Rascal Flatts photo courtesy of Big Machine Records. Photo credit Chapman Baehler.

Rascal Flatts will receive the CRS 2012 Artist Humanitarian Award during Country Radio Seminar on Wednesday, February 22 in Nashville following the event’s keynote address. The band was chosen to receive the honor based on their charitable contributions and humanitarian endeavors throughout their career.

Some of the band’s charitable work includes a donation of $3 million to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt’s Pediatric Surgery Center in 2010; and currently serving as celebrity spokespersons for the national suicide prevention organization and The Jason Foundation. They have been members of the American Red Cross Celebrity Cabinet for the last seven years.

“The board is very pleased to honor Rascal Flatts with the CRS Artist Humanitarian Award,” CRS Executive Director Bill Mayne said. “They join a long, distinguished list of celebrities who have received this prestigious award since it was instated in 1990.” Continue Reading

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Ronnie Dunn photo by Josepha Cheong, courtesy of Essential Broadcast Media.

Ronnie Dunn’s fans aren’t afraid of a little smoke. During his performance of the Brooks & Dunnclassic “Ain’t Nothin’ ‘Bout You” at the Franklin Theatre benefit concert in Franklin, Tennessee last Saturday night, the fire alarms began to sound. The crowd remained seated, however, with every intention of seeing a full Ronnie Dunn show.

After Ronnie performed a few of his originals from his self-titled debut solo album, his smoke machine triggered the alarm. Ronnie and his band finished the song before calmly evacuating the stage. The crowd stayed put while the fire department walked through the venue to make sure it was safe. When it was deemed secure,  the show continued.

Click HERE to see more photos from the night >> Continue Reading

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Vince Gill photo by Tim Wright, courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Vince Gill has been added to the MerleFest 25 lineup. Vince will perform on Thursday, April 26, delivering the closing performance of the evening. MerleFest 25, presented by Lowe’s, is slated for April 26 – 29, 2012, and will once again take place on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. MerleFest is an annual homecoming of musicians and music fans, gathering to celebrate the memory of musician Eddy Merle Watson, beloved son of American music icon Doc Watson.

Such blockbuster hits as “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” “Whenever You Come Around” and “I Still Believe In You” have helped Vince Gill sell more than 26 million albums over the course of his highly successful career. He has earned 18 CMA Awards, including Entertainer of the Year in 1993 and 1994. He is tied with George Strait for having won the most CMA Male Vocalist Awards (five), and is currently third only to George Strait (22) and Brooks & Dunn (19) for accumulating the most CMA Awards in history. Vince is a member of the Grand Ole Opry and has received 20 Grammy Awards to date. Just last month, he scored his 41^st Grammy nomination as a co-writer on “Threaten Me With Heaven,” nominated for Best Country Song. In August of 2007, the Country Music Association inducted Vince as a member of the coveted Country Music Hall of Fame.

Vince’s most recent project, Guitar Slinger (released in October 2011) is a favorite of both fans and music critics across the country, with iTunes proclaiming “Vince Gill’s superlative work in the ‘80s and ‘90s remains a high standard to reach, but he exceeds expectations on Guitar Slinger… When it comes to musical finesse and pure feeling, nobody does it like Vince.”

An avid golfer, Vince helped create the annual Vince Gill Pro-Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament (“The Vinny”) in 1993 in order to help support junior golf programs throughout Tennessee. Besides being known for his talent as a performer, musician and songwriter, Vince is regarded as one of country music’s best known humanitarians, participating in hundreds of charitable events throughout his career.

Ticket purchases for MerleFest 25 can be made on the web at www.merlefest.org or by calling 1-800-343-7857. An early bird ticket discount is available through March 12, 2012. Continue Reading

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Reigning Entertainer of the Year Brad Paisley at the 2010 CMA Awards. Photo by John Russell, courtesy of the CMA.

The star-packed lineup for “The 45^th Annual CMA Awards” launches with today’s announcement that all five nominees for Entertainer of the Year, Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Taylor Swift, and Keith Urban, are the first group of performers confirmed for “Country Music’s Biggest Night(TM).” With five nominations each this year, Jason, Brad, Blake and Taylor are also the top CMA-nominated artists.

The 45^th Annual CMA Awards, hosted by Paisley and Carrie Underwood, airs live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 8-11 p.m. Eastern on ABC. 

Jason received first-time nominations in five categories in 2011 including Entertainer; Male Vocalist; Album for My Kinda Party; and Single and Musical Event of the Year for “Don’t You Wanna Stay” with Kelly Clarkson.

CMA’s reigning Entertainer of the Year, Brad received five nominations in 2011 for Entertainer; Male Vocalist; Album for This is Country Music; and Musical Event and Music Video of the Year for “Old Alabama,” featuring Alabama. Brad remains in the No. 3 spot for the most career nominations in CMA Awards history. He has been nominated every year since 2000 and has amassed an incredible 57 career nominations to date. Only George Strait (81) and Alan Jackson (80) have more. Brad has won 14 CMA Awards to date, including three consecutive Male Vocalist awards (2007-2009) and Album of the Year (in 2006 for Time Well Wasted). He is No. 5 for the most career wins in CMA Awards history, behind only George Strait (22), Brooks & Dunn (19), Vince Gill (18), and Alan Jackson (16).

CMA’s current Male Vocalist of the Year, Blake also received five nominations this year including Entertainer; Male Vocalist; Album for All About Tonight; and Single, and Music Video of the Year for “Honey Bee.” These are Blake’s first Continue Reading

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Photo courtesy of the PRCA.

The American Cowboy is known all over the world as a symbol of America. The cowboy life might not have been quite as glamorous as the silver screen portrayed it, yet most of the men and women who lived their lives as cowboys or cowgirls wouldn’t have traded it for any big city job available to them at the time.

From that golden era came many familiar cowboy songs, some of them originating as folk tunes in other countries and adapted to their new situation by those Irish or Spanish cowboys who worked out west. Later, cowboy songs were big parts of movies during the singing cowboy era, with Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Rex Allen and Gene Autry gaining popularity not only as actors but singers too. Carl T. Sprague is considered the original singing cowboy, recording the first authentic cowboy song, “When the Work’s All Done this Fall,” which sold 900,000 copies.

Today’s singer/songwriters have not forgotten the cowboy way. Folks like Ian Tyson, Michael Martin Murphey, Riders in the Sky, Don Edwards, Ed Bruce and the late Chris LeDoux have given us newer songs and also revived some of the older tunes. Garth Brooks, Willie Nelson, the late Marty Robbins and the late Johnny Cash were also more than happy to sing the new western songs and keep the cowboy tradition alive in country music.

In no particular order, here are our picks for the Top 20 Cowboy & Cowgirl Songs. Leave us a comment below and let us know your favorite! And don’t forget to enter our Wrangler National Finals Rodeo Sweepstakes for your chance to win a trip for two to the rodeo in Las Vegas! Enter now >>

“Amarillo By Morning” – George Strait

Although Chris LeDoux recorded this song first, most people remember George Strait’s version, which begins with a beautiful intro played by fiddle great Buddy Spicher. Here’s a clip of George singing “Amarillo By Morning” live. The song is about a cowboy’s love for the sport of rodeo, no matter what happens to him and no matter what he loses, saddles and girlfriends included. George, as most of his fans know, sponsors his own Team Roping Classic in San Antonio each year. He is no slouch as a roper either!

“Good Ride Cowboy” – Garth Brooks

This song, written by Jerrod Niemann (performing it in the clip above), Richie Brown, Bryan Kennedy and Bob Doyle, became Garth Brooks‘ tribute to his friend Chris LeDoux after the rodeo champ and singer passed away in 2005. It chronicles Chris’ rise to fame in the rodeo world and as a singer, as well as his down-to-earth ways as a father and husband. Chris and Garth became friends after the Oklahoma singer named the rodeo cowboy in his first single, “Too Young to Feel This Damn Old.” They also recorded a duet in 1992, “What’cha Gonna Do With A Cowboy.”

“Night Rider’s Lament” – Suzy Bogguss

Upon hearing this song, one would assume it was written in the heyday of the cowboy. A little research finds it was written by real-life cowboy Michael Burton, but in a much more recent setting, circa 1975. It describes how one cowboy chose career over true love and how he sometimes thinks about what might have been. Those thoughts don’t linger long, however, as he quickly remembers why he chose the life of a cowboy on the range. The tune has been recorded by everyone from Chris LeDoux to Garth Brooks and Nanci Griffith, but Suzy has one of the great versions of the tune. Here she is singing it with Jerry Jeff Walker.

“Should’ve Been A Cowboy” – Toby Keith

Despite the fact that he is as much at home on a horse as he is on a stage, Toby Keith laments in this song that he should have been a cowboy. The Oklahoma native thinks he should have learned to rope and ride in a cattle drive, because he thinks as a cowboy he could have stolen the young girls’ hearts like his heroes, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Who among us hasn’t thought how glamorous it would be to be a cowboy on a big ranch somewhere out west, or at the very least, in a movie?

“Someday Soon” – Ian Tyson

Written by Ian Tyson, “Someday Soon” has been recorded by Judy Collins, Suzy Bogguss and many others and has charted in pop, folk and country. This 2009 video features Ian singing it – and you can see Suzy’s version HERE. Continue Reading

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GAC asked you, the fans, to help us pick the Top 50 Videos of the ’90s and all this week host Neal McCoy counted  them down! Here’s the final list — we hope each song title brings back lots of good memories! See the re-air times for the series HERE.  Check out the list below and leave us a comment to tell us about your favorite video from the ’90s.

GAC’s Top 50 Videos of the ’90s: Continue Reading

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Ronnie Dunn photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

By Deborah Evans Price
© 2011 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.

With the release of his self-titled solo debut album, Ronnie Dunn just might be the best-known newcomer in country music history. For 20 years he was half of the phenomenally successful duo Brooks & Dunn, which won 19 CMA Awards and dominated the country duo scene. Now the veteran singer/songwriter is starting over as a solo act, though he admits this transition hasn’t exactly been easy.

“I just panicked,” he said. “I just pushed the panic button and took off running in circles and recorded 34 songs before it was all over. I finally had to bring it down to 11 and went back in and negotiated to get it up to 12. But I was all over the map.”

At the same time, lots of well-meaning folks were offering advice. For example, in suggesting a way to establish an individual identity after his long partnership with Kix Brooks, “I had one guy at the label tell me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t say “honky-tonk”’,” Dunn said. “There were people in my own camp who said, ‘Hey, you just left a really good paying job, dude. What was that about? Did you think about this before you said “I’m going off on my own”?’

“I was certainly helped by a lot of good people, but I’d never felt so alone in my life,” he remembered. “All of a sudden, everyone just went, ‘OK, well, go do what you’ve got to do and I hope it works out for you.’” Continue Reading

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As FM radio expanded in the early ’90s, Americans who only knew cowboy hats and a couple of Willie Nelson songs were introduced to stars like Garth Brooks, George Strait and Reba McEntire. It was a great time for country music; the genre was booming and the rest of America was taking notice. Here’s our list of the Top 10 artists who defined country music in a decade when the format reached new frontiers. As with any list, we know there are many more than 10 who impacted the genre. If you don’t see your favorite here, leave us a comment at the end and let us know which artists helped define the ’90s for you! And, don’t forget to cast your vote for GAC’s Top 50 Videos of the ’90s! Vote now »

Garth Brooks photo by Mark Tucker, courtesy of Pearl Records.

Garth Brooks

Garth charted more number one hits (19 in the 1990s) and sold more albums (current tally 128 million, making him the second best-selling American solo artist of all-time behind Elvis) than any other country artist. He is the recipient of 18 ACM awards, 11 CMA awards and 2 Grammys, as well as 16 American Music Awards. However, these staggering facts and figures only tell part of the story of how he defined country music throughout the ’90s; Garth was a one-man country music marketing machine. Through incorporating elements of rock music into his songs and amping up his live shows with an endless supply of energy (remember the music videos of Garth running around stage with a wireless headset mic and joyfully smashing guitars?), Garth brought country music to the mainstream masses. Even people who “don’t like country music” have his Greatest Hits album featuring songs like the classic and universally known “Friends in Low Places,” which, be assured, someone will be singing in a New York City karaoke bar tonight. And not only did Garth headline major concerts in the US, including his free Central Park performance for 980,000 fans in 1997, he was a worldwide phenomenon touring such locales as Brazil, Europe and the Far East as the symbol of American country music. Continue Reading

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Ronnie Dunn's 2011 self-titled CD. Photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

Ronnie Dunn has been a busy man. Barely nine months after drawing the curtain on his legendary career as half of the iconic Brooks & Dunn, the 58-year-old singer/songwriter isn’t considering retirement for a second. Takin’ it easy just doesn’t seem to interest Ronnie much as he returns with a hard-charging solo album about love, life on the road and what it means to be a hard working man.

From the amped-up honky tonk stomp of opener “Singer In A Cowboy Band,” it’s clear that Dunn is a man on a mission. “Mama don’t get it, Preacher don’t understand/ Why I’m a singer in a cowboy band,” he sings with conviction. And while the riffs and song structure are reminiscent of Brooks & Dunn favorites like “Play Something Country,” Ronnie is clearly taking charge here as he steps to center stage.

Besides serving as the project’s producer, Ronnie also wrote or co-wrote 9 of the album’s 12 songs. Along the way, he teamed up with such well-known Music City songwriters as Craig Wiseman, Terry McBride, David Lee Murphy and Dallas Davidson for collaboration. On the great up-tempo “How Far To Waco” (co-written with McBride), Dunn moves South of the Border by way of the Yoakam-Orbison expressway as his melodies cruise through mariachi horns and guitars with dirty distortion. Continue Reading

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Trace Adkins presented Faith Hill and Tim McGraw with the 2011 CRB Artist Humanitarian Award during Country Radio Seminar. Photo courtesy of Aristo PR.

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill received the 2011 CRB Artist Humanitarian Award from the Country Radio Broadcasters during opening night of this year’s Country Radio Seminar. Tim and Faith were presented with the award in recognition of their ongoing efforts to aid those affected by the Nashville floods in 2010, particularly the star-studded Nashville Rising flood relief concert at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena in 2010 that the couple organized. Last year’s winner, Trace Adkins, presented them with the award.

The CRB Artist Humanitarian Award was created in 1990 to honor country music artists who have shown exceptional humanitarian efforts throughout their career.  Trace, Brad Paisley, Brooks & Dunn, Garth Brooks, Charlie Daniels and Kenny Rogers are just some of the artists who have been honored with this award. Continue Reading

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