Country To Country Festival returns to the UK with the 2025 edition (March 14-16) taking place in London, Glasgow and Belfast.
Headliners this year include Lainey Wilson (pictured), Dierks Bentley and Cody Johnson.
As we reported this week, BBC Radio 2 has extensive coverage as the official broadcast partner. Bob Harris will be fronting shows live on Radio 2 and BBC Sounds during the weekend on Saturday (3-6pm) and Sunday (8-10pm). He will also be joined by musicians for live sessions and highlights from the main stage.
In fact, The Country Show presenter has been a mainstay of C2C since its launch in the UK. Here, Bob Harris shares his highlights of this year’s line-up and discusses the ongoing rise of country music in the UK…
C2C 2025 is almost here. Are you looking forward to this year’s festival?
“100%, yes. I just met up with Mickey Guyton, who's my co-host on the main stage. We just had a great moment chatting about what we're going to be doing. So the whole weekend starts here.”
Lainey Wilson, who’s been busy on Radio 2 in the run-up, is the opening Friday headliner at The O2 in London. What can people expect from her?
“She's been doing a lot, she’s been doing Tracks Of My Years with Vernon [Kay]. We did a whole special with her for The Country Show when she was last here at Maida Vale. And what I love about Lainey is that she is an artist that just gives everything of herself in every moment that she's on stage. She puts herself into the moment. She's country music through and through. And we're going to obviously discover that on stage on Friday night.”
Are there any particular highlights for you this weekend?
“Actually, Lainey is my real highlight. I can't wait to see her. But Cody Johnson, who is headlining in London on the Sunday night – we don't always see artists like Cody Johnson come over to the UK. I haven't ever seen him before, but he's had such a fantastic success in the States that I'm looking forward to seeing him. There's a song of his, in particular, that resonates with me, called ‘Til You Can't – it's well worth recommending it to anyone to get some idea of what Cody Johnson genuinely represents.
“There are one or two other artists just a bit further down the bill that reflect what has become a really interesting trend in country music, and that's the social media breakthroughs. Some of the artists come through via TikTok – Niko Moon is one, for example, Avery Anna is another. And, of course, we're going to be seeing Shaboozey, who currently holds the record for the longest-running No.1 single in the American chart [A Bar Song (Tipsy), which is tied with Lil Nas X]. So it's perfect timing.”
What do you think of artists like Shaboozey, Lil Nas X and Beyoncé drawing on country alongside other influences to create huge hits?
“I think they enrich country music genuinely. I really do. I've been thrilled about the Beyoncé album [Cowboy Carter], and that album has become a talking point. It's brought an awareness of country music to people that wouldn't necessarily have thought about country before, but Beyoncé has just focused their minds. I love Texas Hold ‘Em in particular. There's an artist on her album called Rhiannon Giddens, who is a true roots artist, a Black American artist. My feeling is that if she's on that record, she gives it that credibility. Rhiannon wouldn't go on a record that she didn't believe in. Like Mickey Guyton, Beyonce grew up with country music in Texas, she heard it on local radio stations. So it's all part of the mix. And what happens is that these artists from outside of country bring their flavour into country music, so they have an influence on country music. It gives it a different flavour and a feeling, and I think it's all to the good.”
Bob Harris at C2C Festival 2024 (credit: Joseph Okpako/WireImage/Getty)
Shaboozey is mid-way on the bill but do you think that will be quite a moment?
“Do you know, I think you're right, because here at Radio 2 he has been getting really a lot of daytime play ever since that single came out, and the success in America. But again, you know, one of the things that's happened with C2C is, year by year, the audience has been getting gradually younger and younger. That's so good for the music, because the young fans, the teenage fans, obviously, they represent the future, so they'll be there in force I'm certain, for the Shaboozey set. It's going to be really interesting to feel the energy in the auditorium.”
Who would you single out among the new talent playing this year?
“We’ve got our Radio 2 Stage [at Indigo], we've got some fantastic talent on that. Alyssa Bonagura is a great favourite of mine. I love Kezia Gill, she's a homegrown talent, which is fabulous. Mackenzie Carpenter, I’m a big fan; First Time Flyers, again, a UK act; and Willow Avalon is another name we're going to see a lot of in the future.”
Radio 2 has become quite a champion of country music over the years, hasn’t it?
“We have, yeah. I mean, I've been doing The Country Show since 1999 and the growth of country music here since then has been huge. Radio 2 has been at the heart of that growth, particularly with C2C, Radio 2 has been the broadcast partner from day one. We had a dedicated digital channel for a couple of years as well. So Radio 2's commitment to country music has been 100% literally right the way through. I'm really proud of that.”
It's a fantastic journey that country music is on here in the UK
Bob Harris
And what would you say about your own role, because artists and their teams have come to see you as a focal point. Do you feel a certain responsibility for the genre?
“I'm very proud of that, I really am, actually. Because if you wind the clock back maybe 20 years, I was standing in this lane pretty much by myself, extolling the virtues of country music and the new bands that were coming through then. At that point you were talking about, say, somebody like Dierks Bentley, who I would have been the first to play on British radio. And now here we are, 20 years later, and he’s headlining C2C. So the fact that Country To Country came along… and there was one figure within the organisation of Country To Country, Milly Olykan, she and I formed such a strong partnership. So C2C and Radio 2 really have been standing shoulder to shoulder, and we're mutually supportive. Milly gives me huge credit for building country to the level that it's reached in the UK now.”
You mentioned UK country artists, how are domestic acts doing in the genre?
“I always go back to The Shires, who were the breakthrough UK country act. Ward Thomas were at more or less the same time. But for me, one of the really big ones at the moment is Kezia Gill. Kezia is playing the [CMA] Spotlight Stage, and she's playing the Radio 2 Stage, and she really is something. She's absolutely the real thing. And there's a wonderful Americana artist called Jonny Morgan. I really love his music. I've been supporting Jonny from day one. So, yeah, we've got a lot of talent here in the UK.”
Finally, do you think country music can grow further in the UK?
“I really do. I was at the Luke Combs concert at The O2 a little while ago – he played two successive sell-out nights, 36,000 people. You look at what Morgan Wallen did at Hyde Park and the bill there, 55,000 people. Country music is the fastest-growing genre in the UK. It exceeded three billion streams in a single year for the first time last year. You can see the graph, it's growing all the time. I can see it too, quite honestly, from the stage. I've watched the audience get younger, more enthusiastic, bigger – the vibe gets more exciting. It's really a fantastic journey that country music is on here in the UK. It's wonderful, actually.”
MAIN PHOTO: Lainey Wilson at C2C Berlin 2025 (Frank Hoensch/Redferns/Getty Images)
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