Sugarland and Tim McGraw will perform today on Oprah as part of her holiday concert paying tribute to some of America’s heroes, whom she recognized on her show last week. Sugarland will perform with Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, and Tim McGraw will perform with R&B singer Alicia Keys.
Dierks Bentley will spend this winter working on a couple of new albums, but his fans can hear him on a new project coming out December 12th. Dierks has been chosen to narrate a new documentary DVD called The Rise of Kahne, which chronicles the career of NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne. The film, featuring Dierks’ voice, follows Kasey’s life on and off the track as he climbs his way through the ranks in the racing world to achieve success and stardom.
The new season of American Idol will kick off in January, and as one of the most successful winners of the show, Carrie Underwood has some advice for the new Idol hopefuls who hope to follow in her footsteps – “stay true” to your fans. She says, “I feel like any contestant that comes off ‘Idol’ that does well on ‘Idol’ has to stay true to what people voted for. I’ve seen it happen a few times where people are one thing on the show, and then they got off the show and try to do something else.” Carrie thinks it’s “really strange” when a former Idol contestant tries to change their musical style after they leave the show because the fans voted for who they were on the show, not someone different.
Tim McGraw’s new movie, The Blind Side, has been quite successful at the box office, but fans shouldn’t worry that Tim will be giving up singing for acting anytime soon. Tim says, “I’m not going to give up music because it pays my bills.” When choosing acting jobs he says, “I have to find things that fit in the time schedule that I have. I only have a few months out of the year that I am available to do something, so I was so lucky that something this great and with this quality of people to work with came along at a time when I was available to work. But I’m not going to give up music, no.” As for the kind of parts Tim’s looking for, he says, “I’m not really out there looking for movie roles. When I get sent a script, I just try to determine whether it will work for me. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the leading role, a supporting role or just a five-minutes-on-film role.”
A lot of people spent the weekend watching a lot of football in HD, and as far as Martina McBride is concerned, that’s about the only thing HDTV is good for. Over the weekend she sent out a tweet that said, “Okay. I’m just gonna say it. HDTV sucks. I’m so tired of everything looking like a home movie. How did we get talked into this?” She continued in a second tweet saying, “When I watch tv,I want 2 B taken out of reality. Nothing has any filmic quality at all anymore. Sitcoms, videos,etc. all look cheap & weird.” She does make one exception. In a third tweet she said, “But it is good for sports. There should just be ‘Sports HDTV’. The rest of it….noooooo.”
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill recently moved into a new house that they had custom built and plan to stay in for a very long time. Faith explained to iVillage, “We’ve been waiting to move for three-and-a-half years. [We've been] building this house in the middle of tours and all that kind of stuff, so this is a very big thing for our family. Every home we’ve ever lived in has always been a place we knew we were going to move out of, so this is a special time for our family. After thirteen years of marriage! Now we’re really excited.” Faith tried to get off to a good start in the new house by going through everything before packing it up and moving it. She says, “I have unpacked boxes in [the old] house that I have not opened in ten years and I’m not over-exaggerating… I tried to promise ourselves that I was not taking one thing to the new house that I had not seen or cleaned out.”
Happy Thanksgiving from The Country Vibe family to your family. We hope you have a wonderful holiday and a great weekend. We will be back on Monday with more Country Snippets!
Gloriana won the Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award this past Sunday night at the American Music Awards and to celebrate, iTunes is making their self-titled debut album available for just $7.99 for a limited time. If you haven’t checked out their CD yet, featuring “Wild At Heart” and “How Far Do You Want to Go,” head to iTunes today to download a copy of their album for just $7.99.
Keith Urban is a proud father to 16-month-old Sunday Rose and he’s extremely proud of the fact that she already seems to be showing some musical ability. Keith says, “She’s got some pipes. I think she sounds quite musical. I sit at the piano with her in the morning and we mash the keys together.” And Keith’s wife Nicole Kidman is showing off her singing talents in the new musical movie Nine. While Nicole says she doesn’t like to hear herself sing, Keith says it’s possible they could collaborate one day on a song. He says, “Would we do something together? I don’t think it’s ever out of the question. I don’t know. We sort of do our own things professionally. But I love singing with her at home. It’s quite nice. She’s a huge inspiration for everything I do.”
Jason Aldean has teamed up with iTunes to release an exclusive eight song live EP as part of their “Sessions” series. The collection includes intimate versions of some of Jason’s biggest hits like “Hicktown,” “Amarillo Sky,” “She’s Country” and “Big Green Tractor,” plus songs off of his Wide Open CD like “Asphalt Cowboy” and “Crazy Town.”