HOLLYWOOD - JUNE 5: Musician/actor Dwight Yoakam (L) and country western music legend Buck Owens attend a ceremony honoring Yoakam with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame June 5, 2003 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will open their new exhibition, The Bakersfield Sound: Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and California Country, on March 24, 2012 for a nearly two-year run. Narrated by Dwight Yoakam, the exhibit explores the roots, heyday and impact of the Bakersfield sound, the loud, stripped-down and radio-ready music Buck Owens and Merle Haggard are known for.

“From its earliest chapters on through to today, California has played a significant role in country music history,” Museum Director Kyle Young said. ”Long before the Outlaws or alternative country, the Bakersfield Sound evolved specifically to suit a time and a place, made an indelible mark on popular music, and spawned two of the most charismatic stars in the firmament.”

Buck and his band, the Buckaroos, first popularized the Bakersfield sound with 1960s hits like “Act Naturally,” “Love’s Gonna Live Here,” “Together Again,” “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail” and “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line.” Merle wasn’t far behind with songs like “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried,” “Hungry Eyes,” “Workin’ Man Blues” and “The Fightin’ Side of Me.”  Between the two, they had almost 60 No. 1 hits. Continue Reading

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clockwise (l-r): Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Zac Brown & Sheryl Crow.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s ‘All for the Hall’ fundraiser will return to Los Angeles for the third straight year on Tuesday, September 13. Held at Club Nokia, the event will again follow a “guitar pull” format with performances and stories by Country Music Hall of Fame members Vince Gill and Emmylou Harris, and also Sheryl Crow and Zac Brown.

The Museum launched ‘All for the Hall’ in 2005. The campaign addresses the Museum’s need for long-term financial security and provides a safety net for the Museum and its work. This marks the fifth year the Museum has taken the event on the road, hosting ‘All for the Hall’ events in New York in 2007 and 2008 and Los Angeles in 2009, 2010 and now 2011. Continue Reading

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Taylor Swift will be inducted into the International Bowling Hall of Fame. Photo courtesy of gobowling.com.

Taylor Swift is best known for her songwriting and her singing, but that’s not what has propelled her into a hall of fame.

Taylor has been added to the International Bowling Hall of Fame in a popularity vote that had her competing against pop singer Justin Bieber, sports star Dwight Howard and comedian Bill Murray, among others.

Jim “Moose” Brown, a songwriter known for “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” is also getting a place in the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame, and Buck Owens has been permanently installed in a sidewalk hall, the Bakersfield Walk of Stars.

Details on these Hall of Fame inductions:

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The 2010 Country Music Hall of Fame inductees, clockwise from upper right: Don Williams, Ferlin Husky, Billy Sherrill and Jimmy Dean. Photos courtesy of the CMA.

Don Williams, Jimmy Dean, Ferlin Husky and record producer Billy Sherrill are the latest additions to the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Country Music Association announced the honor Tuesday via press release, with a formal induction ceremony promised later this year.

“I thought I was already in there!” Jimmy joked. “Seriously, it brought a huge grin to my face. I am honored.”

Each of the four has contributed significantly to the genre. Jimmy, whose name is synonymous with a line of sausage, gave country music plenty of TV exposure as the host of several different programs, most notably “The Jimmy Dean Show,” a 1960s ABC variety series. He often featured the likes of Roger Miller, Buck Owens or Faron Young. One 1964 episode aired live from the Grand Ole Opry, while a 1965 installment captured Eddy Arnold’s recording session for “Make The World Go Away.” The CMA also used “The Jimmy Dean Show” as a vehicle to announce the Hall of Fame inductees in 1966. As a recording artist, Jimmy is best known for “Big Bad John,” a recitation about a coal-mining accident that sold a million copies after crossing into the pop charts.

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Keith Urban photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

Keith Urban, the Zac Brown Band, Brad Paisley and Martina McBride are among the first round of acts who’ve been revealed for the annual CMA Music Festival June 10-13, a weekend that promises to bring plenty of tourism to Tennessee.

The Nashville-centered festival — which also promises Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, Reba McEntire, Rascal Flatts, Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker — occurs the same weekend as the ninth annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival 65 miles away in Manchester. That event is a multi-genre draw, though country music plays a role, too. The Zac Brown Band is booked, as it was last year, for both festivals. Bonnaroo also lists Miranda Lambert, Jamey Johnson, Kris Kristofferson and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band among this year’s attractions.

The CMA Festival is particularly beneficial to country artists. Some of the money raised by the event is donated to Nashville music education programs — last year’s festival generated more than $1 million for schools. In addition, highlights from the festival’s stadium concerts have for several years formed the backbone for an ABC special in the late summer or early fall.

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John Fogerty photo courtesy of Shore Fire Media.

He’s a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but that doesn’t mean John Fogerty doesn’t know a little somethin’ about country music.

His latest album, The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again, is dominated by classic country songs, including John Denver’s “Back Home Again,” the Kendalls’ “Heaven’s Just A Sin Away,” Ray Price’s “I’ll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)” and Buck Owens’ “I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me).” He enlisted a band that includes Americana stalwart Buddy Miller and standup bass player Dennis Crouch, and it actually leans closer to pure country than a lot of the material that’s now accepted as commercial country.

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Carl Smith photo courtesy of Marty Martel.

Country Music Hall of Fame member Carl Smith, one of the genre’s dominant stars in the 1950s, died Saturday at his home in Franklin, Tenn., according to The Tennessean.

Carl, 82, operated his career in a much different manner than many of his peers. While most country stars continue to record and tour as long as they’re able to find a market, he rather quietly retired from the music business once his hit-making prowess cooled in the late 1970s and lived off his investments with wife Goldie Hill, who had her own recording career in the ‘50s.

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Jeff Bridges visits with Nan Kelley on the set of Top 20 Country Countdown.

Jeff Bridges is getting huge Oscar buzz for his performance in the movie Crazy Heart, while Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett have a Golden Globe nomination for writing the picture’s theme song. All three of them will visit host Nan Kelley on this weekend’s edition of GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown.

The film is about a former country star who’s down and out, playing small dives and drinking too much whiskey. Jeff’s character, Bad Blake, is a rough-edged singer built artistically around such iconic stars as Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, and Jeff’s acting drew a comparison from New York magazine to the alcohol-fueled guy Nicolas Cage played in the depressing Leaving Las Vegas. Nicolas apparently drank between takes so he could play the part as realistically as possible in that film, though Jeff declined to go that far to develop his role in Crazy Heart.

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Bucky Covington and GAC's Storme Warren at the Country Weekly 15th Anniversary Party at Nashville's Hard Rock Cafe, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010.

A 15-year anniversary is definitely worth a party, and Country Weekly’s big event Tuesday at the Hard Rock Café brought out a load of stars — including Trace Adkins, Josh Turner, Bucky Covington, Aaron Tippin, Darryl Worley, Steel Magnolia and the Oak Ridge Boys’ Duane Allen — to mark the occasion for one of the genre’s best-known publications.

“Is there cake in there?” Steel Magnolia’s shivering Joshua Scott Jones asked at the red carpet.

“Are you planning to jump out of it?” I asked.

“If it’s big enough!” he insisted.

Forget the cake, though there were multi-flavored mousses, shrimp, chicken, bruschetta and wine and beer.

And, of course, stars — and hints of stars — everywhere. The Hard Rock’s walls are adorned with guitars owned by the likes of Waylon Jennings, Carl Perkins and Buck Owens. Country Weekly covers featuring George Strait, Toby Keith, Patty Loveless and Johnny Cash flashed in video boxes. And the visitors ranged from newer acts — including Emily West, Whitney Duncan, former “Nashville Star” contestant Gabe Garcia, the Roys and Burns & Poe — to hit-makers Aaron Tippin, Tammy Cochran and Ira Dean (formerly of Trick Pony) and to award-winners Lee Greenwood and Bill Anderson.

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John Fogerty photo courtesy of Shore Fire Media.

Thanks to his role as the primary singer and songwriter for Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty’s name is permanently etched in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But his first post-CCR project, 1973’s Blue Ridge Rangers album, put him on the pop charts with a cover of Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya (On The Bayou).” John went back to the country well in 2009 with a sequel, The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again.

As with the original Rangers release, John covers a series of country music classics: Buck Owens’ “I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me),” the Kendalls’ “Heaven’s Just A Sin Away,” John Denver’s “Back Home Again” and Ray Price’s “I’ll Be There (If You Ever Want Me),” to name a few.

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