\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIf you want to know how an artist really feels about an album, catch them after they\u2019ve begun playing it live for their fans. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the songs or what, but the fans are singing along before we even get through the first couple,\u201d Sunny Sweeney<\/a> tells me, thrilled by the response to tracks like \u201cFind It Where I Can\u201d and \u201cDiamonds and Divorce Decrees.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis was late summer, a little more than a month after Sweeney released Rhinestone Requiem<\/em>, her sixth studio album and first since 2022. We were in a lounge on the edge of downtown Nashville \u2014 not far from Sweeney\u2019s home in neighboring Hendersonville. On a slow afternoon, before the happy hour crowd strolled in, Sweeney felt like talking. She does that a lot these days, as part of her second-act side gig as a country music deejay.<\/p>\n \n\tBut 15 years ago, she was a country singer and songwriter, one being hailed as the genre\u2019s next savior. That may have been a heavy expectation, but she\u2019s clearly evolved into one of its vanguards. This is obvious even to casual listeners to Sweeney\u2019s Sunny Side Up<\/em>, the SiriusXM show she hosts weekdays from 6 a.m. to noon on Willie\u2019s Roadhouse channel. The high-profile job constantly exposes her to the tiresome, never-ending debate over \u201cauthenticity\u201d in country music, and the Texas native can\u2019t help but weigh in.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cRight now, the conversation everybody is having is \u2018What\u2019s country? What\u2019s not country?\u2019 I am supportive of creative people, and any artist that wants to put out a record and call it whatever the hell they want to call it, I want them to succeed at it,\u201d she says. \u201cWho am I to tell someone what something is? My response to that is, this is my take on what I think country music should be.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSpecifically, she\u2019s talking about Rhinestone Requiem<\/em>, an album influenced by her musical heroes, among them Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, and Waylon Jennings. \u201cI hope and pray that my people that have passed on, they\u2019re looking down on me smiling, saying, \u2018Carry that torch, girl. Keep that steel guitar in your music,’\u201d she says.<\/p>\n