George Strait has worn a lot of hats in his life, but he's about to don a new one. He's been a troubador, a business man, movie star, cutting-horse competitor and soon, he's going to be a grandfather. George's son Bubba and his wife Tamara are expecting their first child, and King George is over the moon. “Norma and I are having a great time, and my son and his new wife – they’ve been married, they were married last December – they’re expecting a baby in February, so I’m going to be a grandfather.”
Lady Antebellum is having a crazy-busy year, and the fall should be even crazier, with a new album on September 13th, a tour that kicks off November 11th, three big-city acoustic events and all of the media madness that goes with a new album and tour. Lady A's Hillary Scott is also planning a wedding, to fiance Chris Tyrell. When is she finding time to work on the wedding? “[Hillary] I’ve met the wedding planner a lot. But going into this album, the tour—it will definitely still be something that I’m working on, but I tried to get a lot of the big decisions out of the way before all this has picked up. I haven’t gotten my dress yet. I’m starting to kinda stress about that, but umm… [Dave] They’ve got some a Target, I saw the other day… [Hillary] Perfect!”
Blake Shelton didn't write the title track to his current cd, "Red River Blue" but it sounds like it could be a story about Blake and Miranda. Turns out, it is. The songwriter is Buddy Owens, a friend of Blake's, and as Blake tells it, “At some point along the way, Miranda and I had gotten in a fight and broken up for one of our week-long breakups, or two days or whatever. But at this moment, I had seen him that night and he asked how she was doing, and I said, ‘Aw, Man. Ya know, I screwed up.’ He said, ‘Aw, Man, I hate that, ya know.’ He went and wrote a song about a guy from Oklahoma and a girl from Texas breaking up, and about how the Red River is, ya know, the great divide, symbolic, between the two.” Catch the now-happily married couple Monday night on Dateline NBC at 10pm Eastern.
Taylor Swift is up for an award at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night. Interesting note about the awards - when the nominees were first announced, Taylor's name wasn't anywhere in the list, after raking in Moonmen over the last several years. Someone at MTV must have taken note of that and decided to ensure that the Golden One would participate, and suddenly a new category, Best Video with a Message, had a gang of nominees, with Taylor as one of them. Her song "Mean" is up against Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie," "Firework" by Katy Perry, "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga, "F******* Perfect" by Pink and "Make It Stop" by Rise Against. Taylor's not scheduled to perform on the show.
If you're in a doctor's office this fall, check out the magazine table. Carrie Underwood is on the cover of Vim & Vigor, distributed to health care practitioners only, and in the article she talks about her vegetarian diet and her exercise routine to keep those legs in shape.
On September 6th, The Band Perry and Jake Owen will announce 5 categories of nominees for this year's CMA Awards on ABC's Good Morning America. Then Jerrod Niemann and Thompson Square wll announce seven categories, wth the Jane Dear Girls revealing the Broadcast awards finalists. The awards will be handed out on country music's biggest night, November 9th, live from Nashville on ABC.
Montgomery Gentry is getting set to slap the jumper cables on the Sylvania 300 - they're the pre-race entertainment at the September 25th race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Jake Owen will turn 30 this weekend on tour with Keith Urban. They'll be in Dallas, Texas, so you can expect some big doins' for the milestone. How does Jake feel about hitting the big 3-0? “I had some pretty awesome things happen in my 20s. And so as I’m turning 30, I’m just at a place now where I think about my life more than I think about just day-to-day. When you’re 22, 23 years old, and you’re just going day-to-day, you don’t think about the ‘bigger picture’. You don’t think about ‘Damn, I’m 30! My kid – if I don’t have a kid ‘til I’m 40 – he’s not gonna wanna throw a baseball when he’s 10 with his 50-year-old dad!’ You know?!”
I don't usually predict #1 songs, but it's looking like Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood will log a #1 with their collaboration, "Remind Me," next week. I'll either say "I told you so" or I'll eat crow in this space next week.
Chris Young is on Fox & Friends, Kellie Pickler is on the Ellen DeGeneres show and Emmylou Harris is on Late Night with David Letterman tonight.
Happy birthday to Jmmy Olander of Diamond Rio, who is 50 today. Tomorrow, Jeff Cook of Alabama turns 62, and on Sunday, Shania Twain turns 46, Jake Owen turns 30 and LeAnn Rimes turns 29.
The tweet of the day is from Joe Don Rooney of Rascal Flatts: "Thinking about the East Coast tonight Hoping Hurricane Irene loses her power and doesn't do very much damage this weekend! #PrayersGoingUP"
