Taylor Swift on stage in Seoul, South Korea on the Asian leg of her 2011 Speak Now World Tour. Photo courtesy of Taylorswift.com.

Billboard.com has released their list of the Top 25 Tours of 2011. U2 takes the top spot, but country music is well-represented, notching four spots on the multi-genre chart. Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney both made it into the Top 10, with Taylor being ranked at No. 5 and Kenny coming in right behind her at No. 6. Jason Aldean took spot No. 24 and Toby Keith came in at No. 25.

Artists are ranked by total gross earnings, according to Billboard Boxscore, from Nov. 1, 2010, to Nov. 8, 2011.

Top 25 Tours of 2011:

1. U2
2. Bon Jovi
3. Take That
4. Roger Waters
5. Taylor Swift
6. Kenny Chesney
7. Usher
8. Lady Gaga
9. Andre Rieu
10. Sade Continue Reading

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Country music stars sure love Twitter! This week, Josh Kelley, Taylor Swift and Reba are tweeting about the American Music Awards, Chuck Wicks hangs with Tom McMillan of Tom’s Wild Life and an Eagle lands in Brad Paisley‘s house. Here are our picks for the Top 10 Country Tweets Of The Week.

Photo courtesy of Twitter.com/JoshBKelley.

Josh Kelley – JoshBKelley: Me Katie and taylor swift together at last. AMAs were killer!! Thanks Becky for the pic

Taylor Swift – TaylorSwift13: I had one of the most magical nights with my friends tonight! Hopping on a redeye to play our last 2 shows at Madison Square Garden!!

Blake Shelton – BlakeShelton: Quote of the day.. “That’s what friends are for… So why don’t you go find yourself one?!!!” – Miranda Lambert

Photo courtesy of Twitter.com/ChuckWicksMusic.

Chuck Wicks – ChuckWicksMusic: The First and Last “planking” I will ever do just happened with @tmkansas…Lordy 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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Martina McBride photo by Kristin Barlowe, courtesy of Front Page Publicity.

Brad Paisley poked fun at reality-TV stars in his hit “Celebrity” and used “Online” to make fun of a guy who posed as a studly, all-American guy, masking the nerd that he really was.

In 2010, the themes of those two songs collided weirdly in the latest Internet phenomenon: the Twitter fake star. Plenty of people assumed deliberately phony names — Not Kenny Chesney, Drunk Swifty, Rascal Fats, Bobblehead Brad — and used their online mask as a shield while they poked fun at the stars and the music business in general.

One of those fakes put down Jimmy Wayne’s cross-country charity walk from Phoenix to Nashville, and Jimmy got hopping mad about it. Then Jimmy started looking at the faux versions of the stars a little more closely and changed his tune a bit.

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Gloriana photo courtesy of Emblem Records.

Thanks to the single “Wild At Heart” and an opening slot on the Taylor Swift Fearless Tour, Gloriana built quite a strong foundation in the last couple years as a new country band.

The song’s harmonies and its catchy melody definitely caught on — “Wild At Heart” was certified gold just last month.

With that success behind them, the four members — Cheyenne Kimball, Rachel Reinert and brothers Tom and Mike Gossin — started writing songs on Tuesday for the next album. Despite the attention they’ve gotten, they’re feeling no pressure to duplicate or exceed the last one. In fact, they’re itching to see what kind of changes they can make to their core sound.

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Don Henley photo by Andrew Macpherson.

The Eagles have long been hailed as an influence on modern country music, a fact that’s never been lost on drummer Don Henley. Now it appears Don is aiming to release an album that plays on that history.

He’s been working on an album of country songs — some originals, some covers. He’s in good company in the process. He’s been putting the project together with Stan Lynch, who used to be the drummer with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

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Brooks & Dunn during the final concert of The Last Rodeo Tour, in Nashville at the Bridgestone Arena on Thursday, September 2, 2010. Photo by Brian Kaplan, courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

When they announced the Nashville finale for the Last Rodeo, Brooks & Dunn hinted that it would have a superstar lineup as they gave all the proceeds from their end-of-the-road concert to the Country Music Hall of Fame, located across the intersection from the Bridgestone Arena.

But when the last chord rang out and the lights went up on the sold-out auditorium at Thursday’s last-ever Brooks & Dunn show, you could count the extra artists who showed up on two fingers: Tyler Dickerson, who turned in a solid six-song opening set that sounded more mature than his chronological age — 16 — would suggest; and Reba McEntire, who kicked into gear for the last chorus of “Cowgirls Don’t Cry” a little more than half-way into B&D’s two-hour farewell.

Without the fanfare, it felt oddly like a regular Brooks & Dunn show. Kix Brooks broke into a bittersweet smile and doffed his cowboy hat at the end of the aptly titled “You’re Gonna Miss Me (When I’m Gone).” It looked on the video screen as if perhaps, just maybe, he was tearing up, but you couldn’t be certain.

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Keith Urban performs at the Nightly Concerts at LP Field on Friday, June 11 in Downtown Nashville during the 2010 CMA Music Festival. Photographer: Donn Jones / CMA.

When fans look back on the 2010 CMA Music Festival, one of the sonic moments they’re likely to remember collectively will be the close of Keith Urban’s Friday-night set at Nashville’s LP Field, where he put together an all-star ensemble for a Beatles cover.

Keith brought out a horn section led by Kenny Chesney sideman Jim Horn, keyboard players Tony Brown and Tim Akers and a group of background vocalists that included Sarah Buxton and Little Big Town members Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman for a version of “With A Little Help From My Friends.” Footage of last month’s Tennessee flood — and of neighbors helping each other through it — ran across the video screen in the back, underscoring the song’s communal theme.

Watch it here:

Keith did the song twice for a film crew that was taping the stadium shows for the Sept. 1 ABC special “CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night To Rock.” Nashville’s recovery from the disaster is likely to be an undercurrent in the special, in part because it’s an example of a city that pulled together to help itself.

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Love And Theft photo courtesy of Lyric Street Records.

Love And Theft can look back on the last 18 months with a lot of joy. Looking ahead, however, is requiring a little bit of faith.

The band — Eric Gunderson, Brian Bandas and Stephen Barker Liles — earned its first hit in 2009 through Carolwood Records, a sister label to the Disney-affiliated Lyric Street. “Runaway” led the guys to their Grand Ole Opry debut and the release of their first album, World Wide Open.  Martina McBride recorded their song, “Wrong Baby Wrong.” They also had a chance to make a cameo appearance on “American Idol,” to take part in a Kraft sweepstakes and to hit the road on Tim McGraw’s current Southern Voice Tour, which also features Lady Antebellum.

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Eli Young Band photo courtesy of Universal Records South.

In an era when Kid Rock and Bon Jovi have found success in country music, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to hear Tom Petty’s name being thrown around.

The Eli Young Band has been covering the rocker’s “American Girl” frequently in concert, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are something of a muse for the Texas foursome as it develops a follow-up to the 2008 album Jet Black & Jealous.

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