Today's Country Tidbits

It’s official…Tim McGraw joins Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, Reba, Martina McBride and a host of other up and coming country stars as part of the Big Machine record label group. Tim signed with what is arguably the most influential record label in Nashville, run by Scott Borchetta. Scott’s dad, Mike Borchetta, originally signed Tim to his deal at Curb Records, the label he parted ways with last year. About the new partnership, Tim says, “For me, it’s a new day. I have a great partner, great label, a lot of great people working around me and I’m lookin’ toward the future. I’m lookin’ toward bigger and better things than I’ve ever done and better music than I’ve ever made. It’s a new beginning to sort of a new career for me, I think.” Will there be new music? Yes – and according to Scott Borchetta, fairly soon. Tim’s energized about the new project: “The songs are incredible. I mean, I had a fantastic group of musicians in the studio, and I think I’ve had more fun than I’ve had in a long time in the studio. I just...got a lot of energy, and music has a lot of energy in it and it’s infused with all this enthusiasm. I haven’t felt this way about music in a long time.” No release date yet…I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, how did Tim introduce himself to the staff at Big Machine? He and wife Faith Hill stopped by the label headquarters and brought ice cream for everyone. Sweet! 

It’s good to be on Brad Paisley’s tour. Sure, you might be scared about the pranks, but he also does thoughtful, fun things for his tour mates, like taking them out to the movies. Over the weekend in Indianapolis, Brad coughed up for tickets and anything anyone wanted at the concession stand for a 12:30am showing of The Avengers in 3D. No, he didn’t leave the crew out – they were all invited, too. 

The CMT Music Awards will be handed out on June 6th, right in the middle of the CMA Music Festival. Toby Keith and Kristen Bell will host the awards show live from Nashville on CMT, and Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood and Zac Brown Band will be performing. With lots of young talent snapping up awards these days, Toby recently said, “Some of the younger people comin’ around goin’, you know, ‘He’s a freakin’ legend,’ you know...this and that. And it’s like, I don’t see myself as that. I see myself as...I’ve been in the league a long time, but I always felt like I filled a void.” That’s true – there’s truly only one Toby Keith!

Taylor Swift has reached out to the family of a fallen Marine. Sgt. Wade Wilson. Wilson, a native of Leona, TX, was a huge fan, and when Taylor learned of his passing, she sent his family a note of condolence and asked if they would allow her to wear his dog tags in her next video to show her respect for him and all of our service men and women. Sgt. Wilson’s best buddy posted a video – watch it knowing there’s a bad word in there, and there’s the strong possibility that you’ll need tissues. There…you’ve been warned.



George Jones is back in the hospital, undergoing tests for the upper respiratory infection that just won’t go away. According to a message on his website, the Country Music Hall of Famer was admitted yesterday for “testing and evaluation,” and that all concerts scheduled through the end of June will be rescheduled “where possible.”

The tweet of the day is from Josh Thompson: “Just realized my Christmas tree is still up.”

Today's Country Tidbits

Taylor Swift went o-fer last night at the MTV Video Music Awards. She was only up for one award, Video with a Message, but lost to Lady GaGa. Taylor wasn't at the award show - instead, she was next door rocking the Staples Center for the 4th sold-out night.

How hot is Lady Antebellum? They're on the cover of this week's Billboard Magazine, and have the feature article. They talk about their rocket ride to success, plans for their first arena tour and their new album, "Own the Night," out on September 13th.

Another country trio, The Band Perry, is following in Lady A's footsteps. Lady A's first headlining show was at the Ryman, and now The Band Perry's first headlining show will be there, too. The February 20th, 2012 show sold out in 20 minutes!

Carrie Underwood has been invited to be part of Tony Bennett's 85th birthday celebration. It'll be a big party at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and Carrie plans to duet with Tony onstage, singing "It Had to Be You." That's the song Carrie shares with Tony on his current "Duets" project. John Mayer and Stevie Wonder will also perform at the September 24th event.

Some fun in the studio with Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert and ... well, watch the video...

Miranda Lambert and Josh Thompson both have a new record label - RCA. Sony Nashville did a huge re-org last week, shuffling some of their roster between sister labels and sending lots of long-time staffers packing. No word from either artist on their "new" affiliations.

Don't forget that Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton are part of Dateline NBC tonight at 10 Eastern.

Eric Church is on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight.

Today's birthdays include songwriter Don Schlitz (Randy Travis' "Forever and Ever, Amen") who is 59, Diamond Rio's Dan Truman, who is 55 and singer-songwriter Shawn Camp (Garth Brooks' "Two Pina Coladas") who turns 45

The tweet of the day is from Blake Shelton: "Man at gas station says to me "Em dogs sure are purdy... You gonna give em to me?.." My response "No. I'd rather see you reach for one.."

Today's Country Tidbits

Blake Shelton couldn't pass up the chance to be part of "The Voice," where the coaches have to judge a singer just by their voice. According to Blake, “And I’m tellin’ you sometimes you turn around and what you thought was, you know, a cute little girl singing a Colbie Caillat song might be, you know, an overweight man from Chicago, you know. You never know what you’re gonna see on this show when you turn around.” The show debuted last night and continues on NBC Tuesday nights at 9 Eastern.

American Idol is down to six, and Kellie Pickler knows just what that feels like: “I just heard it got narrowed down to six and I was like, ‘Well, hell that’s where I got the boot.’ So, good luck to number six! It’s hard. It’s not an easy ride that’s for sure. I mean, it’s an uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill. But, it’s fun and it’s worth it.” The six remaining contestants pair off into duets tonight, taking on the songs of Carole King at 8 Eastern on Fox.

The next Kenny Chesney single will be his duet with Grace Potter, "You and Tequila." This is a homemade fan video for the song.

Dierks Bentley and Josh Thompson are on the road together. What do they do when they're not performing? They grab their bands, break up in teams and play paintball.

And when they're not playing, they're... um, ...playing!

The Band Perry and Evan Farmer announce the 2011 CMT Music Awards nominees on the Today Show this morning, Emmylou Harris is on the Late Show with David Letterman, Alison Krauss and Union Station are on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and Tim McGraw is on The View.

The tweet of the day is from Dierks Bentley: "our drummer steve misamore's bubble bath scene in AM I THE ONLY ONE video is cracking and creeping people out nationwide"

Today's Country Tidbits

George Strait, golf resort owner. It's true - he bough the Tapatio Springs Golf Resort and Converence Center just outside of San Antonio, TX. The resort includes three 9-hole golf courses and more than 100 rooms. George has played the course and says he's always believed it "could be a real jewel." The former owners, Textron Financial Corporation, paid $4.5 million for it last summer, but there's no word on what George and his business partner paid for it this year.

Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson are headed to American Idol this week. They'll share the stage on Thursday's results show, performing their #1 smash "Don't You Wanna Stay." Kelly won the first season of American Idol.

The Band Perry is on tour with Tim McGraw, and have a treat for the fans who stay for the whole show - they're meeting with fans after Tim's done. If you have tickets to an Emotional Traffic tour stop and love the Band Perry, stop by the merchandise table after the show and you'll find them meeting, greeting and signing. There also could be more of them to love later this year, as their diets go out the window when they hit the tour bus: “[Kimberly] We normally start out with good intentions. Like Clementine’s, oatmeal we stock the bus with. [Neil] Which I normally finish those like in the first night. Which I don’t know why. So then after that it’s, you know, whatever junk food we get at shows. [Kimberly] Well it’s whatever the fans bring. Because our fans they all know like our favorite candy. So we just get bags and bags of candy which is just reeking havoc on our New Year’s resolutions.”

Josh Thompson is touring with Dierks Bentley, but has another reason to celebrate - Brad Paisley is recording a song Josh wrote as part of Brad's "This is Country Music" cd, due out May 24th.

Rascal Flatts teamed up with Michael Bolton for his upcoming duets project. Not only did they sing with him, but they co-wrote the song they sang. According to Gary, Jay and Joe Don, they think "Love is Everything" is something pretty special. “[Joe Don] We got together and just wrote a killer song. It just turned out great so it’s like wonderful. He and Gary sound so good together it’s so cool. [Jay] He still sings his butt off that’s what’s amazing. He still hits all those notes, I mean it’s really, really great. [Joe Don] I cried through the whole writing session (laughs).”

Blake Shelton's new song, "Honey Bee," is inspiring people to sing it themselves and put a video of it on YouTube. Blake was so impressed with this young lady's rendition that he tweeted a link to this video:

Tickets for individual concerts at the CMA Music Festival go on sale this Saturday morning at 10 Central time. Artists scheduled to appear at LP Field are:

Thursday, June 10: Jason Aldean, Easton Corbin, Sara Evans, Brad Paisley, and Zac Brown Band.

Friday, June 11: Sheryl Crow, Lady Antebellum, Martina McBride, Ashton Shepherd, Keith Urban, and more to be announced.

Saturday, June 12: Trace Adkins, Little Big Town, Rascal Flatts, Reba, Josh Turner, and Chris Young.

Sunday, June 13: The Band Perry, the JaneDear girls, Miranda Lambert, Darius Rucker, Blake Shelton, and more to be announced.

Congratulations to Blaine Larsen and his wife Sammie on the birth of their new baby girl. Their other daughter, Zoe, turned 3 the day before the birth of new baby Noble Blaine Larsen. Via twitter, daddy Blaine said the delivery doctor's name is Dr. Chesney. "You can't make this stuff up!" he tweeted.

Happy birthday to Steve Azar, who turns 47 today.

Trace Adkins is on Fox & Friends this morning and kd lang is on The Tonight Show tonight.

The tweet of the day is from Lee Brice, and includes a video: "This proves my band needs me around to keep them from doing dumb stuff."

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Today's Country Tidbits

Last week, between singing at a friend's funeral and taking home the top BMI awards, Taylor Swift visited a school and spoke with 200 students - most of them girls. According to reports, Taylor talked about her love of reading and writing song lyrics, which she says are actually poems. "I love poetry," Swift said, "because if you get it right, if you put the right rhymes at the right ends of the sentences, you can almost make words bounce off a page." How many of those 200 kids do you think she inspired to read and write more?

You can buy it tomorrow, but you can hear it today. Check out Rascal Flatts' "Nothing Like This" on their Facebook page. Click the "Music" tab for the freebie.

Tour names just keep getting better. Josh Thompson will headline the 2010 Cold Beers & Reindeers Tour, hitting venues all over Texas in mid-December. The Christmas-themed show will feature Joanna Smith and James Wesley.

A fun surprise for the audience at the Grand Ole Opry on Friday night - Restless Heart, the country super-group from the 80's and early 90's - made a surprise appearance and performed a couple of songs.

And Blake Shelton capped a phenomenal week just the way he dreamed he would - he was bow-hunting and took down a 12-point buck.

Rascal Flatts is on the Ellen Degeneres Show today, the Late Show With David Letterman tonight, then they'll be up early to perform on the Today show tomorrow. Lyle Lovett is on Castle, and Jason Aldean is on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight.

Happy birthday to Jack Ingram, who turns 40 today.

The tweet of the day is from Billy Currington: "Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. Keep dreamin' yall. goodnite"

Today's Country Tidbits

Lady Antebellum has wrapped up their work with Tim McGraw on the Southern Voice tour on Saturday, and are in London now, getting ready for a show on Wednesday. Hillary Scott says, "I wish we were able to stay a little longer and travel around, but this will at least be a great introduction for us to the new fans and friends we are making over there." The show is at Shepherd's Bush Empire and is sold out.

Billy Currington is getting ready to join the Carrie Underwood tour, and has wrapped up recording on his new album, "Enjoy Yourself." Right now, release is scheduled for September 21st.

Carrie Underwood has confessed that the next single from "Play On" will be "Mama's Song." It's a song she co-wrote, and she says that with her recent wedding, it means more to her than ever. The song describes a warm relationship between a woman and her mother.

Last night, Taylor Swift won 4 Teen Choice awards, though she wasn't there to accept them. She won for favorite female country artist, country song for "15," country album for "Fearless" and breakout movie actress for her role in "Valentine's Day."

Toby Keith is on the cover of the September issue of People Magazine's special country edition, on newsstands now. He talks about his life as a country star, but also as a Dad and coach.

In case you missed it, here's Kenny Chesney's interview with Parade Magazine. It was in yesterday's paper, and Kenny was the cover boy.

Josh Thompson's on tour with Brad Paisley, but he's checking out the local cuisine at each stop. What's his favorite? Sushi? Steak? Nope - fried anything. “They got all kinds of interesting things now that I’ve never even heard of, like fried Coca-Cola, deep-fried Butterfingers, deep-fried butter! I don’t know how that could be good, but I want to try it and, you know, form my own opinion. Deep-fried Twinkies. I don’t even like Twinkies, but you add the deep-fried component, and it’s like, well, I’m gonna have to take a bite, see what it’s about.”

A bit of calendar fun...it happened this morning and will happen again at 5:06 this afternoon - it will be 5:06:07 8/9/10

Luke Bryan is on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight.

The runner-up tweet of the day is from Miranda Lambert: "Can u imagine if @DierksBentley And @Blakeshelton had a baby together? It would have the most amazing white kid Fro ever!!! And the biggest collection of plaid flannel shirts!"

The tweet of the day is from Blake Shelton, replying to a question about whether his "All About Tonight" 6-pak will be released tomorrow in Canada, too: "May take it awhile to get across the border... Even my music has been arrested.."

Today's Country Tidbits

Is Carrie Underwood about to make a splash in the movie world? Looks like it. "Soul Surfer" is a true story about surfer Bethany Hamilton, who was determined to continue to live her dreams after a terrible shark attack. Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt are also part of the project. "Soul Surfer" will film in Hawaii and be released this fall.

In an interview with CMT, Toby Keith was asked about the faltering album sales and how the economy is affecting the music business. He said that it's now a "free 99 cent world" so sales of hard-copy product will probably continue to fall, but that no one can take the live concert event and discount that. As long as radio plays an artist's music, then that artist can go on tour, and Toby says, "You want to go on tour, where you make your hay at." Keep makin' hay, Toby...keep makin' hay!

Josh Gracin is in the studio, sweetening his next cd.

Another Josh, Josh Thompson, is about to be hitting the road with Eric Church. His first single, "Beer on the Table," is climbing the charts, and he's excited to take his band out to share his music. They'll be traveling in a white van with a white trailer, so Josh has nicknamed his tour rig Van-a-White. I'm sure the real Vanna is charmed.

There's a new song from Taylor Swift released today on iTunes. "Today was a Fairytale" is part of the soundtrack for the movie "Valentine" which features Taylor on-screen. The soundtrack comes out on February 9th and the movie will be out just before Valentine's Day.

In more Taylor news, she and Ashley Judd were part of a 4.5 hour Hoops for Haiti telethon, helping to raise a million dollars.

As reported here last week, two of the three Dixie Chicks have new music almost ready to debut. Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, working under the name Court Yard Hounds, have an album that should be out in May.

Colt Ford is riding high - he's been invited to perform at the Ryman on the Grand Ole Opry on January 30th. He said it's as close as he can get to heaven while playing music.

Don't forget to watch Shania Twain guest-judge on American Idol tonight.

Lady Antebellum is making the media rounds, promoting their second cd, due out a week from today. But their focus is on somthing much more important: helping the people of Haiti. Hillary Scott said, to CMT: "You just have to hug your loved ones and do what you can. Any little bit you can give, give it. One, you're doing it for an unbelievable cause ... and if you do it with a pure heart, you'll be blessed for it."

Here's how country folks roll...we are the first to help when someone's hurting. If you're wanting to help the Haitian people recover from a disaster at least as big as Katrina, one thing to remember is that scamsters come out at times like this. Here are the safe ways to donate money - you can
give $10 to the massive relief effort in Haiti by texting DISASTER or HAITI to 90999. You can also call 800-Red Cross to donate, or the Catholic Relief Services at 888-277-7575. Both of these
organizations are already in Haiti, working to recover trapped survivors, tending to the injured and helping to bury the dead. Give as much as you can, and thank you.