Consider the touring artist - they spend their days and nights on the road, dragging around a lot of expensive equipment so they can put on shows all around the country. All usually goes well, barring the occasional flat tire, but all went very wrong this week for Tracy Lawrence. His tour entourage stopped in Bakersfield, California and while everone was asleep, someone broke into their vehicles and stole nearly all of their stage gear. Local music companies have come to their rescue, lending them everything from amps to digital mixing consoles so the show can go on tomorrow night in Bakersfield. Police are on the case.
Carrie Underwood graces the cover of Billboard Magazine this week, talking about her next album, "Blown Away," due out May first, and talking about her experiences in the music business: “I came into this music industry in a different way through American Idol, and I feel like I’m an elected official, often, because they voted me in. They voted for me. I still get people coming up to me all the time saying, ‘I voted for you! Oh, my gosh, it’s been so great to see everything that’s happened in the past seven years.’”
Blake Shelton loves his eleventh #1 song, "Drink on It." Why? It reminds him of old-school country tunes: “I always wished I had a song like ‘The Chair,’ like that George Strait song ‘The Chair’, ‘cause it’s basically just a guy trying to pick up a girl at a bar. That’s what ‘Drink On It,’ that’s why I fell in love with that song when I heard it, outside of the melody being kind of a throwback to you know, Conway Twitty or Ronnie Milsap sounding records, which I love, too.” "Drink on It" is his 6th #1 song in a row.
Rascal Flatts is getting ready to hit the road this summer, and according to the guys, planning a tour gets harder, not easier: “You know, we’ve been doing this for a while now. I guess this is probably our seventh real headlining tour and each one it becomes harder and harder, such a challenge to try to make each tour better than the last one, and maybe bigger than the last one. And so we really got together and talked about what we wanted to do with this summer tour and we came up with a great idea I think.” This time around, they're taking not one single solo act on the road with them - Little Big Town, Eden's Edge and Eli Young Band are their tour mates.
A "gone gold" party is in the works for Lee Brice and his song, "A Woman Like You." Why does he think the song is so successful? “It is very conversational and it’s the truth. It’s like, ‘Yeah I’d probably be doing this, I’d be doing that. But I’d be the same ole me. I’d be that dude that was looking for you the whole time.’ So it’s really just true. I think that’s why it’s coming across so well. It’s just really honest.” "Hard 2 Love" is Lee's next album, and it comes out next Tuesday.
June 4th is the day for the 3rd Annual Darius and Friends celebrity golf tournament at the Gaylord Springs Golf Links in Nashville. Darius Rucker will announce other country stars who'll be part of the golf tournament and concert that follows it soon, and tickets go on sale Saturday at Ticketmaster.
Kenny Rogers, Ronnie Milsap and Glen Campbell have been added to the nightly concert line-up at LP Field during CMA Music Festival week. Tickets are on sale for country music's ultimate summer vacation.
This Saturday is "Record Store Day," with artists all over the country showing up at local music stores to perform, sign autographs and raise awareness of brick & mortar stores that sell music. In celebration, Pistol Annies have released "Hell on Heels" in vinyl and are giving fans the chance to win an autographed copy and a turntable.
Catch Toby Keith on the Tonight Show.
The tweet of the day is from John Rich: "Wouldn't it be cool if they made "redneck sushi?" Fried catfish roll, spicy bass roll, smoked blue gill roll with crawfish on top? Ideas?"
