Jimmy Wayne

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will celebrate the holiday season with an assortment of programs and events for the entire family. They will also have limited edition holiday posters from the Hatch Show Print and special offers from the Museum Store, just in time for holiday shopping.

Jimmy Wayne will help kick off festivities on Friday, November 25 at 4 p.m. Central with the lighting of the Museum’s Christmas tree. He will also perform and sign copies of his new book, Paper Angels. The next day, November 26, Ricky Skaggs and The Whites will be in the Museum Store at 2 p.m. to sign copies of A Skaggs Family Christmas Volume 2.

For those who like to start their morning off with country music, the Museum will host a special breakfast with Bill Cody on Friday, December 2 as he broadcasts live from the Museum’s Curb Conservatory. Admission is $6.50 and includes breakfast, performances by Ronnie Milsap, Julie Roberts, Victoria Shaw and more and the chance to win a museum prize pack.

Saturday, December 3 is a busy day at the Museum. The day starts off with a cookie decorating class at 10:30 followed by a songwriter session with Deborah Allen at 11:30 p.m. She will sign copies of her new children’s book, The Loneliest Christmas Tree, following her performance. From 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. the Museum will hold the family program Make Letterpress Art with Hatch Show Print, where attendees will learn about letterpress printing straight from the staff of Hatch Print Show. The day will wrap with Phil Vassar signing copies of his Noel and Live on Broadway album at 3:00 p.m.   Continue Reading

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The Academy of Country Music announced today that Academy Award®-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson are scheduled to present together as part of the 46th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, hosted by Reba McEntire and Blake Shelton.

The ceremony, which honors country music’s top talent as well as the industry’s hottest emerging artists, is produced for television by dick clark productions and will be broadcast LIVE from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 8 p.m. live ET/delayed PT on CBS.

Pattinson and Witherspoon join previously announced presenters, Nancy O’Dell and Ryan Seacrest. In addition, Alabama, Dierks Bentley, Ronnie Dunn, Sara Evans, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire, Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood and Zac Brown Band with James Taylor and Entertainer of the Year nominees Jason Aldean, Toby Keith, Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, Taylor Swift and Keith Urban have beenannounced as performers at the 46th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. Continue Reading

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Johnny Cash photo courtesy of Lost Highway Records.

The American public went crazy on the Dixie Chicks because of Natalie’s statement, and the incident cost the band its mainstream audience. As it turns out, the Man In Black might well have come out publicly against the Iraq War, too, if he weren’t in such poor health.

Daughter Rosanne Cash had put her name on a full-page ad in The New York Times just two weeks prior, joining Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams, Dave Matthews and T Bone Burnett among a group of musicians who said, “War on Iraq is wrong and we know it.”

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Johnny Cash

Saturday marks three years since the tragic fire that destroyed the former Tennessee home of Johnny Cash and June Carter, a moment that had a huge impact on Nashville’s music community.

A number of country artists — Marty Stuart, T.G. Sheppard and several Oak Ridge Boys, among them — could only watch helplessly as flames engulfed the structure, which had been purchased from the Cash family by the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb. A couple of songwriters, Monty Holmes and Leslie Satcher, were inspired by the blaze to write “House Of Cash,” a Patty Loveless duet that appeared on George Strait’s award-winning Troubadour album. And Larry Gatlin turned the disaster into a statement about the changing nature of country music, “Johnny Cash Is Dead (And His House Burned Down).”

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Lady Antebellum on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Photo courtesy of The Greenroom.

With the No. 1 album in the nation and the most nominations for this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards, Lady Antebellum picked a perfect time to have its personal history intersect with country’s bigger history. The band headlined Wednesday for the first time at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and left little doubt that it will soon be headlining everywhere.

View photos from yesterday’s rehearsal and show — and check back tomorrow for more pics from tonight’s concert!

In the first of two sold-out shows, the trio deftly tied together its pop-sprinkled sound and the venue’s traditional-country background, getting a standing ovation for its encore and demonstrating a flexibility that should serve the group well.

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Johnny Cash photo courtesy of Lost Highway Records.

You have to admire people who don’t allow their advancing age to hold them back. Even more, you have to admire people whose presence is so strong that they continue to make an impact even after their death.

Many members of the Country Music Hall of Fame fit one — or both — of those descriptions. Several Hall of Famers — Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams — are making headlines these days for their longevity or for new projects that add to their legacy.

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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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Elvis Presley image used by permission, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

Elvis Presley, George Jones, June Carter Cash and Sheldon Kurland — a key musician in the growth of Nashville’s music industry — are all receiving recognition for their legacies in ways that range from sad to historical to simply amusing.

Elvis and June are being commemorated by public institutions, Sheldon is being remembered by friends after his death this week, and one of the Possum’s most infamous moments was documented in a piece of art by a fellow musician.

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Jason Aldean photo courtesy of Broken Bow Records.

If you got the bucks, you can load up the truck with lots of country music memorabilia. Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood and Montgomery Gentry are among a slew of artists who’ve contributed autographed merchandise to Women Rock For The Cure, a Nashville-based agency that raises money for breast cancer research and awareness.

Jason, Carrie and Montgomery Gentry each put their names on instruments with starting bids that range from $200-$500 at http://myworld.ebay.com/womenrockforthecure. Another guitar bearing signatures from the Oct. 2 Opry Goes Pink night has a $500 minimum. Artists who inked the PRS model include Lorrie Morgan, Terri Clark, Jo Dee Messina, Bill Anderson, Mindy Smith, Connie Smith, Little Jimmy Dickens, The Whites and Caitlin Lynn.

But that’s just a start. Continue Reading

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