Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Today's Country Tidbits

Miranda Lambert's Grammy Sunday was very emotional. On the same night she won her first Grammy Award for Best Female Vocal Country Performance, her grandmother passed away. At a show in Texas this past weekend, she dedicated "The House That Built Me" to her, and according to the local paper, was "visibly overwhelmed at times" during the performance. The Star-Telegram reviewer said it was one of "the most moving experiences" he's ever seen at a concert.

Taylor Swift has completed the Asian leg of her "Speak Now" tour, and gathered up some heavy metal while she was there. "Speak Now" has been certified platinum in Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and the Plilippines. And in more good career news for Taylor, she's the only country artist to be in to top 10 of Billboard Magazine's Top Money Makers of 2011. She's #6 on the list, having made $20,730,431 last year. Lady GaGa topped the list at about $30.5 million, and Bon Jovi, The Eagles, Dave Matthews, Justin Bieber, Paul McCartney and The Black Eyed Peas also landed in the Top 10. The entire top 40, in reverse order, is online.

There could be a superstar suprise on Brad Paisley's "This is Country Music." Rumor is that he and Carrie Underwood are working on a duet to be included on the project, which was to have been out in early April but has been pushed back to a May 24th release date.

In other duet news, Rascal Flatts teamed up with Justin Bieber for the song "That Should Be Me" for Justin's remix album, available at iTunes. Yesterday, the guys all teamed up to shoot a music video, so Bieber Fever will be spilling over into country music, too.

Dierks Bentley throws a pre-Grammy party each year, the night before the awards event. Each year it gets more star-studded, with Hollywood stars hitting the stage with Nashville's finests. Dierks excerpted the fun so we could all get a taste.


Lee Ann Womack got pranked good in Ohio last Friday. She's touring with Reba and George Strait, and the buses were parked behind the arena. Lee Ann took her dog out for a walk, and security guards told her all areas were off limits and she had to move along or get arrested. She was pretty shaken up by the experience and says she doesn't even know how she got back to her bus. Later that evening, as she walked off stage after her performance, she was met by a uniformed man with handcuffs and a badge. She says "her heart stopped" because she thought she was still in trouble for being in the wrong place earlier in the day. Nope - it was just members of her crew, pranking her. Cold!

Congratulations to Blake Shelton, who's pegged his third #1 song in a row with "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking." It's his 8th career #1 song. When he found out about this #1, he said, “Three No. 1’s in a row?! Thank you to every single person who works at a country radio station, you allow me to do the one thing that I love to do most in this world and that’s sing country music. I….Love…Y’all!”

Here's a history tidbit - on this day in 1999, Brad Paisley's debut single, "Who Needs Pictures," was released by Arista records.

Jason Aldean is on Conan O'Brien tonight and Kellie Pickler will be on Ellen tomorrow.

Happy birthday to Huck Paisley, who turns 4 today.

The tweet of the day is from David Nail: "Cleaning house before maid comes to clean the house? So what exactly am I paying the maid for again Mrs Nail"