Picking a Present for Country Music Fans: Bryan Sutton Is on Three of These Four Maps

I was cross checking two credit sheets that had no business overlapping, and Bryan Sutton's name came up in both. If you are hunting for a present for country music fans and you want something that is not another framed album cover, this is the argument for my Country Music Tube Maps collection: four discography maps, and a set of Nashville players who quietly hold three of them together.

Each map plots every studio album as a station and every credited musician as a line. Sizes are A2 (420 x 594mm) and A1 (594 x 841mm), from £42, printed as Giclée art prints, with an optional black wood frame.

What follows is not a product list. It is how I would talk you through the choice if you rang me and said the person you are buying for plays country in the truck.

Bryan Sutton Misses One Dierks Bentley Album in Twenty Years

Bryan Sutton is credited on nine of the ten Dierks Bentley studio albums I have mapped, from the 2003 debut through to Gravel & Gold in 2023. The only one he is absent from is The Mountain in 2018.

On the print that reads as a single line running almost the whole width of the map with one gap in it. Nobody else on that map does that, including several people who were nominally in the band.

Then he turns up twice more in this collection. He plays acoustic guitar and mandolin on Taylor Swift's Fearless and acoustic, twelve string and ukulele on Speak Now, and he is back on Lainey Wilson's Whirlwind in 2024 playing acoustic guitar on tracks two to four.

Three of the four maps in this collection, across twenty one years, and he is a member of none of those acts.

The Names That Cross Between These Four Maps

These came out of the credit sheets I keep for each artist, not from a search. Every person below appears on at least two of the four country maps.

If you are buying for a household with two country listeners in it, that table is the case for a pair rather than a single print. Two maps that share four or five names read as a set on a wall.

Cody Johnson Goes From One Credited Name to Forty Three

The Cody Johnson map has the steepest shape of anything in this collection. Live and Rocking in 2007 carries one credited musician. Black and White Label and A Different Day, both 2011, carry one each as well.

Cowboy Like Me in 2014 has three, and the two names beside his own are also Johnsons: Carl Johnson and Sheila Johnson. Then Gotta Be Me in 2016 jumps to sixteen, Ain't Nothin' to It to twenty three, and Human: The Double Album in 2021 to forty three.

You can see that happen without reading a word. The left hand end of the print is nearly bare and the right hand end is dense.

Human is also the only place Willie Nelson appears in this entire collection, and Leather in 2023 brings in Jelly Roll and Brooks & Dunn. Alison Krauss sings and plays fiddle on exactly one track of Ain't Nothin' to It, which is one short line touching one station and stopping.

This is the map for the fan who started with Ain't Nothin' to It and works backwards. There is more on the individual print in my Cody Johnson map guide.

Dierks Bentley Put a Bluegrass Band on His Debut and Pearl Jam's Guitarist on Feel That Fire

The 2003 Dierks Bentley debut has five members of the Del McCoury Band on it: Mike Bub, Jason Carter, Del McCoury, Rob McCoury and Ronnie McCoury. Four of them are back for Modern Day Drifter in 2005.

Then Feel That Fire in 2009 has Mike McCready of Pearl Jam playing electric guitar on track one. That is one credit, on one track, on one album, and it is the sort of thing a list of albums will never tell you.

Up on the Ridge in 2010 is the record where the Dierks Bentley map goes properly acoustic: Chris Thile, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Noam Pikelny, Chris Eldridge, Gabe Witcher, Tim O'Brien, Vince Gill and Alison Krauss all arrive at the same station.

Later on there is Trombone Shorty on "Mardi Gras", Elle King on "Different for Girls", Kacey Musgraves on "Bourbon in Kentucky", Brandi Carlile on The Mountain and Billy Strings on Gravel & Gold. Chris Stapleton is on three albums in a row before most buyers had heard of him.

Buy this one for the person who follows the guest list. I wrote up the print on its own in my Dierks Bentley map guide.

Jay Joyce Arrives and the Lainey Wilson Map Fills Up Overnight

The first four Lainey Wilson releases on the map are almost empty of credits. Country Girls Rule in 2006, the 2014 album, Tougher in 2016 and the 2018 self released record carry her own name and, on Tougher, Frank Foster.

Redneck Hollywood in 2019 changes everything, because that is where Jay Joyce arrives. From that point the Lainey Wilson map runs a stable core: Aslan Freeman, Fred Eltringham, Rob McNelley, Jason Hall and Joyce himself across all four Broken Bow era releases.

Whirlwind in 2024 has Miranda Lambert singing on track three, Bryan Sutton on acoustic guitar, and Monroe the Dog credited with sound effects on track two. I did not invent that last one and I was not going to leave it off.

This is the newest map in the collection and the best one for a younger fan. The single print write up is in my Lainey Wilson map guide.

Nathan Chapman Runs to 1989 and Then the Swift Map Changes Hands

Taylor Swift sits in this collection because the first half of that discography is a Nashville record made by Nashville players. Dan Dugmore is on pedal steel on the 2006 debut, Rob Hajacos plays fiddle on the first three albums, Bruce Bouton plays dobro on the debut and Nick Buda drums on the first four.

Nathan Chapman is the spine of it. He is credited on the debut, Fearless, Speak Now, Red and 1989, and after 1989 in 2014 his line stops dead.

Jack Antonoff first appears on that same 1989 record and is on every album since. On the Taylor Swift map the handover happens at a single station, which is exactly the sort of thing a map shows and a tracklist hides.

There is a country return later too, when the Dixie Chicks appear on Lover, with Emily Strayer on banjo and Martie Maguire on fiddle. My separate write up of that print is here.

Why Brett Beavers Only Gets a Line on Two Dierks Bentley Albums

My rule for these maps is that a producer does not get a musician line unless the credits also show them playing something. Brett Beavers is the clearest illustration of it in this collection.

He was central to the early Dierks Bentley records, but he only appears twice on the map: banjo on track three of Feel That Fire, and acoustic guitar and programming on Home. Everywhere else he sat behind the glass, so the map leaves him out.

Jay Joyce goes the other way. He produces every Lainey Wilson record from Redneck Hollywood onwards and is also credited on organ, guitars, drums, keyboards and programming, so he earns a long line and keeps it.

Same rule, opposite outcome. It is why every line you can trace on one of these prints belongs to somebody who actually made a sound on the record.

Choosing a Present for Country Music Fans: Which Map and Which Size

If they play Ain't Nothin' to It on repeat, go Cody Johnson. If they read liner notes and know who Sam Bush is, go Dierks Bentley.

If the fan is under thirty and came in through Bell Bottom Country, go Lainey Wilson. If the person is a Swift listener who insists the early records are the good ones, the Taylor Swift map is the one that proves the point.

On size, A2 (420 x 594mm) suits a hallway, a landing or above a desk, and it works for the fan who will enjoy recognising the album names. A1 (594 x 841mm) is for the person who will stand in front of it and read the guest credits, because at that size they are legible from a normal distance.

Prices start at £42, all prints are Giclée, and the black wood frame is optional. For a milestone birthday or a retirement I would go A1 and framed every time.

What People Ask Me Before They Buy a Country Map

Is the Taylor Swift map really a country present? For the first five albums, yes, and the credits back it up. If the person you are buying for prefers the later records it still works, because the map covers the whole run and shows the change of personnel.

Which is the safest choice if I have no idea what they own? Dierks Bentley. Almost nobody makes merchandise for him, and the Del McCoury Band on the debut gives you something to say when they open it.

Do these maps show songs or albums? Albums are the stations and musicians are the lines. Individual tracks appear only where a credit is tied to one, such as Alison Krauss on track three of Ain't Nothin' to It.

Can I hang two of them together? Yes, and the crossover table above gives you a reason to. Dierks Bentley and Lainey Wilson share Rob McNelley, Fred Eltringham and Jedd Hughes, so that pair genuinely belongs side by side.

What if the artist they love is not in this collection? Tell me. I add maps steadily, and the research always starts the same way, with a spreadsheet and a lot of small print.

Where to Start

Browse the full Country Music Tube Maps collection, or widen the search across every genre in the Music Wall Art Prints collection.

If you are still torn between two of them, tell me who it is for and what they had on last. I have these credit sheets open most days anyway.