff,” a title that found favor in part because Galante pushed for its release to radio. And former San Francisco resident Chris Isaak delivered a faithful rendition of the Killer’s “Great Balls of Fire,” replete with heavily reverbed vocals and Jen Gunderman’s interpretation of Lewis’ piano-banging and shiny glissandos.

Galante recalled in his acceptance speech that late BMI executive Frances Preston, a 1992 Hall inductee, had told him that country music revolves around the song and the artist. That combination of impactful songs and distinct artists describes the works that defined the medallion ceremony’s honorees.

Lewis rode his “pumping piano” — as it was listed on the label of his early Sun recordings — to a singular place in rock and country history, with “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” succeeding in both genres in the late 1950s. He refocused on country in 1968, leading to a 13-year run of hits that included a remake of “Chantilly Lace,” honky-tonk hit “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)” and an improbable take on “Over the Rainbow,” bolstered with a self-reference to “ol’ Jerry Lee.”

“Jerry Lee doesn’t walk onstage and politely thank an audience for being there,” Hank Williams Jr. said while inducting the Killer. “Jerry Lee doesn’t ask for your attention. He demands it. He doesn’t take the stage. He commands it … Jerry Lee doesn’t play songs. He owns songs.”

Whitley applied a rich vocal tone to tunes he inhabited emotionally. “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” “I’m No Stranger to the Rain” and “When You Say Nothing at All” — performed by Mickey Guyton during the ceremony while Hall of Fame member Don Schlitz, who co-wrote it, watched from the audience — provided his first three No. 1 hits in just a few months in the late 1980s, earning significant airplay at the time he died from alcohol poisoning in 1989. Where Lewis is famously confident, Whitley hid lingering self-doubts, a trait that was perhaps key to his ability to embody sadness and vulnerability in his recordings.

“Keith was three weeks away from being made a member of the Grand Ole Opry when he passed away,” recalled Lorrie Morgan, who was his wife at the time. “He didn’t know it. And he would have never suspected this [induction] in his life.”

Whitley’s breakthrough made him an addition to the new traditionalist movement of that era, and he became a significant influence on many acts who followed him, including Tim McGraw, Chris Young and Brooks, who officially inducted him into the Hall.

“This night,” Brooks announced, “is long overdue.”

Galante, meanwhile, was hailed as an executive who, by asking the right questions, helped the country industry better understand its product, its audience and the connection between them. He developed data, as Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young noted, that informed difficult decisions and inspired marketing plans for a product that had frequently been worked on gut instinct. Not that Galante operated strictly from a mathematical playbook.

“Joe also looked beyond the numbers, to the things you can’t quantify, like originality and heart,” said Young. “He overruled the data when it felt right.”

Galante’s successes were numerous. He directed key campaigns for Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride and Miranda Lambert, who performed a guitar/vocal version of “White Liar” in his honor. Kix Brooks, while inducting Galante, noted that Brooks & Dunn was contemplating a split when a merger put the executive in charge of their label. The chance to work with “Joe frickin’ Galante” was enough incentive for the duo to give it one more try, which turned into a second 10-year run.

Galante’s own sensitivities were on display during his acceptance speech, where he told how his father, a 30-year postal service employee, had never understood the job that consumed his son. He discovered only after his dad’s death that the elder Galante had routinely purchased Billboard off newsstands in New York and saved photos and stories about his boy.

“You get the point,” Galante said, just before the emotion took over the story.

Ultimately, it’s those human tales — the ones delivered by singular artists — that built both Music City and the Rotunda that houses the bronze plaques of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Johnny Cash, Jimmie Rodgers and Willie Nelson will have to make room for three more occupants who made their entrance somewhere else but left their mark in Nashville. 

N.O.R.E. spoke out Monday (Oct. 17) about the wave of backlash he’s faced over having Kanye West as a guest on his Revolt TV show Drink Champs.

Speaking to Hot 97’s Pete Rosenberg and Laura Stylez, the rapper explained, “Well the logic was the same way you guys are giving me the platform. I think you guys have love for me, you guys have respect for me, and you guys think that I should have a say. I have a relationship with Ye. When he was going through a lot of the things he was going through, he would call me and he would actually listen to me and take my advice. So I felt I could control the situation. I felt that I could control the interview, and learned early on that I didn’t.”

N.O.R.E. went on to add that “as a Black man, I feel like I failed,” but justified his thought process that “as a journalist,” the controversial interview was considered a success. “Because as a journalist, you’re really not supposed to have an opinion,” he said. “You’re supposed to let people talk. And my biggest critique on Drink Champs is ‘N.O.R.E., you always cut people off!’ And this is the one time I didn’t cut the people, didn’t cut ’em off, and everyone’s mad.”

A bit later, the artist offered a mea culpa for providing his pal with a platform to broadcast what many critics are denouncing as hate speech, saying, “I sincerely apologize to anybody that was hurt by Kanye’s words, by Kanye’s actions.” However, he also claims he called out his longtime friend over his eyebrow-raising statements regarding George Floyd and the Jewish community within minutes of the interview starting.

Watch N.O.R.E.’s full walk-back of his interview with Ye below.

Harry Styles and Lizzo‘s tours both brought them to Chicago this weekend, leaving them with the perfect opportunity to reconnect in person.

Lizzo attended Styles’ Love On Tour Saturday night (Oct. 15) and spent some time hand-in-hand with her friend backstage. She shared a couple photos of their happy meeting on Twitter on Sunday — with both artists showing off gleeful grins.

“I had so much fun w Harry yesterday,” she tweeted with emojis.

Styles performed at the city’s United Center, where Lizzo would be returning to headline her own concert on The Special Tour Sunday night.

“ALL THE RUMORS ARE TRUE, YEAH! @Lizzo and Harry Styles were under one roof here at Harry’s House in Chicago,” the venue posted.

The first glimpse at the pair’s wholesome friendship started back in 2019, when Styles visited the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge and covered Lizzo’s smash hit “Juice.” “She’s exactly what you want an artist to be… which is yourself,” he said in the interview.

See Styles and Lizzo’s latest adorable photos together on Twitter.

Rachel Zegler is addressing the scrutiny she’s faced doing press for two high-profile movies, Disney’s upcoming live-action Snow White and last year’s West Side Story.

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, the actress opened up about the pressures around two of her earliest and biggest big-screen credits. That includes her role in Snow White, with the actress responding to what she describes as “jokes” about the modern update, which features her — a Latina — in the titular role and consultants who have been brought in to address the representation of the film’s dwarfism community.

“People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it’s like, yeah, it is — because it needed that,” the actress said. “It’s an 85-year-old cartoon, and our version is a refreshing story about a young woman who has a function beyond ‘Someday My Prince Will Come.’”

In January, Disney addressed its handling of the “seven dwarfs” characters after Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage criticized the live-action remake.

“Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White — but you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way, but then you’re still making that f—ing backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together?” the actor said in an episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.

In a statement, a Disney spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter it had hired consultants, with the studio reportedly reimagining the dwarf characters, who it said would be CG/animated, from the movie’s earliest stages.

“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” the spokesperson said. “We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”

Zegler also discussed her experience during the press tour for her breakout role as María in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, which she filmed while 17 years old. The actress noted that having to juggle questions about her identity as a Colombian American playing a Puerto Rican while also grappling with responses to her be cast as Snow White made it particularly “stressful.”

“I don’t think there could be a more stressful press tour than what I had to do for West Side Story,” she said. “Having to answer for a lot of cultural questions and at the same time answer for why I got cast as a Disney princess that isn’t associated with my skin color — it was bizarre.”

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.