As Dierks Bentley gears up to release his upcoming 11th studio album, Broken Branches (out June 13), and his 30-city Broken Branches Tour launching this week, he is also giving back to the creative and touring communities — including songwriters, musicians and touring crews — that keep artists and their music in front of fans.
Bentley has established the Broken Branches Fund, with a multiyear financial commitment to offer mental health resources to the creative and touring communities. The fund will be administered in partnership with Music Health Alliance and will give mental health grants to qualified candidates and their families. The funds will cover outpatient counseling and plans for follow-up care. Music fans can also donate to the fund throughout Bentley’s summer tour stops and through MHA’s online donation site.
“Making this album and prepping for the tour, I’ve never been more aware of the sacrifice that the people in this town make every day to keep country music playing,” Bentley said in a statement. “Whether you’re sitting in a room all day trying to write the perfect hook or leaving home on a bus for weeks at a time, it can be isolating and exhausting. This just felt like the right opportunity to make a bigger commitment on my part to supporting those folks and their families in a more direct and intentional way.”
“Dierks was one of the first artists to believe in and support Music Health Alliance, and from day one, he’s led with both heart and action,” Tatum Allsep, founder and CEO of Music Health Alliance, said in a statement. “Creating the Broken Branches Fund at MHA to support music’s mental health shows his deep commitment to the people who power our industry both on stage and off, and to their well-being for many years to come.”
Music Health Alliance launched in 2013 and offers advocacy and access to healthcare and mental health resources for music professionals and their families, with MHA’s services bing free to those who have earned a living in the music industry for more than three years. According to the MHA, more than 32,000 music community members across the United States have been aided through mental health resources, lifesaving transplants, health insurance and emergent dental care, saving more than $145 million in healthcare costs.
The new Bentley-launched fund continues the partnership work Music Health Alliance has been engaged in through various areas of the industry. Earlier this year, Music Health Alliance expanded its partnership with Universal Music Group to launch the Music Industry Mental Health Fund, to offer “comprehensive, high-quality outpatient mental health resources for music industry professionals across the United States.”
Bentley’s Broken Branches album will continue his dedication to collaborating with and spotlighting many of Nashville’s top tunesmiths, musicians and artists. He teams with Stephen Wilson Jr. on the song “Cold Beer Can,” while Riley Green and Country Music Hall of Famer John Anderson join him on the album’s title track, and Miranda Lambert appears on “Never You.” Luke Dick, Kyle Sturrock, Jeremy Bussey, Jordan Reynolds, Jim Beavers, Connie Harrington and Lauren McLamb are a few of the writers whose work is highlighted on the album.