Morgan Wallen tried "Been By Now" on a stadium crowd before anyone could stream it, playing it for the first time on July 18, 2026, at the Baltimore stop of his Still The Problem Tour. The studio version, his first solo release of the year, followed six days later. By Billboard's Country Airplay chart dated November 7 it was No. 1, his 23rd there and fourth of 2026; Billboard says no artist has reached 23 faster.
The festival takes its name from one of his own songs. "Sand in My Boots" opens Dangerous: The Double Album, the 2021 record that spent more than 100 weeks in the Billboard 200's top 10. In 2025 he took over the Gulf Shores beach that had been home to the Hangout Music Festival since 2010 and booked it with acts he actually listens to, from Post Malone and Brooks & Dunn to Three 6 Mafia and The War on Drugs. All 40,000 tickets went in under two hours. His fourth album, I'm the Problem, came out on opening day, May 16, and when he closed the weekend two nights later, seven of its songs got their first live airing.
He's a preacher's son from Sneedville, Tennessee, who sang in church from age 3 and then lived for baseball until tendon damage in his right elbow ended that plan in his senior year. His mother signed him up for The Voice in 2014, where he went through Team Usher and Team Levine before going out in the playoffs. "The Way I Talk," his debut single, was still the last song of the night in Gulf Shores. After that first edition, his foundation gave more than $200,000 worth of instruments to five Alabama schools.