Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw will tour in 2012 with the ‘Brothers of the Sun’ Tour. The 19-date stadium tour dates have been announced. Kenny came to real prominence nationally when he was the opening act for McGraw for a couple of years in the early 2000's are back together. It was much the same for Tim when he was featured on the George Strait Country Music Festival in the late '90's.
The reunion will kick off June 2 in Tampa, FL. ‘Brothers of the Sun’ will also feature special guests Grace Potter & The Nocturnals and Jake Owen.
Here is a partial list of tour dates:
‘Brothers of the Sun’ Tour 2012:
Sat. June 2 – Tampa, FL – Raymond James Stadium Sun. June 3 – Atlanta, GA – Georgia Dome Sat. June 9 – Dallas, TX – Cowboys Stadium Sun. June 10 – Kansas City, MO – Arrowhead Stadium Sat. June 16 – Philadelphia, PA – Lincoln Financial Field Sat. June 23 – Nashville, TN – LP Field Sun. June 24 – Charlotte, NC – Bank of America Stadium Sat. June 30 – Pittsburgh, PA – Heinz Field Sun. July 1 – Cincinnati, OH – Paul Brown Stadium Sat. July 7 – Chicago, IL – Soldier Field Sun. July 8 – Minneapolis, MN – Target Field Sat. July 14 – Anaheim, CA – Angels Stadium
It's coming Home, February 7 is the sixth studio CD from Dierks Bentley. The CD includes the number one song "Am I The Only One," as well as Dierks current single, "Home."
Ryman Auditorium will host a special CD release event for Dierks February 2.
Dierks will be featured on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Thursday night. The first leg of the Country & Cold Cans Tour ends this weekend for the holidays. Bentley will be back out on the road in February with stops in Canada and Australia.
The International Festival of Country Music is BACK. February 26, 2012, the festival will be at Wembley Arena in London, England. It's been 20 years since the last IFCM. This year's lineup includes Reba, Ricky Skaggs, Lonestar, and Little Big Town.
The festival went on hiatus in 1991 after a 23 year run beginning in 1969. A partial history of the festival is available at the link.
The NBC special, "A Michael Bublé Christmas," will air December 6. Stories from New York suggest Kellie Pickler could be part of the show. Pickler tweeted from New York recently and a makeup artist said she saw Pickler on stage with Bublé.
Here's a tweet we picked up.
“Back stage with Michael Bublé and Kelly Pickler! They’re singing the
cutest duet together for Michael’s Christmas show!,” Belinda Moss
tweeted.
The taping for the NBC special was November 4 in Brooklyn.
Bublé recently released an album of holiday standards. The CD includes a duet of "White Christmas" with Shania Twain among the 15 songs in the project.
ABC Family's 25 Days Of Christmas has a country theme in 2011. The Band Perry, two time CMA Award winners earlier this month, wrote and recorded the theme.
You'll get your first look at the music video for the song November 20 during ABC Family's "Holiday in Handcuffs" at 8pm Eastern Time.
Royal Caribbean International has invited guests to a special, live performance by Martina McBride.
McBride is scheduled to perform aboard Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas, the largest and most innovative cruise ship ever to homeport in New Orleans, on Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011.
The Martina concert for invited guests will take place in Voyager of the Seas’ Lyric Theatre before the ship departs on its Western Caribbean Thanksgiving cruise.
November 29 is the court date for Tim McGraw and Curb Records. It's part of a suit to determine if McGraw may record and release material on another record label.
Curb sued Tim for breach of contract in May, and Tim counter-sued seeking to get out of his Curb contract entirely.
According
to media sources, Tim and Curb's contract dispute will go to court on
July 9, 2012. Emotional Traffic, Tim's newly-completed album, is on the shelf as a result of this dispute.
Trace Adkins says he won’t be as nervous this time when he hosts the second annual American Country Awards.
Actress Kristin Chenoweth will join him as co-host for the show airing live from Las Vegas on Dec. 5. It will be broadcast on Fox television.
Adkins says he signed on to host last year because he thought it would be a challenge. He says he didn’t start to enjoy it until about an hour into the show.
Until that point, he says he was “pretty scared and nervous” that he wasn’t doing well. This time, he says he won’t be as self-conscious.
Blake Shelton just announced all of the dates for his new “Well Lit & Amplified Tour 2012,” beginning in January and running through March. Check out the Well Lit & Amplified Tour 2012 dates below to see when Blake’s coming to your city!
1/12 – Toledo, OH 1/13 – St. Louis, MO 1/14 – Lincoln, NE 1/19 – Rapid City, SD 1/20 – Bismarck, ND 1/21 – Billings, MT 1/22 – Bozeman, MT 1/26 – Columbus, GA 1/27 – Duluth, GA 1/28 – Pensacola, FL
2/9 – Erie, PA 2/10 – Charleston, WV 2/16 – Highland Heights, KY 2/17 – Columbus, OH 2/18 – Roanoke, VA 2/23 – Worcester, MA 2/24 – Reading, PA 2/25 – Fairfax, VA
3/8 – Spokane, WA 3/9 – Seattle, WA 3/10 – Boise, ID 3/11 – Portland, OR 3/13 – Bakersfield, CA 3/14 – Reno, NV 3/15 – Sacramento, CA 3/17 – Las Vegas, NV
Ticket information for the “Well Lit & Amplified 2012 tour is available at the link.
"Diary of a Player" co-author David Wild tells Nashville's "Tennessean" that the idea for the written collaboration came about last year in a tweet from a stranger. Wild, who was a writer for the 2010 CMA Awards, explains that he and Paisley were swapping ideas for the ceremony via Twitter when someone monitoring their exchange suggested they team up on a book.
Wild says he later followed up privately with an offer to team up on Paisley's autobiography. Brad admits he wasn't interested in writing "a tell-all book," but recalled saying that he'd "love to tell some of these stupid stories" about the guitar.
Paisley's "stupid stories" gave the book its structure, and the country star shares his story through his journey with the instrument.
"Diary of a Player" is in stores now or get it at the link from Amazon.
Brad Paisley introduces ‘Little Justin Bieber’ who is ‘Little Jimmy Dickens’
• Lionel Richie performs "Stuck on You" with Darius Rucker, Rascal Flatts for "Dancing on the Ceiling" and Little Big Town performed "Deep River Woman."
Brad Paisley, Vince Gill and Keith Urban pays tribute to Country Music Hall of Fame member and former CMA Entertainer of the Year Glen Campbell.
Faith Hill performs ‘Come Home’
Miranda Lambert Wins Female Vocalist of the Year
Taylor Swift Wins Entertainer of the Year
In chronological order, the 45th CMA Awards in the books. Looking ahead, the next awards show, The American Country Awards from Las Vegas are only a few weeks away.
One thing about tonight's co-host of the CMA Awards Show, Carrie Underwood is going to be very busy soon. Underwood writing on her fan club message board says she will "tour my face off" in the new year.
Carrie says she's about halfway through a new CD project for 2012. Underwood explained she wanted this CD to be about the music, not money or celebrity.
The 2011 CMT Artists of the Year show will be hosted on CMT by Rob Lowe. The best selling author, actor, and "Parks and Recreation" star will from the show airing December 13 on CMT
Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, and Taylor Swift will be honored on this year's show.
Joe Nichols released his sixth studio album, It's All Good, featuring his latest single, "Take It Off."
Joe had very clear intentions while recording the project.
He wanted to bring a traditional sound into today and connect with listeners.
Here's the track list for It's All Good:
"Take It Off"
"The More I Look"
"Somebody's Mama"
"It's All Good"
"This Ole Boy"
"I Can't Take My Eyes Off You"
"No Truck, No Boat, No Girl"
"Never Gonna Get Enough"
"She's Just Like That"
"How I Wanna Go"
Tim McGraw has expressed his interest in possibly entering politics at some point mainly after he feels his singing and acting careers have died down a bit.
During an interview with CNN, Tim was asked again about jumping into the political arena and the support he has received from former president Bill Clinton, if he were to run for public office.
Tim told CNN with a grin you could never rule that out.
Clinton, whom Tim has called "the best president we ever had," returned the country star's compliments.
Tim will tour Australia with his ‘First’ lady Faith Hill in 2012.
ASCAP's Songwriter/Artist of the Year will be front and center Wednesday night as host of the CMA Awards. Brad Paisley was one of the big winners of the night. Other winners named by the performing rights organization, which sometimes hints at the CMA winners later in the week, included song of the year for "The House That Built Me."
Thirty five songs were recognized by ASCAP for the amount of airplay from country radio. The recognized group included "Our Kind of Love" from Lady Antebellum, "This," from Darius Rucker, and the "Boys of Fall," by Kenny Chesney.
The CMA Awards show airs Wednesday night on ABC-TV.
Robin Roberts is taking full advantage of ABC's broadcast of the CMA Awards by grabbing two of country's top performers for her show.
Roberts catches up with Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney for her TV special, "In the Spotlight with Robin Roberts." The special airs Tuesday November 8 on ABC. Sugarland, Faith Hill, American Idol winner Scott McCreery, and Lauren Alaina are also part of the special.
Kenny Rogers welcomes special guest Billy Dean to his 30th Christmas tour. The 16 city event begins just after Thanksgiving. Local children's choirs join the performers on stage at each stop on the tour.
This is Billy Deans's second trip on the Rogers Christmas tour. Here's the list of stops on this year's Christmas special.
It's CMA week in Nashville with the show coming Wednesday night on ABC-TV. The first group of presenters has been made public with Billy Currington, Reba, LeAnn Rimes among those making award presentations.
The pre-telecast will be hosted by Laura Bell Bundy. The "pre-telecast" includes awards like the CMA Broadcast awards, Music Event, Music Video, and Musician of the Year presentations.
Sugarland captured one of the coveted performance spots on the show. They invited former tour mate and songwriter Matt Nathanson to join them. The three wrote the song, "Run" which is on Nathanson's latest project, "Modern Love."
You may hear people complain about politics a lot these days. Toby Keith is putting his money where his mouth is, imagine that.
In 2008, Toby changed his registration from the Democratic Party to that of an Independent. Now, a filing from the Federal Election Commission shows Toby wrote a maximum check to Texas Governor Rick Perry's Presidential Campaign. The $2500 check was written August 31, just a few days after Perry declared his bid for the nomination.
The economy has been one of the big things on Toby's mind. He expressed his disappointment with President Obama's handling of the economy on the Joy Behar show recently.
Last night, Country Music Hall of Fame member Don Williams received ASCAP's Golden Note Award. The presentation was made at the organizations 49th awards event at Opryland Resort in Nashville.
Williams joins a who's who of past winners. Garth Brooks, Reba, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, and Alan Jackson are among past winners of the award.
Music's biggest night, the Grammy Awards are set for February 12 in Los Angeles. There's always the nominations show, and this year Sugarland will be on the nominations program.
The Grammy Nominations Concert Live airs November 30 on CBS from the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles.
Jason Aldean will join Jennifer and Kristian on the show to represent country music.
Keith Urban will have surgery after the CMA Awards this year. The statement from Urban's publicist said the procedure was minor but that it would require complete voice rest.
Urban is one of the nominees for Entertainer of the Year at Wednesday night's awards show. He had planned to sing multiple songs during the performance. News of the impending surgery has caused those plans to be changed.
One of the cancellations is the All for the Hall benefit concert at the Country Music Hall of Fame. The event had been set for January 18. No new time has been set pending Urban's recovery.
Rodney Atkins will bring a little country flavor to this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It's the 85th anniversary of the New York City tradition. More than 8,000 participants will be in this year's parade, including Santa Claus.
Rodney will be performing en route on a float during the parade.
Cee Lo Green, Neil Diamond, Avril Lavigne, and American Idol winner Scotty McCreery are a few of the additional performers in this years event, Thanksgiving morning at 9am eastern time.
If you were watching Brad Paisley on Nightline Monday night, you heard something that's practically impossible to believe. Brad admitted he had been pulled over under the suspicion of DUI. His kids were in the back seat when the officer stopped Paisley. Turns out the Paisley's had been out for ice cream.
Here's what happened on the show.
Kind of makes you wonder about the quality of police work in Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, doesn't it?
Brad's kids, William and Jasper, thought the whole thing was pretty funny.
Getting old is just a fact of life. But when your life revolves around playing music and getting that music heard on the radio, getting old can stop you from getting heard.
Vince Gill talked with the Associated Press about his concerns that the average country listener won't get to hear his new music because of his age. Gill told the AP the reason you don't hear music from George Jones or Merle Haggard on the radio now is because of their age.
There are only two performers getting heard on mainstream country radio today who's age is near Gill's (he's 54). George Strait and Reba McEntire are the only two of a litany of artists who made music in the 80's and 90's that are heard on mainstream country radio today.
Jimmy Wayne has a perennial Holiday hit with the song Paper Angels. Now, Wayne has a book by the same title available just in time for the holidays.
The book was released today by Howard Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint. It's Wayne's first book and is a fictional story, although based on Jimmy's own childhood. As a child, Wayne was a recipient of gifts from the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program.
In talking with Wayne he told me, "I have never forgotten that
and to this day I am still grateful for the generous hearts who take
care of these kids at Christmas.”
Four the Record is in stores and available online as of Tuesday. It's the fourth album released by Miranda Lambert and her first on the RCA Nashville record label.
Miranda wrote or co-wrote 6 of the 14 songs on the CD's regular version. There's also a deluxe edition with an extra track and a few stories about the songs from Miranda. There's a duet with husband Blake, "Better in the Long Run," among the 14 cuts on the CD.
CMT is ready to show their latest episode of Invitation Only with Blake Shelton later this month. The original show was taped in September. Dish network subscribers get a shot at the show now, while the rest of us will have to wait until mid November.
Blake's performance was filmed in Studio A at the Grand Ole Opry for a handful of invited fans. Some of the songs you will see on the performance include, "Footloose","Hillbilly Bone", "All About Tonight", and "Drink On It."
No, the topless photo flying around the internet is NOT Taylor Swift and she's pretty upset about it. The blog website Celebrity Jihad posted photos of a topless woman who resembles Taylor. The headline asked the question, "Taylor Swift Topless Private Pic Leaked?"
Lawsuits have been threatened if the photo is not removed. The letter from the Swift camp to the web site says the site contains, "false pornographic
images and false 'news" about Swift
The website, clearly enjoyed the extra publicity saying on their site, "Taylor Swift clearly
brought this upon herself by running around without a burka, exposing
her lanky bird like figure in public."
The American Country Awards will have a star studded cast from Las Vegas December 5th. Announcement of performances by Blake Shelton, Thompson Square, the Eli Young Band, and The Band Perry were announced by Fox.
The show, hosted by Trace Adkins and Kristin Chenoweth, will have performances from Miranda Lambert, Scott McCreery, and Lauren Alaina among others. This is the second ACA awards show. You'll see it from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Vegas December 5.
100 Proof is the new album coming from Kellie Pickler in late January. Pickler wanted to do something more akin to her North Carolina upbringing and grabbed veteran producer Frank Liddell to help make that happen.
The first cut on the CD, "Where's Tammy Wynette", shows off a different kind of sound for Pickler. Kellie wrote more than half the songs on the CD.
You can order the CD now as maybe an after Christmas gift to yourself.
