Kenny Chesney photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

Come Sunday, much of the world will be watching the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts battle it out for the NFL’s title at the Super Bowl, though most people’s seats won’t be as good as those of some of country’s biggest stars. Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney and Rascal Flatts guitarist Joe Don Rooney will be in the house at Miami’s Sun Life Stadium — as will Carrie Underwood, who sings the national anthem.

The game presents a particular predicament for Kenny. Colts quarterback Peyton Manning hails from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville — Kenny’s home turf — and they became good enough friends that Kenny actually sang at Peyton’s wedding. But Kenny’s also pals with New Orleans coach Sean Payton and has worked out with the Saints before. He and Jimmy were both at the Louisiana Superdome to see New Orleans beat the Minnesota Vikings in person in the NFC Championship Game.

Colts? Saints? You won’t see Kenny putting his money down on either team.

“I know this year’s Super Bowl is gonna be a great game,” he says. “I’m not gonna bet on it, but I wouldn’t want to.”

Here’s how some of the country’s biggest acts will be taking in football’s biggest game:

• Kenny cooked up a special version of his ESPN college football theme, “This Is Our Moment,” for Westwood One’s radio coverage of the Super Bowl. He’ll also appear on ESPN’s pre-game show, “NFL Countdown.” “It’s not like I’m the definitive voice or anything,” he says, “but I do think I represent the definitive football fan. Me and the guys watch these games, live and die over who’s playing who all season when we’re closing out the tour. And this is, obviously, the biggest game of the year.”

• Jimmy has a unique connection to it all. During the regular season, Sun Life Stadium bore the name of his beer, Land Shark Stadium, and as a part of that sponsorship deal, Jimmy agreed to perform Saturday at an NFL Super Bowl party in Miami. Making his home in Key West, he’s a Dolphins fan, but he’s even more attached to the Saints. Born and raised on the Gulf Coast, he attended the team’s very first game in 1967, and like many fans, he plodded through decades of bad teams. More than 40 years after their debut, he’s understandably caught up in the fever surrounding the game. “When you say ‘the Saints are in the Super Bowl,’ you’ve got to go enjoy that,” he told The New Orleans Picayne-Times. Referencing Mardi Gras, he added, “I’ll be there with beads on.”

• Rascal Flatts supports Jimmy’s team. “I hope the New Orleans Saints win just because they’ve never been [to the Super Bowl] and Peyton’s already got a ring,” Jay DeMarcus says. “Not that I don’t love Peyton — I do , but I think it’s the Saints’ year.” “They need somethin’ positive [in] that city,” Gary LeVox adds. Rascal Flatts’ fiddler, John Jeansonne, is Louisiana-bred, and he’s driven the band crazy talking about the Saints. Joe Don Rooney is taking him to the game, too. “He doesn’t get to go in the stadium,” Jay deadpans. “They’ll just drive around the parking lot.”

• Carrie will be putting in some serious air miles surrounding the Super Bowl. After flying to Miami to deliver the national anthem, she’ll head waaaay past the other coast to Hawaii, where she’s set to film her part next week in the movie Soul Surfer.

• Darius Rucker’s post-Super Bowl prospects aren’t quite so good. “It’s going to be a big letdown for me around 10 p.m. that night,” he told ESPN. “That’s when football season will end, after the Super Bowl. See, there are two times of the year: football season and waiting for football season.” He doesn’t care who wins, but his expectations won’t make Jimmy Buffett or Rascal Flatts’ fiddler happy. Darius thinks the Colts will walk off as champions.

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Kenny Rogers photo courtesy of Capitol Records.

He knows when to hold ‘em, and there’s no need to fold ‘em: The man they call The Gambler hopes to pull an ace out of his sleeve with a television special, “Kenny Rogers: The First 50 Years.”

Kenny hasn’t found a TV home for it yet, but he has got a date and place for the shoot: April 10 at the Foxwoods Resort Casino’s MGM Grand Theater in Mashantucket, Conn. He also has a bunch of friends lined up to help out: Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Alison Krauss, Wynonna and the Oak Ridge Boys.

“When this was first proposed to me as a 50-year celebration, something about that sounded final, and I didn’t want that,” Kenny conceded. “So I suggested we call it ‘The First 50 Years.’ I will tell you this, the first 50 years TV show is gonna be awesome — the next 50 years TV show is gonna be a bitch.”

Kenny’s putting songwriter-producer Monty Powell to work as the special’s musical director. Monty’s written such hits as Keith Urban’s “‘Til Summer Comes Around,” Tim McGraw’s “One Of These Days” and Diamond Rio’s “Nowhere Bound.”

The special actually comes together nearly two years after Kenny released the album Kenny Rogers: 50 Years through Cracker Barrel. The TV announcement, made as Kenny does a pair of shows with the Nashville Symphony, comes together after another project that featured him returned to the news. Kenny was among more than 40 stars who appeared on the original 1985 version of “We Are The World.” On Monday, Lionel Richie oversaw the 25th anniversary recording of a new rendition for Haiti. This one featured more than 70 acts, including Julianne Hough, Sugarland, Zac Brown, Miley Cyrus, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand and Snoop Dogg.

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Josh Turner photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

They’re back to back at Nos. 15 and 16 on this week’s list of the top country videos in the nation; Josh Turner and Radney Foster will both join host Nan Kelley this weekend as guests on GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown.

Radney is positioned at No. 16 with “Angel Flight,” from his 2009 album Revival. Having established himself with the ultra-cool duo Foster & Lloyd, he’s gone on to become a jack of all trades in his solo career. In addition to making his own albums, he’s produced the Randy Rogers Band and written such hits as Sara Evans’ “A Real Fine Place To Start” and Keith Urban’s “Raining On Sunday.” He’s allegedly got something up his sleeve for Darius Rucker’s next album as well.

Josh finally releases his next album, Haywire, on Tuesday. His infectious “Why Don’t We Just Dance” is at No. 15 on the Top 20, and it’s also in the Top 5 on the Mediabase country airplay chart.

“There’s a lot of different types of songs on here,” Josh says of the album. “There’s one song that kind of speaks to the father-child relationship, there’s obviously the first single, ‘Why Don’t We Just Dance,’ there’s an old-school R&B-type song on there, there’s a lot of up-tempo traditional country-type songs on there, and then there’s also a gospel song on there that I wrote with my buddy, Mark Narmore, called ‘The Answer’ that’s probably one of my best gospel songs yet. There’s just a lot of different types of songs for the fans to sink their teeth into.”

Josh will perform Friday on the Grand Ole Opry, which has a significant milestone to observe the following night. George Hamilton IV, best known for his 1963 hit “Abilene,” celebrates his 50th anniversary with the radio show.

Top 20 Country Countdown counts down the week’s top country videos from No. 20 to No. 1 as voted by viewers on each week on GACtv.com. A new countdown premieres every Friday at 8 p.m. ET on GAC and airs again Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. ET; Sundays at 1 p.m. ET; and Mondays at 10 a.m. ET. Viewers can vote for their favorite videos, as well as purchase Top 20 artists’ albums and ringtones at GACtv.com.

Click here to preview each song on our Top 20 list and download the ones you want!

THIS WEEK’S CHART:

1. Zac Brown Band “Highway 20 Ride”
2. Carrie Underwood “Cowboy Casanova”
3. Miranda Lambert “White Liar”
4. Kellie Pickler “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You”
5. Blake Shelton featuring Trace Adkins “Hillbilly Bone”
6. Keith Urban “‘Til Summer Comes Around”
7. Lady Antebellum “Need You Now”
8. Reba McEntire “Consider Me Gone”
9. Jason Aldean “The Truth”
10. Toby Keith “Cryin’ For Me”
11. Gary Allan “Today”
12. Bucky Covington “Gotta Be Somebody”
13. Chris Young “The Man I Want To Be”
14. Keith Urban “Only You Can Love Me This Way”
15. Josh Turner “Why Don’t We Just Dance”
16. Radney Foster “Angel Flight”
17. Billy Currington “That’s How Country Boys Roll”
18. Trace Adkins “All I Ask For Anymore”
19. Chris Young “Gettin’ You Home”
20. Tim McGraw “Southern Voice”

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Carrie Underwood photo by Matthew Rolston, courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

Five-time Grammy award winner Carrie Underwood has landed a supporting role in her first studio movie Soul Surfer. The inspirational film is based on the autobiography of 19-year-old champion surfer Bethany Hamilton, who, for over six years, has defied all odds to compete and win professional championships after losing her arm in a shark attack at age thirteen. Underwood will play Sarah Hill, a church youth leader. Filming is to take place in February.

The film also stars Academy Award winner Helen Hunt as Bethany’s mother Cheri, Golden Globe nominee Dennis Quaid as Bethany’s father Tom, and Young Artist Award winner AnnaSophia Robb as Bethany Hamilton. The cast also includes Lorraine Nicholson (as Alana Blanchard) and Kevin Sorbo (as Holt Blanchard).

No word yet on will the film will actually hit theaters.

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Rascal Flatts at the Musicians Hall of Fame, cheering on the songwriters who wrote many of their biggest hits. Photo by Chris Hollo, courtesy of Lyric Street Records.

As the band celebrates 10 years of making hits, Rascal Flatts found a unique way Wednesday to recognize some of the people behind their success, throwing a party in which some of the songwriters who created their hits took the stage to sing them for the band.

Held at the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville, the event featured performances of eight Flatts hits — including “Mayberry,” “Fast Cars And Freedom,” “Prayin’ For Daylight” and “Bless The Broken Road” — by such writers as Jeff Hanna, Marcus Hummon, Neil Thrasher, Steve Bogard and Wendell Mobley. The band prepared special plaques for all 77 composers who’ve contributed to their multi-platinum cache.

“These are guys we’ve had history with for 10 years, you know, so it’s awesome to get a little spotlight on them for a change instead of sittin’ at one of our houses in pajamas tryin’ to write somethin’,” Flatts vocalist Gary LeVox says. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen ‘em. Of course, we’re all out on tour, they’re doin’ their thing, and we wanted to bring everybody together and just tell ‘em thanks.”

Honoring the writers is “typical of them,” says Danny Orton, who co-wrote “Stand.” “They’re very thankful for everything that’s happened to them, and if they think somebody deserves recognition, they wanna make sure they get it. And they appreciate the songwriters.”

There was an entry fee, sort of… The writers were each asked to submit two songs apiece for consideration for Rascal Flatts’ next album, which they’ve begun recording.

“We weren’t just throwin’ this party to be nice!” Jay DeMarcus laughs.

“Hopefully,” Joe Don Rooney adds, “those songs go into play for the next 10 years of Rascal Flatts. To be sittin’ here 20 years lookin’ back and doin’ the same thing would be awesome.”

The writers are happy to oblige with new material. After all, a Rascal Flatts cut is a source of income, and if it becomes a single, it’s significant money. Plus, there’s the creative satisfaction of hearing the band’s harmonies applied to one of their songs.

“I thought our demo was pretty good,” songwriter Blair Daly says of “Stand,” “until I heard the record. They just went above and beyond.”

Rascal Flatts’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” episode is set to air March 4. This weekend, they’re joined by Darius Rucker for three shows on their Unstoppable Tour: Thursday in Evansville, Ind.; Friday in Detroit; and Saturday in Dayton, Ohio.

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