Carrie Underwood has won the role of Maria Von Trapp on a live production of “The Sound of Music.” The special will air sometime near the holidays in 2013, so we have a long time to wait, and she has a long time to rehearse. This will be the Broadway version of “The Sound of Music,” and NBC honchos are thrilled that Carrie will star in the role Julie Andrews made famous.

Did you watch Blake Shelton’s “Not So Family Christmas” special last night after The Voice? His Mom, Dorothy, wife Miranda Lambert and Kelly Clarkson were all part of it, and Blake remembered his favorite Christmas gift ever: “The greatest Christmas present I ever remember receiving, was a Remington 243 deer rifle that my parents got me when I was 16-years-old. It wasn’t just all about the rifle to me, that was my parents saying to me, ‘You’re growing up. We trust you to have this rifle and not do something stupid – take care of it and be safe.’ That’s what I did – I took that very seriously.”
Luke Bryan will be out with not one, but two, new albums in 2013. This will mark the first time that his Spring Break compilation will be a physical disc, in addition to being a digital album, plus he’s working on what he calls “the main album,” and says it’ll be pretty awesome, too. He’ll perform on the Grammy Nominations Concert Live! Tomorrow night on CBS. 
More fuel for the Brantley Gilbert/Jana Kramer fire – she got sick in Florida, and tweeted a shot of Brantley by her hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown. She joked, “I knew he always wanted to wear a gown!” Earlier in the day, she tweeted photos of the two of them fishing in south Florida, catching a baby shark. 
Speaking of fires, Trace Adkins has responded to the firestorm surrounding his stars and bars earpiece, visible when he performed on NBC’s Christmas At Rockefeller Center. Trace said, “As a proud American I object to oppression of any kind. To me, the battle flag represents remembrance of my Southern lineage – I am a descendant of Confederate soldiers who followed that flag into battle. To those who view the flag as a symbol of racism, that was not my message and I did not intend offense.” 
Today, Lady Antebellum’s concert DVD is out – “Own The Night World Tour” includes documentary and bonus footage, as well as the full concert they performed in Little Rock, Arkansas. If you run out for that, get their Christmas album, too – “On This Winter’s Night” is full of favorites to get you into the holiday spirit, and the cover, shot in Park City, Utah, sure got Hillary in the mood: “I’ve never seen that much just perfect, pure an untouched snow before. So, I just wanted to go and run around in it!”