If you can't be at the CMA Music Festival every night, individual night tickets go on sale Saturday, but there's a pre-sale going on today, tomorrow and Thursday. You can get one-night tickets for $30 if you use the pre-sale code CMT or TWEET. Miranda Lambert has been added to the already-A-list of country performers this year. All the details are on the CMA Music Festival site.
This is shaping up to be quite the tour - Toby Keith, Trace Adkins and now James Otto will be part of some summer shows on the American Ride tour.
Pssst...wanna buy a really great house? Alabama's Jeff Cook is selling his Ft. Payne, Alabama mansion. It's 15,000 square feet, features a 20-foot-wide rock fireplace, eight bedrooms, seven baths and a recording studio. Of course it has a pool...and it could be yours for only $3.9 million.
It's 11 weeks at the top of the charts for Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" cd. In spite of new music from top-selling country artists, the Lady A sophomore project has remained at #1 on the Billboard Country chart since it's debut week. It's sold over 1.6 million units so far, with no signs of slowing down, and their second single from it, "American Honey," sits at the top of the country singles chart this week. The title track, "Need You Now," is at the top of the Adult Top 40 chart.
And baby makes three - Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild and Jimi Westbrook's son Elijah Dylan makes his photo debut in People Country magazine, and here's my favorite shot.
Jimmy Wayne was the overnight guest of a couple of tough Texans. As Jimmy puts it, they're best friends, but they fist-fight all the time. As they were getting settled in after dinner, one of them handed Jimmy a guitar and asked him to play. He borrowed a pumice stone and sanded down the bridge to make the guitar sound better, but oops! He sanded it a little too far. He didn't tell the guys, just played like nothing was wrong, but the next day he called his Takamine guitar guy and sent them a new one. Jimmy's over the halfway point in his walk across America to focus attention on homeless teens.
Look for Shania Twain to mentor the American Idol contestants on an upcoming show.
Lady Antebellum are scheduled to be on the Late Show with David Letterman tonight, and also on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Should be interesting to see which show they end up on and which one decides to move their appearance to another night!
Today's country music tidbits:
Lady Antebellum’s debut cd, Lady Antebellum, has been certified platinum, and after 18 months on the charts, remains in the top 10 best selling country cds on iTunes. Their sophomore cd, Need You Now, will be available on January 26, 2010. Hillary Scott of Lady A says: "This is just beyond anything we ever could have imagined when we sat down to write our first song together in 2006. I wish we could thank every one of the fans personally. that would be the coolest thing in the world for us. Everybody always says they have the best fans in the world, but 'everybody' hasn't met Lady A's fans. they are truly the best!"
As tweeted yesterday, Brad Paisley has announced an American Saturday Night tour extension. He'll play dates in January through March of 2010, with Miranda Lambert and Justin Moore. Tour dates and information is here.
Carrie Underwood has launched a redesigned website, featuring an online store. Fans can pre-order a limited-edition package of Play On, including an 11x17 art print from her album photo shoot.
Jeff Cook, founding member of Alabama and dern good guy, has put together a package of Christmas songs he describes as "varied and not too overplayed." His first solo Christmas album, Christmas Joy, is available starting November 3 from iTunes, Amazon.com and on his website. 50's rock group The Ventures join him on the project's title cut.
Randy Houser’s next cd is due out in the spring of 2010. The first single is Whistlin’ Dixie, and the new songs will be featured on stage in his CMT On Tour stops.
Last night in Nashville, Taylor Swift raked in some more shelf bling. The Nashville Music Awards were handed out for the best locally-made music, and Taylor won for artist, songwriter-artist and country album of the year for Fearless. Lady Antebellum won Best New Artist, and Rascal Flatts won Music Video of the Year for Here Comes Goodbye,
Tim McGraw's latest movie, The Blind Side, isn't even in theatres yet and it's being reported that he's about to start filming another one in January. Tim will team up with Gwyneth Paltrow on a project to be shot in and around Nashville, with some filming apparently happening on his own farm. No word on the project's name or story line.
Dierks Bentley, on the first time he heard one of his songs on the radio, as told to The Boot: "I was driving down I-65 in Nashville, going to drop my dogs off at a friend's house before I went out on the road that weekend. I heard 'What Was I Thinking?' and pulled over the side of the road as I always do and sat there and listened to it. Radio is what got me into country music, so just to hear yourself on the radio just blows your mind!”
