Monday, November 28, 2011

Today's Country Tidbits

Tomorrow, the battle for his freedom lands in court, as Tim McGraw takes on his record label, Curb. Curb sued Tim last year, claiming he had breached his contract by turning in "Emotional Traffic" too soon. He counter-sued, saying Curb has kept him in "involuntary servitude." The hearing tomorrow and Wednesday is to determine whether Tim will be allowed to record music for another label before the full trial begins next July. He hopes to release new music before his Australian tour with Faith Hill in the spring of 2012.

Meanwhile, Kenny Chesney is chomping at the bit to get the Brothers of the Sun Tour underway: “It’s gonna be a rockin’ show — I can tell you that. And it’s still hard for me to believe, you know, that we’re gonna go out there, and I’m gonna spend next summer with my buddy Tim McGraw. And he and I are gonna have a blast out there with everybody.” Tickets for some of the shows go on sale this Saturday through Ticketmaster.

Keith Urban has his throat surgery behind him and is recovering nicely. The outpatient procedure happened just before Thanksgiving, and he's on vocal rest for three weeks. The procedure is described as routine and the doctor is thrilled with the results. Where is Keith resting his golden throat? That's a secret, apparently. If no one knows where you are, they can't find you and tempt you to talk.

Ronnie Dunn is celebrating - he's going to be a grandpa in February. Ronnie's son Jesse and his wife are expecing their first child, a son, early next year.

Miranda Lambert is celebrating today, but it's probably not because it's Cyber Monday. She tweeted last night that she finally got her first buck of the season. Well, she might be able to order a venison cookbook or something today.

Carrie Underwood is probably celebrating Cyber Monday - she's not a fan of the mall scene: “I hate shopping for Christmas presents. I kind of wander around aimlessly in malls and stores and what-not thinking, ‘Now what would fill-in-the-blank, what would this person like? Oh, yep, that looks like her, I’ll get that…’ I think I’ll be doing a lot of online shopping this year.”

Lady Antebellum is celebrating CyberMonday with free shipping on anything in their online merchandise store.

In this season of giving thanks, Darius Rucker counts his blessings and uses them as his reminder to help others all year long. “Giving back is just what you’re supposed to do. I mean, I’m a, I’m a blessed individual. God has blessed me with a great life and great kids and a great wife. And, and, you know, I like helping people if I can and, you know…giving back is how I do it, I guess.”

On Thanksgiving Day, Brad Paisley was playing with Twitter, posting a series of bad holiday special ideas:
The Gingrich that Stole Christmas
Frosty the Slow Man
The 12 Steps of Christmas
Occupy on 34th Street
Caucasian Christmas
And about the Macy's parade, he tweeted:
"This Macy's parade would be a lot better if they'd rope off an oval or square,set up pit crews,and see who's got the FASTEST float today."

Thanksgiving Day was a rough day for the American Idol country alums. Scotty McCreery was part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and made it painfully obvious that his performance was lip-synced. (They all are, but he just did a poor job on his.) And Lauren Alaina forgot a line in the National Anthem Thanksgiving night. She recovered well, but kicked herself all weekend.

Justin Moore is on the Craig Ferguson show tonight.

The tweet of the day is from Michelle Branch: "My favorite part of Thanksgiving: we asked my daughter to say "grace" and she said the Pledge of Allegiance. We felt too bad to correct her."