The members of Little Big Town talk about their very first performance on the CMA Awards in 2006. #Nothinglikethefirsttime #50/50

On February 26th, 2011, Luke Bryan hit the top of Billboard’s country chart with “Someone Else Calling You Baby,” his third No. 1 single.

Keith Urban is among the initial list of performers for this year’s ACM Awards. He’ll be joined by Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Florida Georgia Line and Cam.

Keith is nominated for both Vocal Event and Song of the Year for “Raise ‘Em Up” with Eric Church.

Additional acts and presenters will be announced in the coming weeks.

The 51st Academy of Country Music Awards, hosted by Luke Bryan and Dierks Bentley, will be broadcast live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas April 3rd at 8pm live ET/delayed PT on CBS.

Canaan Smith is on the road with Brantley Gilbert on The Blackout Tour, and he’s having an absolute blast. He says he’s always wanted to go on tour with Brantley, and he’s now getting his chance.

“I’ve always wanted to tour with that dude, ‘cause he’s a good guy and I like his music a lot,” says Canaan. “I also know that he’s kinda like I am; we like to give our fans an experience they’ll never forget, and that’s what we’re gonna do on this Blackout Tour. We’ll probably have stories for days.”

Canaan will definitely perform his Top 30 hit, “Hole in a Bottle,” out on The Blackout Tour, which makes stops in Oklahoma City (February 25th) and Tupelo, Mississippi (February 27th).

Click here for Canaan’s ‘Boys’ Night Out’ necessities, which could include his debut album, Bronco.

On February 25th, 2014, Dierks Bentley released his album, Riser. He said the album was a snapshot of his life at the time, bookended by the death of his father and the birth of his son, Knox.

He’s currently making his way up the country charts with his latest single, “Somewhere on a Beach,” from his forthcoming album, Black.

Little Big Town will appear as guest judges on Project Runway All Stars on Thursday night (February 25th). The contestants are tasked with creating looks for the fashionable ladies to wear to this year’s ACM Awards. The show airs at 9pm ET on Lifetime.

The official music video for Dierks Bentley‘s “Somewhere on a Beach” will premiere this Friday (February 26th) on VEVO.  The Behind-the-Scenes of the clip will debut on Break.com.

Video link: http://vevo.ly/4GyHH4

Buy Link: http://umgn.us/SomewhereOnABeach

Chris Stapleton’s Traveller is on the short list for the inaugural American Music Prize, along with debut albums by Azealia Banks, Benjamin Booker and Leon Bridges, among others. The winner is set to be announced March 2nd.

This week, Sam Hunt helped present one of the Grammy Amplifier Program Awards (by Hyundai and the Recording Academy) to Adley Stump, a member of Blake Shelton’s team on Season 2 of The Voice. She will receive one of three prizes – a recording session, a live performance showcase or a music video. “It takes a whole lot of passion, commitment and conviction to put yourself out there, to enter a competition and to be judged,” said Sam in a press release. “There is no formula for making it in this business, but American Bombshell, Kirby and Adley have been given a tremendous opportunity to learn and grow as musicians. There’s absolutely nothing that gives us more pleasure than to be a part of an initiative like the Grammy Amplifier program that gives these aspiring talents opportunities that will help them to develop their crafts.”

Keith Urban is closing in on the top of the country charts with his last single, “Break On Me,” the second single from his upcoming album, Ripcord, and the follow-up to his recent No. 1 “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.”

The song, written by Ross Copperman and Jon Nite, is a feeling Keith can relate to from both sides.

“‘Break On Me’ is just one of those songs that I, the first time I heard it, it hit me in all the right ways, because having been in that place where I’ve needed someone to ‘break on,’ but also of course being someone who could be strong for somebody else,” says Keith. “I’d gotten the song and not long after that was when [my wife] Nic lost her dad, and I found myself living out that song.”

Keith will certainly have a place for this song and many other No. 1 hits when he hits the road on his Ripcord World Tour, featuring Brett Eldredge and Maren Morris, on June 2nd in Kansas City.

TIDBIT: If “Break On Me” hits the top of the chart, it will be Keith’s 20th No. 1 hit.

Billy Currington is hitting the airwaves with his latest single, “It Don’t Hurt Like It Used To,” which he co-wrote with a couple of buddies, Shy Carter and Cary Barlowe. It was just by circumstance the Georgia native ended up writing the song.

“A buddy of mine named Shy Carter called me up, he says ‘Well I’m over here with Cary Barlowe, here at your old publishing company, Major Bob”, the first company that gave me a publishing deal. He says, ‘Why don’t you stop by and say hello?’ So I pulled in, walked in, and we got to talking a little bit and it wasn’t long Cary started playing that guitar that you hear on the project,” says Billy. That melody, he started playing that melody. I don’t know what it was, I just started singing, singing lyrics, they just started coming out and Shy be like ‘Man, let’s write this down, let’s finish this’. Within a couple of hours we had finished the song and…I ain’t wrote a song in quite a while before that so it was nice to kinda get back into writing songs again and getting one on my own album.”

Billy just kicked off the current leg of the Summer Forever Tour over the weekend and will hit more than 20 cities before wrapping April 16th in Tampa, Florida.

Eric Church is getting ready to head overseas for a tour that will take him throughout Europe. He kicks off the trek February 29th in Stockholm, Sweden, and will make stops in Norway, Germany, Switzerland and Amsterdam before performing three dates during the C2C Festival (Country to Country) – Dublin, Ireland (March 11th), Glasgow, Scotland (March 12th) and London, England (March 13th). Kacey Musgraves and Chris Stapleton are also on the bill for the C2C dates.

Eric, who’s previously toured across the pond, is looking forward to performing for the fans. “There’s two different parts of Europe. There’s the English-speaking, there’s the U.K., and there’s interior Europe. We go into interior Europe and play. We go to Germany. We go to Sweden. We go to Norway. We go to Switzerland, we go to the Netherlands,” says Eric. “It’s so interesting to me when you get in places where English is not the primary, the first language, but music is, and you go there and you see the power of what music can do in these places that they can’t speak any English, but they can sing every word. It’s really something.”

The North Carolina native has hit the airwaves with his latest single, “Record Year,” from his Mr. Misunderstood album.

Eric is nominated for six ACM Awards, including his first-ever ACM Entertainer of the Year nod, as well as Male Vocalist, Album for Mr. Misunderstood, Video for “Mr. Misunderstood” and Vocal Event of the Year for “Raise ‘Em Up” with Keith Urban. He’s also nominated for Song of the Year with Keith for “Raise ‘Em Up” (award also goes to artist). The 51st Academy of Country Music Awards will air live from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on April 3rd on CBS.