Today's Country Tidbits

Dierks Bentley has had a roller-coaster week. He celebrated “Home” and it’s chart-topping accomplishment, telling the crowd how special the song is to him: “We pretty much get the same reaction every night. Not only the applause and the cheers, but just the intangible feeling of pride in the country and unity – the crowd goes crazy for it. I don’t know it’s a great thing to have the song in the show. We got the up-tempo stuff, the party stuff, some of the slower stuff, but to have a song like that, that really just goes to a 3D dimension that we haven’t had before is huge.” That’s the high point – the low point was taking his daughters to see their mom Cassidy run in the Music City Marathon last Saturday. That didn’t go well, and he’s got some making-up to do, it sounds like! “Mother’s Day I need to come through strong. I totally messed up the marathon. It was great – I had the girls all ready to watch her, and we went to the first spot and they had already had come through. So, I got the girls back in the car and drove around it was just a solid wall of people. It was just a nightmare. So we didn’t get a chance to cheer her on for that so we need to come up with a good Mother’s Day deal.”

Fans have waited patiently, and the wait is almost over. Jason Aldean’s next album is so close to reality that they’ve shot cover photos already. “I went out this past week and did a photo shoot for the album cover and all that stuff. We should have a single comin’ out, you know, I would guess in the next couple of months. And then, it looks like the album’s probably gonna come out somewhere around October.” Jason’s song “Flyover States” is soaring on the charts, inside the top 5 and still climbing.

Carrie Underwood is psyched that her new project, “Blown Away,” is out and selling gangbusters. She cites rock music in her upbringing, as well as collaborations with artists like Steven Tyler, for the harder-edged music on the album, then goes on to say, “My album’s a lot like that. I feel like everything fits—it’s a big ol’ puzzle, but everything has its own place and its own piece, but in completely different directions. So, there’s ‘Good Girl,’ and there’s some more traditional country stuff than I’ve ever done before. And there’s just—every direction you could possibly think of.”

Eric Church is still in apology mode, days after a statement he made in Rolling Stone Magazine hit the streets. He said, about artists who take the reality tv path to fame, “I don’t know what would make an artist do that. You’re not an artist.” Blake Shelton tweeted, “I wish I had misunderstood that.” Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson are just a few Nashville artists who were part of reality shows before they became famous. Eric Church says he wasn’t complete in his comments and he now adds this clarification: “I have a lot of respect for what artists like Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, and my friend Miranda Lambert have gone on to accomplish...This piece was never intended to tear down any individual and I apologize to anybody I offended in trying to shed light on this issue.”

Congratulations to Rascal Flatts who have the #1 song this week on both charts with “Banjo.” It’s their 14th #1 song.

The tweet of the day is from Brad Paisley: “@carrieunderwood has a new album out today. She sings like a bird. Actually a loon.”