Today's Country Tidbits

Trace Adkins was given the CRB Artist Humanitarian award yesterday in Nashville. Last year's winner, Randy Owen, was the presenter, and Trace joked, "The first concert I ever went to was Whitesnake," Trace said as he took the podium. "The second was Alabama. They were very different shows." He continued his stand-up routine, saying "I do truly deserve this because I've never killed anybody. And I've wanted to." Trace won the award for quietly giving of his time and talents to the Wounded Warrior Project and also to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.

The final installment in the Luke McBain comic book series was released yesterday. The character, based on Trace Adkins, reveals a dark secret that sent him to jail 14 years ago. Pick up the whole series at Trace Adkins website.

Blake Shelton's first six-pack of songs comes out Tuesday, and he's already working on the next one. He's recorded a song written by Miranda Lambert and Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum. The two women wrote it while on tour with Kenny Chesney, and asked Blake to cut the demo since the song is from a man's perspective. He liked the song so much he asked if he could record it. Look for it as part of his summer six-pack.

Speaking of Blake, the star removed the Twitter app from his iPhone because he felt it was becoming too consuming. He's still tweeting now and then, but not the 100 or so per day he was doing.

Congrats to Lady Antebellum, who's "Need You Now" album is officially platinum, only a month after it's release. Not coincidentally, it's spent that entire month at the top of the Billboard Country Album chart.

Billy Currington is set to hit the road soon, going out on tour and taking a big crew with him. It's the first time he's had a lot of production in his stage show, so he's looking forward to a different kind of show.

Carrie Underwood is engaged to Canadian hockey player Mike Fisher. When the American and Canadian hockey teams faced off at the Olympics last week, they had a little bet going - winner gets a back rub. At the end of the game, USA won and Carrie turned her back to Mike and said, "pay up!" It's looking like there could be a repeat of the USA/Canada match up, as both teams won their games yesterday.

And if you're a fan of old-school country, wear black tomorrow in honor of the late Johnny Cash. The word is spreading through a special Facebook page, Twitter and the more traditional "you tell all your friends and I'll tell all of mine." So...consider yourself told - wear black tomorrow in a celebration of what would have been The Man in Black's 78th birthday.