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  • CMA AWARDS 2018: Album of the Year

    Audio
    Chris Stapleton / Dierks Bentley / Kacey Musgraves / Keith Urban

    Chris Stapleton’s From a Room: Volume 2, Dierks Bentley’s The Mountain, Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour and Keith Urban’s Graffiti U are all nominated for CMA Album of the Year.

    Chris, who tops the list of CMA finalists with five nominations, has previously won the Album category for his first two solo albums – Traveller (2015) and From a Room: Volume 1 (2017).

    Dierks earned his sixth career nomination for Album of the Year alongside producers Ross Copperman, Jon Randall Stewart and Arturo Buenahora Jr., while also marking his fifth consecutive nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year. He also lands a nod alongside Brothers Osborne for Musical Event of the Year for their collaboration “Burning Man,” Bentley’s third nomination in the category. He won Musical Event in 2016 for his song “Different For Girls” (Feat. Elle King). With this year’s nominations, Bentley collects 24 total career nominations.

    Kacey picked up another nomination for Album of the Year, having previously been nominated for this same award in 2013 for Same Trailer Different Park and in 2015 for Pageant Material. She won New Artist of the Year in 2013 and Song of the Year for “Follow Your Arrow” in 2014. In 2016, she won the CMA International Achievement Award. This year, she’s also nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year.

    Keith earned three more CMA nominations, including Album of the Year. This year marks Keith Urban’s 14th nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year, 11th nomination in the Entertainer of the Year category, and his sixth nomination in the Album of the Year category for Graffiti U, bringing his career nominations to 45 with 11 total wins.

    The 52nd Annual CMA Awards, hosted by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley, will be broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 14th at 8pm ET on ABC.

    ALBUM OF THE YEAR
    (Award goes to Artist and Producer(s))

    From a Room: Volume 2 – Chris Stapleton
    Golden Hour     – Kacey Musgraves
    Graffiti U     – Keith Urban
    Life Changes – Thomas Rhett
    The Mountain     – Dierks Bentley

    Audio / Chris Stapleton talks about making records.

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    Chris Stapleton (making records) OC: …top to bottom. :37
    “We’re all incredibly fortunate that out on the road that the people who come out to the shows dig that deep. It sure is a powerful thing when you can pull out an album cut and have everybody sing along and have somebody be excited about it or watch that be somebody’s song they were hoping you were going to play that night. I care about the album, quite a bit, and I kind of learned that from Tom Petty. He made my favorite record of all time, which was Wild Flowers, and that album really made me appreciate the album, top to bottom. I try to think about that record a lot when I’m making records, and that’s the way I feel about albums. I want them to be good, top to bottom.”

    Audio / DIERKS BENTLEY WAS INSPIRED BY TELLURIDE TO WRITE AND RECORD HIS CMA NOMINATED ALBUM, THE MOUNTAIN.

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    Dierks Bentley (album inspired by Telluride) 2 OC: …it was magic. :53
    “I just had this crazy idea to bring some songwriters out there and let them go for hikes and walk around town and just hang and see if they can sense that same intangible vibe that I was sensing, and they did. We jumped right into it and it was really, really special. And everyone immediately starts talking about how can we start getting back out here again, because it’s one of those places you just like never want to leave. Ross said, ‘We should come back out here to make the record,’ and we all kinda laughed about it, but it planted the seed. So, I came back a few months later with a different set of guys and girls, musicians, and we recorded the album out there.” It’s one of those things where you just kind of follow your gut, just keep your heart open to ideas and see what you’re feeling, and once you get that little, tiny feeling, you’ve got to go for it, just like that gut instinct of I want to be a country singer. It’s that little seed that if you believe in it, you’ve got to go for it, try it, so that’s what we did with this album, and it was magic.”

    Audio / KACEY MUSGRAVES TALKS ABOUT THE TITLE OF HER CMA NOMINATED ALBUM, GOLDEN HOUR.

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    Kacey Musgraves (Golden Hour title) OC: …this record. :34
    “The title Golden Hour just seemed to sum up this chapter of my life perfectly. I mean not only am I from a town called Golden, Texas, but leading up to making this record, there’s been a lot of beauty in my atmosphere and in my world. I love the picture that pops in my head when I hear that title. It’s also an actual song on the record, but it’s just this warm, golden feeling that I’m really happy to have in my life, and I found it to be the perfect title for this record.”

    Audio / Keith Urban talks about the decision to name his latest album, Graffiti U.

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    Keith Urban (Graffiti U name) OC: …that to me. :53
    “The previous two albums I did – Fuse and Ripcord – denoted a kind of energy, and so those titles were chosen for that. And I had some energy-driven titles in mind for this album too, but as the record started to reveal itself to me, the word ‘graffiti’ kept coming to me out of the blue. I’ve always loved that word, loved the sound of the word, and then I loved the fact that it’s art-driven. When I think of graffiti, I think of self-expression, personal expression, absolutely personal expression whether you’re painting something on the side of a building in a city or whether you’re painting ‘Billy Bob Loves Charlene’ on the side of an overpass [laughs], it’s all graffiti and it’s all free and pure and very personal, and I thought this record feels like that to me.”

  • NEWS AND NOTES: Carrie, George, Vince, Dierks, Luke, Keith, Lauren, Jon Langston, Sam, Travis

    Press
    Carrie Underwood / Dierks Bentley / George Strait / Jon Langston / Keith Urban / Lauren Alaina / Luke Bryan / Sam Hunt / Travis Denning / Vince Gill

    Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley will appear together on ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday (November 9th). The two are co-hosting the CMA Awards next Wednesday (November 14th) broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena at 8pm ET on ABC.

    George Strait and Vince Gill are among the artists who will honor Willie Nelson at a tribute concert that will be filmed for an A&E television special next year. Willie: Life & Songs of an American Outlaw, A Willie Nelson All-Star Concert Celebration will take place at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena January 12th. Kris Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, Lyle Lovett, John Mellencamp, Lee Ann Womack and Alison Krauss will also perform. Tickets go on sale to the public on Monday (November 12th).

    Dierks Bentley will perform on ABC’s Good Morning America from his Nashville Bar Whiskey Row Wednesday morning (November 14th).
    Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Lauren Alaina and Jon Langston will perform at next year’s Country LakeShake music festival in Chicago June 21st – 23rd. Miranda Lambert featuring Pistol Annies, Maren Morris, Brett Young, Danielle Bradbury, Cassadee Pope, Clint Black, Lindsay Ell and many more will also perform. Tickets go on sale Friday, November 16th at 10am CT at lakeshakefestival.com.

    Sam Hunt and Luke Bryan are set to headline the Off the Rails Country Music Festival at Toyota Stadium in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas next year. The two-day event, taking place May 4th and 5th, will also feature performances by Lauren Alaina, Travis Denning,  Jake Owen, Luke Combs, Ashley McBryde and Morgan Evans, among others. Passes go on sale Friday, November 16th at 10am CT.

     

  • CMA AWARDS 2018: Entertainer of the Year

    Audio
    Chris Stapleton / Keith Urban / Luke Bryan

    The 52nd Annual CMA Awards are a little over a week away, and we’ll be highlighting different categories. Today, we give you the Entertainer of the Year category, which includes Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban and Luke Bryan, as well as Jason Aldean and Kenny Chesney.

    Stapleton tops the list of CMA finalists with five nominations, including Entertainer of the Year, as well as Single and Song of the Year for “Broken Halos,” Male Vocalist and Album of the Year for From A Room: Volume 2.  With all of these nominations, he adds to his previous 11 nominations and seven wins. He lands his third consecutive nod for Entertainer of the Year. He previously won Album for his first two solo albums, Traveller, awarded in 2015, and From A Room: Volume 1, awarded in 2017. Stapleton also receives his fourth consecutive nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year, a category he remains undefeated in, having won the past three years.

    Luke is once again nominated for the CMA Entertainer of the Year award, which he has won twice before in 2014 and 2015. The Georgia native says winning his first CMA Entertainer of the Year award was life-altering. “Winning my first CMA Entertainer of the Year award is something that I’ll never forget. It’s all of those memories of everything it took to get here and all the sacrifices and all the honkytonks and the late-night concerts and moving to Nashville and leaving your family and your friends, it all came together on that night,” says Luke. “To get that from your peers of fellow country music artists was pretty amazing. You never forget it. You forever feel vindicated and you feel appreciated and you feel like you’re a member of a club, and you know no matter how long you live that you left an indelible mark on this industry based on how you go about it, how you entertain and perform.” As a matter of fact, his first CMA Entertainer award was his first ever CMA Award he’d ever won.

    Keith picked up the CMA Entertainer of the Year Award in 2005, and it’s a moment he will cherish the rest of his life. “What I remember about the Entertainer of the Year category in 2005 was that first feeling when people say it’s just an honor to be nominated, and I thought, ‘I know what that means! I know what that feels like,’ because for me it was a huge honor to be nominated so soon into my recording career,” says Keith. “To be in that category, it just felt unbelievably quick for me. And then when they read my name out as the winner, I think I actually said, ‘I thought I was just rounding out the category,’ because [laughs] I thought you’ve got to have four or five people in the category. I truly did not expect that to happen. It was just such a magical night.” Keith has the chance to take home several awards going into this year’s CMA Awards, including Entertainer, Male Vocalist and Album of the Year for Graffiti U. This year marks Keith Urban’s 14th nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year, 11th nomination in the Entertainer of the Year category, and his sixth nomination in the Album of the Year category, bringing his career nominations to 45 with 11 total wins.

    The 52nd Annual CMA Awards, hosted by Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley, will be broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 14th at 8pm ET on ABC.

    Audio / Chris Stapleton says all the awards and accolades he's received have been like a "fairy tale."

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    Chris Stapleton (success is a dream) OC: …larger dream. :15
    “It’s an unimaginable fairy tale of a thing, really. We’re so proud just to get to make music and go out and play it for people and make records, that’s the dream. And when you have all these other things that people are nice enough to give you, that makes the dream an even larger dream.”

    Audio / Luke says winning his first CMA Entertainer of the Year Award was life-changing for him.

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    Luke Bryan (winning 1st CMA Entertainer of the Year) OC: …big deal for me. :55
    “Definitely looking back and winning my first CMA Entertainer of the Year award is something that I’ll never forget. It’s all of those memories of everything it took to get here and all the sacrifices and all the honkytonks and the late-night concerts and moving to Nashville and leaving your family and your friends, it all came together on that night. To get that from your peers of fellow country music artists was pretty amazing. You never forget it. You forever feel vindicated and you feel appreciated and you feel like you’re a member of a club, and you know no matter how long you live that you left an indelible mark on this industry based on how you go about it, how you entertain and perform. It was a big deal for me.”

    Audio / BACKSTAGE IN THE PRESSROOM AFTER WINNING THE CMA ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR AWARD IN 2014, LUKE BRYAN SAID HE WAS SO HUMBLED AND OVERWHELMED THE CMA VOTERS FELT HE HAD EARNED IT.

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    Luke Bryan (CMA Entertainer win) OC: …hard to describe. 1:05
    “To try to understand you would win your first CMA Award and it’s the Entertainer of the Year…I have longed and sought after many years to get one of these in my hands. To get the respect of the CMA Board and all of its voters and win this is a ginormous deal, something I could not express out on stage when I was winning it, but I can’t help but in the back of my mind want some of that respect from this body of people. So, I’m just really humbled. I think about just the hard work it took to get here, and I’m really just so blessed that this is from the CMA and I’ll never take a second of it for granted. I, honestly from the bottom of my heart, I go out on stage every night and try to sing it and perform it and entertain it like it’s my last and now, it’s like, Whew! It’s hard to describe.”

    Audio / KEITH URBAN RECALLS WINNING HIS FIRST AND ONLY CMA ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR AWARD IN 2005.

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    Keith Urban (winning EOY in 2005) OC: …magical night. :43
    “What I remember about the Entertainer of the Year category in 2005 was that first feeling when people say it’s just an honor to be nominated, and I thought, ‘I know what that means! I know what that feels like,’ because for me it was a huge honor to be nominated so soon into my recording career. To be in that category, it just felt unbelievably quick for me. And then when they read my name out as the winner, I think I actually said, ‘I thought I was just rounding out the category,’ because [laughs] I thought you’ve got to have four or five people in the category. I truly did not expect that to happen. It was just such a magical night.”

     

  • KEITH URBAN WRAPS HIS “GRAFFITI U WORLD TOUR” THIS WEEKEND.

    Audio
    Keith Urban

    Keith Urban wraps the U-S leg of his Graffiti U World Tour this week with shows in Little Rock on Thursday (November 1st), New Orleans on Friday (November 2nd) and Dallas on Saturday (November 3rd).

    “It’s a conundrum because I wanna play what the audience wants to hear obviously, and there’s a mix of people in the audience. You’ve always got new people that have never seen us live and they’re hoping that you do ‘X’ song, whatever that might be. It could be ‘Kiss a Girl.’ It could be ‘Sweet Thing.’ It could be ‘You’ll Think of Me.’ It could be ‘Days Go By.’ There’s just so many songs, and then you’ve got people who’ve seen us hundreds and hundreds of times who are like, ‘Oh, please don’t do that song again. We’ve got to have heard that a million times. We wanna hear more of the new ones,’” says Keith. “So, it’s a beautiful challenge that I feel very blessed to have. And at the end of the day I’ll put together a setlist that feels energy and emotion and thematically and musically and every other way right from top to bottom, covering as much as we can without playing for four hours. It’s also part of the reason we didn’t take any other acts on the tour. We just took Kelsea and us. That gave us more time to play.”

    Keith, who is making his way up the country charts with “Never Coming Down,” is nominated for several CMA Awards, including Entertainer, Male Vocalist and Album of the Year (for Graffiti U). The 52nd Annual CMA Awards, which will broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 14th at 8pm ET/PT on ABC.

    Audio / Before launching his Graffiti U World Tour, Keith Urban explained trying to put together a setlist for his shows.

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    Keith Urban (Grafitti U World Tour) OC: …time to play. :59
    “It’s a conundrum because I wanna play what the audience wants to hear obviously, and there’s a mix of people in the audience. You’ve always got new people that have never seen us live and they’re hoping that you do ‘X’ song, whatever that might be. It could be ‘Kiss a Girl.’ It could be ‘Sweet Thing.’ It could be ‘You’ll Think of Me.’ It could be ‘Days Go By.’ There’s just so many songs, and then you’ve got people who’ve seen us hundreds and hundreds of times who are like, ‘Oh, please don’t do that song again. We’ve got to have heard that a million times. We wanna hear more of the new ones.’ So, it’s a beautiful challenge that I feel very blessed to have. And at the end of the day I’ll put together a setlist that feels energy and emotion and thematically and musically and every other way right from top to bottom, covering as much as we can without playing for four hours. It’s also part of the reason we didn’t take any other acts on the tour. We just took Kelsea and us. That gave us more time to play.”

  • NEWS AND NOTES: Jordan, Keith, Chris, Josh, Kacey and more

    Press
    Chris Stapleton / Jordan Davis / Kacey Musgraves / Keith Urban

    Jordan Davis performed at half-time during Sunday Night Football’s match-up yesterday (October 28th) between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings. New Orleans came from behind to win the game 30-20.

     

    Keith Urban, Chris Stapleton and Lady Antebellum will headline next year’s C2C: Country to Country music festival. The three-day event, which runs March 8th-10th in London, Glasgow and Dublin, will also feature performances by Lyle Lovett, Brett Eldredge, Dustin Lynch and many more.

    Josh Turner was able to take a couple of days to spend with his family (which includes his wife and four sons) at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida for the boys fall break. His first gospel album, I Serve a Savior, is available now.

    Kacey Musgraves covered Keane‘s “Somewhere Only We Know” for the BBC last week, and over the weekend, the band’s Tom Chaplin joined her at her show in London for a live performance of the song.

    https://twitter.com/CAFCfanDanii/status/1056295840120221697

     

     

     

  • CARRIE, LUKE AND KEITH ARE ANNOUNCED AS FIRST-ROUND PERFORMERS AT THIS YEAR’S CMA AWARDS.

    Press
    Carrie Underwood / Keith Urban / Luke Bryan

    Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, Kenny Chesney, Dan + Shay and Old Dominion have been announced as the first round of performers for this year’s CMA Awards, which are being hosted for the 11th time by Carrie and Brad Paisley.

    Luke is a two-time Entertainer of the Year winner (2014, 2015) and 16-time CMA Awards nominee. He’s set to return this year to vie for his third win in the category. Luke has just released his brand-new song, “What Makes You Country,” to radio and is wrapping up his What Makes You Country Tour next week.

    Carrie, a four-time CMA Awards Female Vocalist of the Year winner, receives her 13th nomination in the category this year. She has garnered 30 CMA Awards nominations since 2006. She is making her way up the country charts with her latest release, “Love Wins,” from her No. 1 album, Cry Pretty.

    This year marks Keith’s 14th nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year, 11th nomination in the Entertainer of the Year category, and his sixth nomination in the Album of the Year category, bringing his career nominations to 45 with 11 total wins. Keith, who is on the road with his Graffiti U World Tour, is scaling the country charts with “Never Coming Down.”

    The 52nd Annual CMA Awards will broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 14th at 8pm ET/PT on ABC.

  • MORE ARTISTS ADDED TO THIS YEAR’S CMT ARTISTS OF THE YEAR SPECIAL.

    Press
    Carrie Underwood / Dierks Bentley / Keith Urban / Little Big Town

    Dierks Bentley, Keith Urban and Little Big Town’s Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet have been added to the list of stars appearing at the CMT Artists of the Year special on Wednesday night (October 17th).

    Dierks, along with Sheryl Crow and Martina McBride, will join together for a special tribute to honor Loretta Lynn who is receiving the 2018 Artist of a Lifetime Award.

    Keith Urban, Elle King, Smokey Robinson, LBT’s Jimi and Phillip, Trisha Yearwood, Oscar winner Sissy Spacek, Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood will present.

    Performances include honoree Carrie Underwood with Maddie & Tae and Runaway June, honorees Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman with Gladys Knight. Miranda Lambert and Pistol Annies, Kelsea Ballerini with Alison Krauss, Hillary Scott with Tori Kelley and Kirk Franklin and Maren Morris with Brandi Carlile.

    This year’s CMT Artists of the Year – celebrating all females – will air live from Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center Wednesday (October 17th) at 8pm ET/PT.

  • NEWS AND NOTES: Keith, AJ, Carrie, Luke, Shania

    Press
    Alan Jackson / Carrie Underwood / Keith Urban / Luke Bryan / Shania Twain

    You can catch Keith Urban on NBC’s The Voice the next two weeks. He will serve as an adviser for Blake Shelton’s team beginning tonight (October 15th) through October 23rd. Catch Keith and Blake, as well as the rest of the celebrity coaches, on the singing competition show beginning at 8pm ET on NBC.

    Set your DVR: Alan Jackson will be the subject of a new documentary, Small Town Southern Man on AXS-TV Tuesday night (October 16th) at 10pm ET.

     

    Carrie Underwood and her husband Mike Fisher hosted a benefit earlier this month for Danita’s Children, a cause near and dear to both of their hearts. The event, which featured performances by Carrie and friend Brad Paisley, raised nearly $600,000 for the organization to help provide medical care, food and education to orphaned and impoverished children in Haiti.

    Luke Bryan takes a break during auditions for American Idol to play a little on the piano and sing Willie Nelson’s “Always on My Mind.” The cameras caught him in action.

    Shania Twain will be joined by Jake Owen and Travis Tritt for the new competition show, Real Country, which debuts November 13th at 10pm ET on the USA Network.

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  • KEITH URBAN TAKES FANS BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF HIS LATEST HIT, “NEVER COMING DOWN.”

    Video
    Keith Urban

    Go inside Keith Urban’s studio and see how his latest song “Never Comin’ Down” from Graffiti U was written and recorded!

    Listen to Keith’s new album Graffiti U: http://strm.to/GraffitiUEm

    Video /

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  • KEITH URBAN RETURNS FOR A THIRD TIME TO HEADLINE NASHVILLE’S NEW YEAR’S EVE.

    Press
    Keith Urban

    Three-time 2018 CMA nominee and GRAMMY-winner Keith Urban will headline Jack Daniel’s Music City Midnight: New Year’s Eve in Nashville (#NashvilleNYE) for a third year in a row. Keith will be joined by rocker Peter Frampton, rock/pop band Judah & the Lion, pop rock singer/songwriter Caitlyn Smith, contemporary soul and rock artist Devon Gilfillian and the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The tenth annual event will take place at the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park and is free and open to the public.

    “Keith is the perfect artist to headline this signature Nashville event, and we’re excited to have him back for a third year,” said Ronnie Smith, Head of Corporate Bank, Regions Bank, and chairman of the NCVC board of directors. “Keith’s an incredible performer and an even better partner. He’s a global entertainer who takes Nashville to the world and invites his fans to experience Music City for themselves. His great music includes many different influences and will cap off a lineup of outstanding performers representing many different genres.”

    Gates will open at 4pm on December 31st, followed later in the evening by the raising of the Music Note to kick off the live music. The event will include the traditional Music Note Drop and accompanying fireworks display to ring in the New Year. Sirius XM host Storme Warren and “Today In Nashville” personality Kelly Sutton will serve as emcees.

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