Today's Country Tidbits

Carrie Underwood performed on last night’s American Idol, and while she was there, her thoughts weren’t far from Lauren Alaina and Scotty McCreery, last year’s runner up and winner. According to Carrie, “I’m lucky. I work with the same people they work with so I always hear about what they’re doing before everybody else. I kinda have the inside scoop on their careers. It’s really exciting to watch both of their careers take off and see these kids grow up, and make music, and get to do what they’ve always wanted to do.” Carrie’s in the June issue of Glamour magazine and dishes about the first big splurge purchase she made after winning American Idol – a $2,000 sweatshirt she found in Paris. She’s only worn it twice, but described it as her “first big, irresponsible awesome purchase”

Jason Aldean is about to be part of a reality show – “Opening Act” kicks off June 9th, and on the show, producers scour the internet looking for emerging talent to book as the opening act for talents like Jason, who totally understands what a big opportunity this can be: “What it does, I mean especially for a new artist, it gives you a platform to launch your career. You know, you’re able to go in and play for more people in one night than you would play to in six months on your own, so it’s a big deal.” Jason’s big break was as the opening act for Rascal Flatts in 2006.

When Eric Church was a young boy growing up in Granite Falls, North Carolina, he didn’t dream of being a country star. Nope – he had a different dream for his life: “I was, you know, probably a typical kid. I mean, I played sports and I wanted to play basketball for the University of North Carolina it just didn’t...[sigh]...I ran out of talent! [laughs] But, it was for me...I was sports for a long time. I was eat up with it. I loved sports...still do!” He was in college before he discovered music, and has two gold albums under his belt so far. Guess he didn’t run out of talent there!

Lee Brice celebrated the milestone of a #1 song by moving his family into their new house. Fiance Sara and son Takoda are busy settling into what 2-year-old Takoda calls “da big house!”

Kip Moore is riding high on the success of his debut cd, “Up All Night.” The first single, “Somethin’ Bout A Truck” was an easy write for Kip: “Some of the songs took months to write, and some of them happened in two hours. ‘Something’ Bout A Truck’ happened in two or three hours, where ‘Crazy One More Time’ took me four or five months to write. But, it’s drawing from a lot of different past experiences. I wrote a lot of them in the present, but yet they were all based on stuff that happened to me a long, long time ago.”

Congrats to Lionel Richie and his Nashville duet artists – “Tuskegee” is the #1 album in the country for the third week in a row.

The tweet of the day is from Roseanne Cash: "At JFK. Flight delayed twice. They're killing me w/the 'air traffic' blah 'weather' blah 'not our fault' blah blah 'no upgrade' blah blah."