Legendary Nashville songwriter Hank Cochran passed away yesterday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. His prolific songwriting career spawned scores of number one songs for most of country music's top stars over the last several decades. His hits included "I Fall to Pieces," "She's Got You," "Make the World Go Away," "Oceanfront Property" and "The Chair." He's also the person who discovered Willie Nelson and helped him become a country music star. Hank Cochran was 74.
Taylor Swift has been in the studios, working on her next cd, but she's taking time out this coming Tuesday for a live webcast discussion with her fans. It'll be on Taylorswift.com, MySpace, Facebook and Ustream, with links to send in questions from each platform. Taylor says, "I've gotten so many questions from fans ... I want them to be the first to know about my new music, and I can't wait to talk to everybody as directly as I can!"
Congrats to Little Big Town, whose 4th annual Ride for the Cure raised over $50,000 last weekend. It's a benefit for the cancer research programs at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville.
Darius Rucker is a big golf fan, and also pals with some of the top golfers, who play in his charity golf tournament just after the Masters each year. Now, he's lending his writing ability and voice to golfer John Daley's digital country album, "I Only Know One Way." Darius co-wrote and sings on the title track of the cd, which is available for download.
The auction of the late Roy Rogers memorabilia happened yesterday, and two of his modes of transportation raked in over half a million bucks. Trigger, his stuffed Palomino, sold for $266,500 to RFD-TV owner Patrick Gottsch, and his silver-dollar-encrusted 1964 Bonneville convertible sold for $254,500. Bidders were in a buying mood, with most items going for well over their auction estimate. The auction continues today, in case you want a part of the collection.
The Rascal Flatts tour stopped off in Lake Tahoe, Nevada last night, and opening act Chris Young spent the night at the casino. In the pre-dawn hours, he proclaimed via Twitter that he was up big at the casino, and was done gambling. Nice night...play a gig and make some dough, then hit the casinos and make some more!
The Rowdy Friends Tour decided to stay rowdy for a while longer. Hank Williams Jr. and tour-mates Gretchen Wilson, Jamey Johnson, Josh Thompson, Lee Brice, Eric Church, Colt Ford, Sunny Sweeney and the Grascals will hit cities across America from September 17th through October 23rd.
Could it be that more people are willing to try out for American Idol now that Simon won't be part of it? People lined up by the thousands in Nashville's heat yesterday, vying for a chance to audition for the show. Tenneseean.com has a photo gallery of the fun.
When you watch the video for Rodney Atkins' new song, "Farmer's Daughter," pay attention to the woman playing the farmer's daughter. That's Rodney's real-life wife, Tammy Jo, playing the part.
Don't forget to pick up a copy of People magazine today for all the Carrie Underwood wedding details and photos.
Want to re-live Jimmy Buffet's "Live From the Gulf Coast" concert? CMT will re-air it Saturday night.
The tweet of the day is from Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts: "They call it golf because all other four-letter curse words were taken..."
Happy birthday to Craig Morgan, who turns 46 today.
