Road trip alert - Zac Brown Band will throw a huge three-day food and music festival October 21-23 at Charleston, SC's Riley Park. In other ZBB news, the guys have a new tour sponsor - Jack Daniels. Old No. 7 will back the tour, take part in the Eat and Greets with adult beverages, and Zac Brown Band will be featured in advertising and responsible drinking messages. The partnership kicks off at Red Rocks in Morrison, CO on September 5th. If you can't make it to the show, there'll be special commemorative bottles of Jack Daniels for sale soon, with some of the proceeds going to Camp Southern Ground.
Yesterday's blog told you about Alan Jackson's invitation to be part of the national 9/11 recognition event this year. After yesterday's earthquake, the host venue is in trouble. Washington National Cathedral reports that at least three of the spires have fallen off of the central tower and the tower itself appears to be leaning. Structural engineers will be on site later today to assess the damage and see if the show can go on.
More George, more often. George Strait's "Here For a Good Time" streets on September 13th, and a week later, a greatest hits collection, "Icon," will be out. The 11-song collection includes nine #1 songs. Here's the track list:
Amarillo By Morning
Ocean Front Property
All My Ex's Live In Texas
Love Without End, Amen
I Cross My Heart
Check Yes Or No
I Just Want To Dance With You
Living And Living Well
Give It Away
I Saw God Today
River Of Love
Chomping at the bit to hear new Lady Antebellum music? Head over to Amazon.com for 30-second previews of all of the songs on "Own the Night," which streets on Septeber 13th. The trio is really excited about the new songs, suggesting, “[Hillary] ‘Dancing Away with my Heart’ for sure…It’s very Lady Antebellum. [Dave] Yeah, there’s one called ‘Friday Night’ that we’ve been playing live. It’s a fun tempo, just kinda good electric guitar kinda rocker. So, you know, that would be one they could definitely check out.” The "Own the Night" tour kicks off November 11th in Knoxville, TN.
Another ZZ Top tribute album is set to be released on October 11th, and includes Jamey Johnson covering "Tush."
Brad Paisley is enjoying his time in Europe, and the Old World fans are enoying Brad, singing along to all of his songs, even the album cuts. He did three sold-out shows in Ireland last weekend, with fans coming from as far away as Spain. He's off to Scandanavia this week.
Congratulations to the President and CEO of Big Machine Label Group Scott Borchetta, who will be honored with the TJ Martell Foundation Spirit of Excellence Award at the November 3rd gala. The other honorees are Arnold Palmer and Drew Carey. Big Machine is the home of Taylor Swift, Martina McBride, Rascal Flatts and many more Nashville luminaries.
Last night at a Taylor Swift concert in Los Angeles, Justin Bieber hit the stage for a song. What happened next is the tweet of the day, so be sure to scroll down and read it. He promised in July that he would surprise fans with an appearance and duet with Taylor on his hit, "Baby" after he found out she was singing it in concert. Enjoy...
Rascal Flatts' current song, "Easy," is a duet with Natasha Bedingfield. But, Natasha can't be on tour with them, so how does that work on stage? Tour mate Sara Evans to the rescue. According to the band, “We asked her, and she loved the song and was willing to stick around…it’s hard for somebody that’s been offstage for an hour-and-a-half to get pumped up to come back out and do one song, so, we’re very, very grateful to her that she decided to come out and do that with us each night. And it is one of my favorite moments of the show, to be quite honest.”
Big & Rich have remade the Kenny Loggins hit, "Footloose," and here's a peek at the video...
Here's a peek at the behind-the-scenes world while Martina McBride was filming the video for "I'm Gonna Love You Through It."
Tomorrow night, "CMT Unplugged: Martina McBride" wll be webcast on the Starburst Facebook page as well as on the Unplugged CMT page. Martina will perform music from her upcoming album, "Eleven," as well as talk about the making of the album.
http://unplugged.CMT.com
This coming Monday night, check out Dateline NBC, because Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton and Pistol Annies will be featured.
Alison Kraus & Union Station are on the Ellen DeGeneres Show today.
The tweet of the day is from Taylor Swift: "You think you've heard LOUD screaming in your life.. Then @justinbieber comes out and does a surprise song during your show. Woah. Unreal."
