CBS is getting into the music competition game this fall in the 2025 TV schedule with The Road, which will be unlike any other competition show on the airwaves nowadays. The new series follows twelve potential future country stars as they perform as the opening acts for Keith Urban on his tour across the country.
They're competing for a grand prize, with country music's Gretchen Wilson as Tour Manager, The Voice's Blake Shelton on board, and Yellowstone's Taylor Sheridan as executive producer as well as Keith Urban. Wilson spoke with CinemaBlend about her role as Tour Manager and collaborating with an EP best known for his hit scripted dramas.
The grand prize for the winner of The Road is surely going to be motivating for the twelve contestants: a cash prize of $250,000 and a recording contract, on top of the invaluable experience of performing on stage for a Keith Urban crowd with proven country talent like Blake Shelton and Gretchen Wilson on hand.
But what about Taylor Sheridan, who has been so successful with scripted projects like Special Ops: Lioness, Tulsa King, and of course Yellowstone and its various spinoffs? When I chatted with Gretchen Wilson, the Grammy-winner clarified the format of the show:
I want to be very clear that there was nothing about this show that's scripted. Everybody was exactly who they are. It's really going to come down to how much of it can they actually squeeze into the television time, I think. It's very authentic. It's very off the cuff. At no time during filming was I asked to say anything other than what would just come out of my mind and my heart and my mouth, and so I have to assume that it was that way for everyone.
Taylor Sheridan may have had audiences on the edges of their seats over the years for his scripted TV shows, but there were no screenplays behind the action during the production of The Road. Whoever wins and whatever happens once the show kicks off on October 19, it was caught on camera rather than written out ahead of time. Wilson went on to share what's "unique" about working with Sheridan, and it has nothing to do with any of his Dutton dramas:
I think that the unique thing about working with Taylor is just the beauty that he brings to what he touches. Everything that you watch, that he has been involved with, has got a warmth to it, like a colorization that you just don't see anywhere else. It reminds you of real life.
Gretchen Wilson also shared that she basically joined the show after getting a call that Blake Shelton said she'd "be a good fit for this role that's opened up" on The Road, and it was "kind of that simple," which meant her first collaboration with Taylor Sheridan. She went on:
I feel like that when he gets to a set, he treats it and he wants to see it the way that you would see it with your normal eye, rather than with all of this bright lighting and all of this almost sterile environment [that] it kind of feels like on a lot of TV shows and a lot of sets. He just brings this warmth and this realness and this just real comfortable sort of environment to what he's involved in.
So, while The Road will be different from what Sheridan has produced in the past, Wilson only had good things to say about the signature touch he brought to the show. After competing in (and winning) Season 13 of The Masked Singer on Fox, this isn't Wilson's first high-profile role on a music competition show.
But she's not competing this time around, and instead has a support role for the twelve performers who have high hopes for a country music career. So, what is her role as The Road's Tour Manager? She explained:
I think it's important to say that the tour manager's job in a regular role goes a little bit deeper than what I had to do. A tour manager normally would also have to take care of hotel rooms, bussing, a lot of the logistics. For the sake of this show, my job was as Tour Manager, and I didn't actually have to do those jobs, the behind the scenes stuff. But I did do all of the essential and in-your-face tour manager stuff.
Even though she won't have all the duties of a tour manager who operates without a camera crew and TV show to film, she does have a major role on The Road. She shared some examples of how she helps out the contestants, who will suddenly find themselves in one of country music's brightest spotlights as openers for Keith Urban. She said:
It's sort of being the last person that the musician would come to for help, for advice, for, 'Hey, I'm having a problem. My guitar isn't working. I can't seem to get this person's attention. Does this outfit look okay? Should I have chosen a different song? Can you tell the band director that I need him to cut this out of the music?' It's a million things, but it's kind of like the last person that the musician goes to, or the contestant goes to, and feeds off of before each performance, and then also in their off time. If it's two o'clock in the afternoon, and they have a question about a song that they chose, they would come to me and say, 'Do you think this is a good idea or a bad idea?’
Fortunately, the wait is nearly over for the first episode of the new music competition series, and a first look indicates that it could be a dream come true for country music fans. It's certainly not another version of The Voice or American Idol! Take a look:
Tune in to CBS on Sunday, October 19 at 9 p.m. ET for the 90-minute series premiere of The Road, or stream next day with a Paramount+ subscription. Although it remains to be seen which of the contestants has the best shot of becoming a household name as a singer when all is said and done, Taylor Sheridan and Co. joining names from the music industry like Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, and Gretchen Wilson bodes well for the new show winning an audience.
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