Jason Aldean is in the new issue of People Country, talking about his life off the road. He opens up about daughters Kendyl, who is 5, and Keeley, who is 9. Their favorite store? Target. Their favorite time of day? Bedtime, because the family loves bedtime tickle fights. The article also features photos of Jason’s 18-acre Tennessee property, with photos of the house included, so fans can see how he spends his down time.

Chris Young is about to take off on a headlining tour, and is pleased to be kicking it off November 15th at the Ryman in Nashville. He’s appreciated the opportunity to open for Miranda Lambert this year, and to play to much larger audiences than he’s been used to. As Chris put it, “I found myself constantly going to like people in my band going, ‘Dude, remember when we played in front of like a hundred people, and then like 30 of them left by the end of the show?’ But, it’s...it’s all really exciting.” Tickets for the Ryman show go on sale this Friday at Ticketmaster and at Ryman.com.

Little Big Town releases “Tornado” today, and they’re excited to bring new music to their fans. They used their live show band instead of session players, and collaborated with people they’ve admired for years. Jimi Westbrook says that the collaboration was his favorite part: “That was inspiring too. I think even before we got into the recording process was the writing side of things and the new people we were getting to work with. Some that we had known of, and wanted to write with but hadn’t ever been able to so. I think the inspiration started even back then and just carried all the way through. It was really cool.” “Tornado” includes their first #1 single, the platinum-selling “Pontoon.”

Kix Brooks also has a new album out today – “New To This Town” is his solo debut, and he says it’s a trip back to his real musical roots, especially the song “Moonshine Road:” “It’s just got that swamp groove and it was one of the first songs I wrote for the album, sort of—I felt kinda free and on my own in a way. I’m like ‘This isn’t anything like what Ronnie and I were doing, this really is kinda going back to where I came from.’”

Friday night, Taylor Swift was the highlight of the Stand Up 2 Cancer telethon with a song written especially for the occasion: “Ronan.” Ronan was a 4-year-old boy who lost his battle with neuroblastoma. His mom poured out the journey, the battle, and her loss through a blog that Taylor read, and she wrote the song based on Maya Thompson’s emotion-laden words. Taylor listed Maya as co-writer on the song, and it’s available on iTunes, where it’s the top-selling song by a long shot. Proceeds go to Stand Up 2 Cancer. If you’d like to hear it, here’s video from the show. Get tissues first – you have been warned…



No official announcement that Keith Urban will be a judge on American Idol this year, but Keith does reveal that he’s bad at shows like that: “I would love to be able to do it and hopefully that happens. I actually did a few of those kind of shows when I was very young I went on a few TV talent shows. I was terrible at all of them, but I really enjoyed the experience and the thing about some of these shows is that mentoring aspect. I really like that.”

Did you watch the season 3 premier of The Voice last night? Blake Shelton says that there are things the TV audience doesn’t see, like Cee Lo being distracted: “There have been times where we’re live on TV and Carson will ask a direct question to Cee Lo and Cee Lo not even know ‘cause he’s texting some girl or playing Angry Birds or something on his phone. It’ll completely just go right over his head.”

Carrie Underwood’s “Blown Away” is now a platinum-selling album for her. It’s spent six weeks at the top of the Billboard Country chart.