C2C

Saturday, 21 April 2012

Country Bites News snippets April 16 – April 20, 2012


Country Bites News snippets April 16 – April 20, 2012

Links / Sources in RED

UK & Irish NEWS
Gene Watson & Jerry Kilgore to tour together - From his success supporting Johnny Rodriguez on his recent UK tour
Jerry Kilgore has been invited to support Gene Watson on his UK tour in July. Gene and Jerry will be backed and supported by UK Band C’est La Vie. Dates:
Friday 6 July 2012 - Moss Bank Labour Club, St. Helen’s, Merseyside ( 0151 488 0678 )
Saturday 7 July 2012 - Debenham Sports and Leisure Centre Debenham Sports and Leisure Centre, Suffolk (01728 861101)
Sunday 8 July 2012 - Americana International Festival , Newark, Nottinghamshire (01159 390 595)
Monday 9 July 2012 - Queens Hall, Watton, Norfolk (Mike Rix on 01953 889890 or 0777 4640936 ) http://www.nickyjamesmusic.co.uk/news.html

(CMA News - Apr 18, 2012)
UK & Irish 2012 CMA Global Showcases set for June 4th-5th
Scottish duo Raintown

A diverse lineup of International Country Acts have been announced for the Global Events Showcases during the 2012 CMA Music Festival Week in downtown Nashville
No less than Twenty-Two artists representing five different countries and territories have been announced for the 2012 Global Events showcases, held June 4-5 during 2012 CMA Music Festival week.
Legendary Gene Watson to Perform Duet with Ireland’s Lisa McHugh
“Chevrolet Presents The CMA Global Artist Party” will be held Monday, June 4 (6:00–10:45 PM/CDT) at The Stage on Broadway.
The 2012 lineup includes Bob Corbett (Australia), Emerson Drive (Canada), Morgan Evans (Australia), Vickie Evans (New Zealand), Adam Harvey (Australia), High Valley (Canada), Lisa McHugh (Ireland) with the legendary Gene Watson (U.S.), Craig Morrison (Australia), Jess Moskaluke (Canada), Gary Quinn (UK), and Joe Robinson (Australia). Australian husband and wife duo O’Shea return as hosts from last year’s event.

“CMA Presents The Aristo Global Show” will be held Tuesday, June 5 (12:30–3:45 PM/CDT) at The Second Fiddle.This year’s performers include Baylou (Australia), Clayton Bellamy (Canada), Rick Caballo (Australia), Adam Gregory (Canada), Pete Kennedy (Ireland), Colm Kirwan (Ireland), Josh Macumber (Canada), Raintown (UK), Jessica Ridley (Canada), and Travellin Rose (UK).  Australian artist Adam Harvey is hosting the Aristo Global Show.
One of CMA’s missions is to help spread Country Music around the globe,” said Steve Moore, CMA Chief Executive Officer. “We are always excited to see international Country Music performers grow and develop in their own countries, and then visit Nashville to build their relationships with both the fans and the industry. We look forward to celebrating and showcasing them in Music City during the week of CMA Music Festival”


Colm Kirwan
Amazon CD Artwork
Colm Kirwan has just released his debut self titled album  on 19 April (Country House Records) It was produced by Grammy Nominee singer-songwriter Victoria Shaw, (Garth Brooks, Lady Antebellum) and the release in Europe co-incides with his scheduled tour in the UK and Ireland with Country Star Don Williams.
 The album has 2 cuts by ace songwriter/musician Gary Burr and 4 songs were co-written by Victoria.
 ‘I Love The Way You Love Me’ a duet with Shaw, was a #1 for John Michael Montgomery in 1993 and was covered by the Irish Boyband Boyzone. It was released in November 1998 and made #2 on the UK Chart.
The song ‘Never Alone’ (written by Gary Burr, Sara Buxton and Victoria Shaw) has previously been recorded by Jim Brickman/Sara Evans, The Rankin Family, Robin Meade and Susie McEntire (formely Luchsinger)
Bonus track ‘The Lumber Song’ written in 1996 by Bob Halligan, Jr/Linda Halligan and Rick Cua was pitched to Colm by his friend Rory Feek (of Joey + Rory) .
It is the first single from the album >>   YouTube
Colm writes on his Facebook page “Just done with sound check for my first night opening for Don Williams!!! Truly excited and I have to say a little nervous!!! But just wanna go out there and have fun!!! :0)) Good Times!! Namaste!!
Colm, who is the son of Dominic Kirwan, relocated to Nashville - “I moved from Ireland because I always thought outside the bubble. It just wasn’t big enough for what I wanted to do,” he explains. “But equally I don’t want to be an artist that’s big just in America. I want to be an artist who tours worldwide. There’s such a big world out there that loves a lot of this music.”
Colm’s objective for the album and the tour is simple-to continue creating that elusive sound he’s trying to find, sifting through the ideas until they come together to create his signature country Celtic sound.

AUSSIE NEWS
Australian-born Country entertainer Craig Morrison has released his debut U.S. single, “Fences,” to Country radio in advance of his May 1 self-titled album release. Morrison’s U.S. debut features a pair of singles that made strong impressions recently with fans in Australia. “Hot Kinda Love,” written by Morrison, was named Country Song of the Year at the 2011 Australian Songwriter’s Awards, while the music video was a Top 30 fan-favorite on Australia’s Country Music Channel (CMC).
When I first started to put this album together, I didn’t have a specific direction initially, but I knew we wanted it to have a fun, up-tempo feel,” says Morrison. “As time evolved, I found the album’s natural progression was describing my journey through music and life. ‘Fences’ is a daily testament to how I live this musical journey... I climb.”
Fellow Aussie and Grammy nominated record producer Mark Moffatt (Keith Urban, Gloriana, Jason Aldean) produced the project after Morrison relocated to Nashville in 2011.
Recording with Nashville session players is an experience every artist should have,” says Morrison. “We tracked live with six amazing players and then did incidental instruments like mandolin, banjo and backing vocals at Mark Moffatt’s Big Dog Studios. No shortcuts were taken, and I have no regrets. This is truly the most amazing album, and I have enjoyed every minute of the recording process.” Single Artwork (“Fences”)

NEWS
Dave Haywood and Kelli Cashiola
Wedding
Photo by Skip Hopkins,
courtesy of The Greenroom.
Lady Antebellum's Dave Haywood Ties the Knot – Groom Dave, 29, & his now wife Kelli Cashiola were married on Saturday, April 14th, right outside of Nashville, TN in a secret location. It now means it’s a three-for-all with all 3 members of Lady A having now tied the knot!
Another Nashville based trio, the country band Mockingbird Sun, were apparently in attendance, too. “The Dave Haywood/Kelli Cashiola wedding was AWESOME. like a movie. wish them the very best!” they shared via Twitter (Quote from TasteofCountry.com)
People  magazine reported that Dave’s band mates, Charles Kelley & Hillary Scott, attended the sunset wedding and that artist Dave Barnes (who wrote the Blake Shelton hit “God Gave Me You”) provided the ceremony music which was followed by dinner and dancing.
The sun was setting over a breathtaking view from a hill as family, friends and Haywood's bandmates, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott, gathered around the couple at longtime Nashville publicist Front Porch Farms in Ashland City on a private farm outside of Nashville.
The couple, who have been friends for nearly six years, publicly revealed their romance on Nov. 9, 2011 when Cashiola walked the CMA Red Carpet with him.

Kenneth J. Allen, an attorney for several of the victims, said he was “struck by the lack of emotion and compassion” of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush during their depositions in the Indiana State Fair stage collapse case on Thursday (Apr 12) and Friday in Charleston, West Virginia. According to reports, Nettles never got emotional during the  four-and-a-half-hour deposition. Attorneys said she was personable and described her demeanor as “calm and cool.”

Luke Bryan’s third studio album on Capitol Records Nashville, TAILGATES & TANLINES, has earned RIAA Platinum status by selling one million copies to retail.

Lee Brice’s single, “A Woman Like You,” has officially been certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of over 500,000 digital downloads. The hit single was  #1 last week on both Billboard Hot Country Songs and Mediabase charts. “A Woman Like You,” is the lead single from Brice’s forthcoming Curb Records album, HARD 2 LOVE, due out April 24. (Curb Records Press Release)

“A Woman Like You,” penned by Johnny Bulford, Phil Barton and Jon Stone, resonates with both men and women alike.  The heartwarming yet honest song is a man’s response to his wife’s question about where he’d be if he hadn’t met her.  Brice commented on the lyrics, “The girl in the song asks, ‘What would you do if you never met me?’ And the guy goes, ‘You want to know the truth? I’d probably be doing just what I was doing then, looking for you.’ He’s walking a thin line there for a minute, but then he’s able to hook it to say something every woman wants to hear…I think people dig it because the guy is being pretty darn honest.”

The Pistol Annies (Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley) will commemorate Record Store Day with the vinyl release of their critically acclaimed album, HELL ON HEELS. The vinyl version will be released on Record Store Day which is Saturday, April 21. The album was first released in Digital format only and debuted at #6 on the Billboard Top 200 (41,980 sales)and made country music history as the first Digital-only album to top the Billboard Country Album chart. Due to that success, retail stores like Walmart then made physical CD copies album available in stores. The title track gained Gold status. Fans can listen to the album with the “fuzz and crackle” feel of a well-loved and worn vinyl record at www.tweematic.com/pistolannies
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LEVON HELM   R.I.P
Levon Helm in days of
THE BAND
 Credit: Polaris


Levon Helm, legendary drummer and singer of the immensely influential group The Band, has passed away, aged 71. He died Thursday afternoon of complications from cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said Lucy Sabini of Vanguard Records.
Helm's family released a statement on his website today (Thursday April 19) saying that he had finally succumbed to throat cancer, which he had been battling since the late 1990s.Here is the statement:
"Levon Helm passed peacefully this afternoon. He was surrounded by family, friends and band mates and will be remembered by all he touched as a brilliant musician and a beautiful soul."
Helm, who was found to have throat cancer in 1998.
Helm's guitarist Larry Campbell tells Rolling Stone. "All his friends were there, and it seemed like Levon was waiting for them. Ten minutes after they left we sat there and he just faded away. He did it with dignity." Campbell, 57, adds: "It was even two days ago they thought it would happen within hours, but he held on. It seems like he was Levon up to the end, doing it the way he wanted to do it. He loved us, we loved him”
Image Credit: Douglas Mason/Getty Image
Levon Helm performs at the Life is Good Festival
at the Prowse Farm in Canton, Massachusetts.

A message posted Tuesday on the 71-year-old musician's website written by his daughter Amy and wife Sandy said that the multiple Grammy-winning solo artist was in “the final stages” of his battle with cancer. The Woodstock, NY-based rock legend was diagnosed with throat cancer in the late ’90s and for a period was unable to sing. But Helm eventually recovered his voice and in 2007 released the acclaimed Grammy-winning album DIRT FARMER. However with the Tuesday statement, it appeared that the drummer’s health had declined significantly.
Helm and The Band came to prominence originally as Bob Dylan's backing band, before stepping out to have their own career and releasing one of the most acclaimed albums of all time, MUSIC FROM BIG PINK.
Helm also penned the brilliant autobiography THIS WHEEL'S ON FIRE: THE STORY OF LEVON HELM AND THE BAND, in which he documented his entire life from growing up in rural Arkansas through to being a member of one of the world's most revered rock bands. Here is footage of Helm performing 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' in the Martin Scorsese film The Last Waltz, a documentary made about the groups last ever performance in 1976.  >>    YouTube

Helm a Rock multi-instrumentalist and actor achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band. As a  key member of The Band Levon lent his distinctive Southern voice bringing an urgent beat and a genuine Arkansas twang to classics like "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." He helped turn a bunch of musicians known mostly as Bob Dylan's backup group into one of rock's most legendary acts. In truth, the group had only one American — Levon Helm

Helm and his bandmates — Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel — were musical virtuosos who returned to the roots of American music in the late 1960s as other rockers veered into psychedelia, heavy metal and jams. The group's 1968 debut, "Music From Big Pink," and its follow-up, "The Band," remain landmark albums of the era, and songs such as ''Dixie Down" and "Cripple Creek" have become rock standards.
Early on, The Band backed Dylan on his sensational and controversial electric tours of 1965-66 and collaborated with him on the legendary "Basement Tapes," which produced "I Shall Be Released," ''Tears of Rage" and many other favorites.

Dylan said on his website Thursday: "He was my bosom buddy friend to the end, one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation. This is just so sad to talk about."
Hudson said on his website that he was "terribly sad."  "Thank you for 50 years of friendship and music," he posted. "No more sorrows, no more troubles, no more pain. He went peacefully to that beautiful marvelous wonderful place. ... Levon, I'm proud of you."
While Helm's illness reduced his voice to something close to a whisper, it did not end his musical career. Beset by debt, in 2004 he began a series of free-wheeling late night shows in his barn in Woodstock that were patterned after medicine shows from his youth. Any night of the bi-weekly Midnight Rambles could feature Gillian Welch, Elvis Costello or his daughter Amy on vocals and violin.

Levon Helm at the 2008 Americana Music Awards
in Nashville. (Courtesy BBC Photo image) 

At this years 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards he won Best Americana Album for RAMBLE AT THE RYMAN (Amazon.uk) On September 17, 2008, the legendary Levon Helm took his beloved Midnight Ramble on the road to one of America’s treasured venues, Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. 
Accompanied by such luminaries as Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Sheryl Crow, George Receli, Sam Bush and Billy Bob Thornton, the Levon Helm Band created an unforgettable night of stage magic. >>   YouTube
RAMBLE AT THE RYMAN (Live CD & DVD) captures the joy, essence and reverence of Helm’s live shows. It features the Levon Helm Band in a veritable tour through the American songbook, performing classics from Helm’s tenure with The Band, as well as song’s from his Grammy winning release DIRT FARMER (2007) and selections from artists such as Chuck Berry, the Carter Family and more. Ramble at the Ryman came on the heels of Dirt Farmer’s stunning debut which won a Grammy in 2008 for Best Traditional Folk Album and landed Helm a spot in Rolling Stone’s The 100 Greatest Singers of All. Time.  - http://www.levonhelm.com/  (Sources levonhelm.com, Associated Press)

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Toby Keith Talks European Success of “Red Solo Cup” - “They kept singing like a bunch of frat guys,” says Toby.
Toby told Country Countdown USA of his recent tour though Europe, where his German fans’ reaction to the song stunned the singer. “I’d never played Germany,” Toby said. “Our first night in Germany . . . it was over the top. We’d released a video [of “Red Solo Cup”] on the internet. By the time I get to Scotland, and then we get on down to Germany and by the next weekend the whole crowd has red Solo cups, and they were real Solo cups. I said, ‘Where did you find red Solo cups in Germany?’ and they said, ‘The internet.’ They knew [the song] word for word.”

(April 17, 2012 - NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) George Jones postpones shows due to health
George Jones needs more time to recover from a recent upper respiratory infection. The 80-year-old country music singer is postponing his upcoming shows on April 20 and 21 in Minnesota and South Dakota. A statement from Jones' publicist, Kirt Webster, says doctors have advised Jones to continue resting at his Tennessee home for another week. The shows will be rescheduled. Jones was scheduled to perform Friday at Shooting Star Casino, Hotel and Event Center in Mahnomen (muh-NOH'-min), Minn. That concert has been rescheduled for Nov. 8.

Carrie Underwood is thrilled her husband Mike Fisher and his hockey team, the Nashville Predators, have made it to the Stanley Cup playoffs. She’s not as excited about the facial hair that comes along with a trip to the post-season.
"I'm not looking forward to the playoff beard," she joked to PEOPLE while promoting Olay's new "Beauty by Example" campaign in New York on Thursday. “[The players] all grow out their facial hair during the playoffs. So before they started, I told Mike, ‘You need to shave close.’ He always looks good with a little stubble, but it’s probably going to get out of hand soon.”
Carrie Underwood
Billboard Cover Girl
While Carrie fully supports Mike, she has retaliation in mind for the excess facial hair. “I’m going to stop shaving, too,” she said. “Just kidding!”

Carrie goes for the “blown away look” on the front of Billboard Magazine and is their cover story artist. It is Underwood's appreciation for varied musical styles and her perpetual thirst for a creative challenge that laid the foundation for "BLOWN AWAY," her fourth and most adventurous album, due May 1 on 19 Recordings/Arista Nashville.
"I never feel like I've pigeon-holed myself into a certain kind of song," Carrie tells Billboard. "I've taken all of my albums into as many different directions as possible, while still keeping them coherent. This is just a whole new level of that. I really do think there's something for everyone….Underwood says she took longer in making her new album. "It seems like people have an album out every year and they are on a 'perma-tour' is what I call it. They tour permanently, all the time. I think I just made that word up," she says with a smile. "They live on tour and when they aren't on tour, they are making an album. To me, if you have no life in between albums, you have nothing to write about . . . I have to live." To read more from Carrie’s interview go here.

This week Reba McEntire becomes just the second female country artist to top the 30 million mark in album sales since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking sales for Billboard in 1991. Shania Twain is #1 with sales of 34,175,000. Reba was an active force in country music for nearly 10 years before Nielsen SoundScan scanned its first bar code. She first hit Top Country Albums in October 1981 with HEART TO HEART.

Joe & Heather Nichols with
baby Dylan
(Taste Of Country)

Joe Nichols wife Heather gave birth to little girl Dylan River Nichols (7 pounds, 5 ounces -photo) on Tuesday. The couple just announced the pregnancy in February. “Our prayers have been answered,” Heather Nichols said in a statement at the singer’s website. “We went through years of loss and heartbreak to get to this point and now our little baby girl is here.” The couple suffered a miscarriage at the beginning of 2008.
Heather and Joe have been married since 2007. Dylan River is the couple’s first child together, though Joe has a teenage daughter from a previous relationship. As for the choice of name “Dylan was inspired by Heather’s childhood friend Dylan who passed away after college. She says she has felt his presence as her guardian angel since,” Heather’s mother Sharon Singleton explained. “River comes from the song Joe sang to Heather on their wedding day, ‘That Would Be Her,’ which Heather listened to over and over during her fertility treatments.”

Baillie And The Boys
Facebook promo image
After almost exactly 25 years after Baillie And The Boys had their Billboard chart debut with “Oh Heart” (Apr. 18, 1987) – the trio is together again, touring and recording for the first time in years. The band is Kathie Baillie and her husband Michael Bonagura, along with Alan LeBoeuf. Baillie and Bonagura have been living in Nashville for years, while LeBoeuf lives back in his home state of New Jersey, between stints playing Paul McCartney in touring companies of “Beatlemania.”
Singing together is so natural for the three of us,” Bonagura says in March from New Jersey, where the band was rehearsing for a group of reunion concerts. “We have the same spark. Till you feel it, you don’t really know. Life has matured us all.”
Being together again feels the same, but I feel it’s more exciting,” Baillie says. “When we were signed to RCA, everything happened so quickly there was no time to sit back and figure out who we were.
It was really the music business back then. It wasn’t all about the money and all about, ‘How beautiful are you? How handsome are you? How many records can you sell in the first month?’ ”
LeBoeuf says that the trio is “re-learning some of the old songs. It came back pretty quickly. It sounds surprisingly good.”
They were sitting around a kitchen table once again, singing the Crosby, Stills & Nash hit “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” which played a huge part in their original record deal.
Turns out that Baillie And The Boys, three Yankees from New Jersey and New England, became a favorite of one of the day’s most famous country boys, Jeff Cook of the band Alabama. Cook adored the way the trio sang “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” and urged Alabama’s label, RCA, to sign them.
Tickets for their reunion shows have been selling so well that additional shows have been added.
I thank God that people remember us. That’s the gratification,” Cathie says. “We did have a signature sound, and it’s never been done again. Now there are Lady A and The Band Perry, with one girl and two guys. We were first to ever do that.”
One of the keys to the band’s immediate success 25 years ago was producer Kyle Lehning, who had just helped Randy Travis break out as a traditional country star before he began working with Baillie And The Boys. A quarter century later, Lehning is their producer again, as the trio begins finding and cutting songs for a new album.
“Kyle always got us really well,” Baillie says. “It’s so funny to be working with him again. It’s like a total 360.”
Kathie Baillie (Twitter 24 March) - "Rehearsing on some new material today for our new CD... It's been a while and we are pretty excited about it"
Long Shot" video from RCA recording artists Baillie and the Boys,  
first aired in 1988  >>    YouTube

Jake Owen & Fiance Lacey
(Image at http://www.jakeowen.net/news/73011 )
Jake Owen’s fiancé Lacey now has her engagement ring. When country star Jake recently presented now-fiancé Lacey Buchanan with an engagement ring, “I told her, ‘The sparkle is never going to go away in that ring, and I don’t want our sparkle to ever go away either,’” he tells PEOPLE. “‘On your darkest days, I want you to look at it and see that there’s a glimmer of light in it. I want it to always remind you of the possibilities of our relationship.”
Owen, 30, designed the ring with Lizzy Raye Jewelers in Atlanta, and he had a classic look in mind. So the singer selected a 2.5-carat oval-cut diamond set in platinum with a “little bitty halo around it” and small diamonds on the band. “I want that ring to be timeless,” he says. “When my mom saw it, she said, ‘That looks like something Princess Diana would wear.’ I was so excited to give it to her.”
He got a lesson in diamond selection in the process, too. “I think the color is E color, E/SI1,” he says proudly. “I know all of it. No inclusions! You can always go bigger with less clarity, but with hers I really wanted it to be bright white, sparkling.“I’m pretty spontaneous about a lot of things but that,” he continues, “look, she’s the most unique, amazing person I’ve ever met and I needed something on her finger just as unique as she is.”

The word on the street is that Wynonna Judd is recording a new album not in a Nashville studio but a work shed on her property. She is working on it with her drummer fiancé Cactus Moser. The new record is slanted as being more rock oriented than anything she’s done before.

Australian newspaper, The Herald Sun, got an interview Harry Styles from UK boy band ONE DIRECTION and asked him about Taylor Swift. Harry reported he and Taylor Swift are just friends. Harry did confirm that he and Taylor exchanged numbers, and he called her "very talented." But, Harry adds, "She's very nice. We're friends."

SINGLE / ALBUM NEWS
After signing a record deal with Entertainment One Music Group late last year, country music star Bucky Covington is excited to release his long-awaited new singleI Wanna Be That Feeling” to country radio. “I Wanna Be That Feeling,” the lead single from Bucky’s sophomore album expected mid 2012, is the perfect up-tempo country love song, written by Jimmy Yeary and Ben Hayslip.  The song delivers to country radio today via digital delivery system PlayMPE with an add date set for May 7th.

A new album from outlaw country legend Waylon Jennings will be released this September, filled with recordings the icon made during the last few years before his death in 2002. Jennings spent hours in a recording studio with his longtime accompanist, Robby Turner and together they laid down twelve tracks (Jennings wrote 11 of them) using just Waylon’s guitar and vocals and Turner’s bass.  All songs were personally selected by the country star, ones that resonated in a deeply personal way and reflected his state of mind, his passions, and important statements he wanted to make about his life. With his family’s blessing, GOIN’ DOWN ROCKIN’: The Last Recordings OF WAYLON JENNINGS will be available on September 11 (Saguaro Road Records). No one has ever heard these performances before; they are Waylon’s last gift to his fans.  

The Choice
Amazon Artwork

Multi-platinum selling Grammy nominee Billy Gilman spearheads historic project to sponsor 500,000 pairs of shoes with the writing, recording and sale of charity single, 'The Choice' co-written by Gilman. Determined to bring attention to the world wide plight of children in desperate need of shoes. Billy and fellow country artists Rodney Atkins, Montgomery Gentry, Amy Grant, Steve Holy, Alan Jackson, Wynonna Judd, Richie McDonald, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Ronnie Milsap, Craig Morgan, Kellie Pickler, LeAnn Rimes, Diamond Rio, Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, Josh Turner, and Keith Urban donate time, talent and royalties to record song.
Released on the Cotton Valley Records (CVR) label through the generous support of recording studio veteran J. Gary Smith 100% of the proceeds from digital download of The Choice go directly to Soles4Souls, one of the fastest-growing nonprofits in the country whose goal is simply to put shoes on people in need.

Drinkin’ Man’ is a courageous choice for George Strait as his third single released from ‘HERE FOR A GOOD TIME’

Little Big Town have a new single coming out called ‘Pontoon’ from their upcoming album (due in September). It hits radio on April 30th.  >>   Listen  
They are heading to NEW YORK to announce this years CMT Music Awards on NBC’S “Today” show on Monday, April 23rd.

PRESS RELEASES
The Inspirational Country Music Association Faith (ICM Faith), Family & Country™ 20th Anniversary Awards Week, to be held on Oct., 14 – 18, 2012 at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel (2025 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard) in Nashville, TN is set to celebrate two decades of success and growth that has occurred in the Inspirational and Christian Country music genre since the foundation of the original Christian Country Music Association in the 1990’s.

(CMA News - Apr 17, 2012)
The legendary Glen Campbell, Ronnie Milsap, and Kenny Rogers, and reunited multi-Platinum certified group The Mavericks have joined the performer lineup for the Nightly Concerts at LP Field held during 2012 CMA Music Festival. The event takes place Thursday through Sunday, June 7-10, in downtown Nashville.
Campbell will deliver the opening performance on the Nightly Concerts on Thursday, June 7; Milsap will open on Friday, June 8; Rogers will open on Saturday, June 9; and The Mavericks will open on Sunday, June 10.
The current lineups for the Nightly Concerts are as follows in alphabetical order:
Thursday, June 7:  Jason Aldean, Glen Campbell, Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, and Zac Brown Band
Friday, June 8:  The Band Perry, Brantley Gilbert, Ronnie Milsap, Jake Owen, Blake Shelton, and Carrie Underwood
Saturday, June 9:  Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Hunter Hayes, Faith Hill, and Kenny Rogers
Sunday, June 10:  Dierks Bentley, Alan Jackson, The Mavericks, Martina McBride, Scotty McCreery, and Rascal Flatts.

LISTEN
Don Williams “What If it Worked Like That” , taken from his new album AND SO IT GOES which is released in the UK April 30th, and 19th June in USA - soundcloud.com/sugar-hill-records
Don also made a surprise perfomance at the Bridgestone Arena April 10, 2012 in Nashville for the annual 'All for the Hall' fundraiser concert. Don joins Vince Gill and Keith Urban on stage to perform new song “Imagine That”   >>      YouTube

HEAR IT FIRST ~ Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us which includes tracks by The Civil Wars, Shawn Mullins, Buddy Miller, Dan Tyminski, and Emmylou Harris. Hear the songs in Full at folkalley.com

WATCH
Week two of behind the scenes footage in the studio with Brad Paisley starting work on the next record >>    YouTube
Brad Paisley: “I always have to find inspiration to do an album, especially if it’s a collected grouping of songs that are supposed to have something to do with one another. I’m not a fan of the records that feel like somebody just cut ten songs and put it out.”

Pistol Annies perform "Hell On Heels"at the American Country Awards Dec 2011
 >>   YouTube

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