Carrie Underwood’s husband, Mike Fisher, announced his retirement after the NHL’s Nashville Predators went to the Stanley Cup last year, and then announced his return earlier this year. She said after he revealed he was going back to play hockey for the Preds, she received some pretty funny texts from friends.

“After Mike announced that he was going back to play for the Predators, I got so many text messages, like ‘Couldn’t stand to have him home any more, could you? Ha ha ha ha.” I found that so funny because, honestly, he was just as busy when he wasn’t playing for them as he was when he was playing with the Predators,” says Carrie. “But I was very supportive and encouraging and maybe a little bit pushy, honestly, to get him to go back to play for them. I’m like, ‘Omigosh! This team is incredible. These fans are incredible. This town is incredible. One more run, baby. Come on. You can do it.’”

She was very supportive of his decision, adding, “Definitely understanding that I don’t know the physical aspects or what it takes to be a hockey player, it’s got to be a lot. But I, in the end, wanted him to do what would make him happy and ultimately what he felt like he was being led to do. I guess he felt like he was led to play one last time; one more playoff, so here we go.”

In Round One Game One on Thursday night, the Predators topped the Avalanche, 5-2, to take a 1-0 series lead.

Carrie just released her new single, “Cry Pretty,” which she’ll perform for the first time on the ACM Awards this Sunday (April 15th). Carrie is up for two awards – Female Vocalist of the Year and Vocal Event of the Year for “The Fighter” with Keith Urban.

The 53rd Annual ACM Awards, hosted by Reba McEntire, will broadcast live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas April 15th at 8pm ET on CBS.

Kip Moore has kicked off the year with an international bang, wrapping the final of two sold-out stints in Canada last night in Winnipeg, CA (5/17), following a stacked last few months that has seen Moore play to unrelenting crowds across the world. Building a global audience from the ground up, the beginning of 2018 has also seen Moore undertake the first of two capacity-house headlining runs in Canada, as well as a highly-anticipated return to Europe. Ahead of his second headlining stint in Canada this week, which saw Moore play to six additional full houses, he also recently wrapped a five-show, sold-out run across Australia to thunderous applause.

Kip  is making his way up the country charts with his latest song, “Last Shot.” The track is the second release from his  third studio album SLOWHEART and follows his fourth No. One hit “More Girls Like You.”

After four consecutive sold-out years, Platinum selling Superstar and American Idol judge Luke Bryan, along with CID Presents, announces Crash My Playa – 5^th Year Fiesta destination event taking place January 23-26, 2019 in Riviera Maya, Mexico. The Caribbean beach vacation will be the biggest event yet and will feature Luke headlining two of the four nightly concerts with one of those deemed as “Luke & Friends Set.” Additional performers to be announced soon.

“Nothing better than a beach vacation mixed with some country music to launch a new year,” shared Luke. “It’s an amazing get-away trip for the fans and all the artists performing.”

Packages on sale Wednesday, May 23 at 1pm ET at www.crashmyplaya.com. Members of Luke’s fan club, Luke’s fan app and previous Crash My Playa guests will have access to pre-sale packages on Monday, May 21 at 1PM ET.

Citi® is the official presale credit card of the Crash My Playa – 5th Year Fiesta. As such, Citi® cardmembers will have access to purchase all-inclusive packages during the Citi presale Monday, May 21 at 1PM ET – Wednesday, May 23 at 1PM ET. For complete presale details visit www.citiprivatepass.com.

“When we first approached Luke and his team about Crash My Playa it was just a concept,” said Dan Berkowitz of CID Presents. “Now, as we head into our fifth year, it has grown into something beyond our wildest dreams. Each year is better than the last, and with this being our 5^th anniversary, we’re excited to celebrate with the incredible community of fans, artists, and the people behind the scenes who make this event so special.”

Fans can stay at the event’s host resort, the Barceló Maya, or opt for one of several carefully selected tropical resorts and enjoy royal treatment all weekend long – all-inclusive food and drink, 24-hour concierge service, daily onsite activities, offsite adventures like visiting Chichen Itza, zip-lining, and ATV tours, excursions including day trips to Tulum, official Crash My Playa – 5^th Year Fiesta merchandise packages, and more. To see highlights from last year’s event go HERE.

For more information about Crash My Playa – 5^th Year Fiesta 2019, how to book four or five night all-inclusive packages and payment plan details, please visit: www.crashmyplaya.com.

Chris Stapleton picked up the ACM awards for Male Vocalist and Album of the Year for From A Room: Volume 1, which features his first No. 1 song (“Broken Halos”) as an artist. While Sugarland explained he’s back in Nashville with wife Morgane, who was expecting twins and couldn’t make it to Las Vegas for the ACM Awards show, Reba interrupted to explain the twin boys came early. Mom, brother and sister and the baby boys are all doing well.

Chris released the collection of songs in May of last year. The album takes its name from Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, where it was recorded with Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb.

“That whole room is a sweet spot,” says Chris. “The thing to know about that room is that room sounds like that room. I’m also a fan of studios that have a sound. Over time, there have been places that have sounds, you know, Capitol out in L.A. or Muscle Shoals. You can point to places that have sounds – Stax, Motown – these places have sounds, not just by the guys playing ‘em, but the actual sound of the room. The room’s become part of the band. Here in town, the place that has the most of that kind of mojo to me is that room, so that’s what I like about it.”

Dierks Bentley takes listeners on a musical journey of peaks and valleys with the title-track of his ninth studio album, THE MOUNTAIN, available June 8th. With the launch of the album’s pre-order today, Apple Music exclusively premieres the first video installment of a four-part series chronicling his fans’ stories of resilience, perseverance and hope set to picturesque performance footage shot in Colorado of new tracks. Billboard is giving fans a sneak peak of Daniel Foley, Boston Marathon runner and bombing survivor’s inspiring journey here https://bit.ly/2qvL93J.

“The people I meet on the road who are climbing their own personal mountains unknowingly inspired this album,” said Bentley. “Their stories are powerful and raw, but there is always a sense of resilience and hope. Those feelings are the foundation of this album to me.”

The ACM nominee has invited fans to be part of the live broadcast performance for his “empowering single” (Rolling Stone) that “celebrates women in song” (Associated Press) “Woman, Amen” during Sunday night’s 53rd Academy of Country Music Awards (4/15 at 8P ET on CBS), by submitting images of everyday female heroes.

Multi-PLATINUM selling singer/songwriter Dierks Bentley has built a reputation as both a forever-young drifter and a dedicated family man, put in millions of miles on headlining tours and taken the fearless stylistic detours of a truly authentic artist. He continues that journey with his highly anticipated ninth studio album, THE MOUNTAIN (Capitol Records Nashville), set for release June 8th. Reaching a new creative high, Bentley co-wrote 10 of the 13 new tracks that are unified by themes of presence and positivity, and range in style from textured rock to acoustic folk, feeling both rooted and expansive at the same time. After 15 years in Country music, the mountains Bentley has climbed could form a range of their own. To date, the Arizona native has scored 17 No. Ones and 13 GRAMMY nominations – including at least one stemming from each of his last six albums. Bentley has amassed more than one billion digital streams, countless additional nominations from the ACM, CMA and Billboard Music Awards and has been a Grand Ole Opry member for over a decade. After his 2017 tour claimed the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Tours selling over 750,000 tickets, Bentley will fuel arenas and amphitheaters throughout the summer with his 2018 MOUNTAIN HIGH TOUR, launching May 18th in Columbia, MD

Dierks Bentley kicks off his Mountain High Tour on Friday (May 18th) in Columbia, Maryland with special guests Brothers Osborne and LANCO.

Dierks is looking forward to getting on the road with his opening acts, because he wants to have fun on the road. “I just want this to be fun for me at the end of the day. I’ve got a lot of great stuff going on and I’m gonna spend the whole summer out there,” says Dierks.”It’s not about making money. It’s about my life. I want to have a great summer, have a lot of fun, make a lot of great memories, be totally present from the second we get there on-site, thinking of the fans’ experience when they first pull into a tailgate to when they leave and get home safely. So, it’s really fun, and you want to spend that summer you want to be around, and obviously it’d be nice if it was people that are having success in their career and could help sell tickets and all that. You’re always trying to find that, I say this a lot, someone said this to me early on, where one plus one equals three. You know, where a group of people come together and their sum is greater than their parts.”

The Arizona native is making his way up the country charts with “Woman, Amen” from his upcoming album, The Mountain, available June 8th.

Before launching his 2018 MOUNTAIN HIGH TOUR this week, award-winning entertainer Dierks Bentley assembled his band and crew along with tour opener LANCO today at Nashville’s Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. The group helped launch the “Hunger Free Summer” campaign where they packaged over ten thousand pounds of food to supply more than 8,600 meals to families in need when school meals are not available during the summer months.

“Typically when a tour is a about to launch, you get your band and crew together for some drinks before the run, but I wanted to make sure we did something different this year,” said Bentley. “We got everyone together to really start off with what it’s all about for me right now…gratitude. The more we get to do and grow out there on the road, the more I want to make it all mean something and Second Harvest is doing great work to make a difference in our community.”

Bentley has built a reputation as both a forever-young drifter and a dedicated family man, put in millions of miles on headlining tours and taken the fearless stylistic detours of a truly authentic artist. He continues that journey with his highly anticipated ninth studio album, THE MOUNTAIN (Capitol Records Nashville), set for release June 8th. Reaching a new creative high, Bentley co-wrote 10 of the 13 new tracks that are unified by themes of presence and positivity, and range in style from textured rock to acoustic folk, feeling both rooted and expansive at the same time. After his 2017 tour claimed the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Tours selling over 750,000 tickets, Bentley will fuel arenas and amphitheaters throughout the summer with his 2018 MOUNTAIN HIGH TOUR launching this weekend in Columbia, MD (5/18), Holmdel, NJ (5/19) and Camden, NJ (5/20). For more information visit www.dierks.com.

For 40 years, Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee has followed its mission of feeding hungry people and finding innovative ways to solve hunger issues in our communities.  As a private, not-for-profit and tax-exempt organization, Second Harvest distributes food and other products to approximately 490 nonprofit Partner Agencies in 46 counties in Middle and West Tennessee. Our partners include food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, childcare facilities, senior centers, group homes, and youth enrichment programs. For more information about Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, its mission and programs, please visit secondharvestmidtn.org.

Sam Hunt’s “Body Like a Back Road” picked up the ACM Award for “Single of the Year” during Sunday night’s show. He wrote the multi-week No. 1 and biggest song of 2017, which he performed during last year’s ACM Awards, with producer Zach Crowell, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne.

“I thought it was a fun song, but I didn’t know for sure if I wanted to put it out. I didn’t want it to come across as objectifying women or be too, to lack depth and just, I don’t know,” says Sam. “So, anyway, I had some concerns, but I tried to make it fun to offset any risks of those things happening, which made writing it fun, and I think that came across in the lyric and in the way we recorded it and everything else. When we finally finished it, it finally hit me as ‘Ok. Wait a minute. Maybe I underestimated the potential of this song. I think this could be a fun song and it will connect with folks.’ So, at that point, I was excited to put it out and fortunately folks have enjoyed it.”

The ACM Awards are taking place a few days from now, and the show is promising to be inspiring, entertaining and poignant.

Going into Sunday night’s show, Chris Stapleton leads the list of nominees with eight nods in five categories, including Entertainer, Male Vocalist, Single of the Year for “Broken Halos,” Song of the Year for “Whiskey and You” and Album of the Year for From a Room, Vol. 1. He’s won numerous awards over the past few years, and while he’s grateful for every single trophy he takes home, he has a special affinity for the Album categories.

“They are all significant and if you get one award for anything it’s a treat. But any of the awards that awarded the album, the album awards, because I really wanted to make an album that was good,” says Chris. “I wanted that to be a thing, again, more than I wanted it to be, ‘Well here’s the single and eight other songs.’ So, the album awards for me were important in that we did our job in a good way, you know. Just I have such an affinity for albums that I don’t know if I want those more or if they mean more, but they are all meaningful.”

Luke Bryan has won a handful of ACM Awards over his career, including the New Artist of the Year Award in 2010 following it up with two Entertainer Awards just a few years later. He tells us he is honored to be included in that category. “[I’m] so honored to have another Entertainer of the Year nomination and I always think about winning my first Entertainer of the Year [Award] at the ACMs,” he says. “To go to the ACMs knowing that you’re one of those lucky people that have that nomination, it just tells me that I’m doing all I can and doing the right things out on the road and hopefully, the fans are still loving what I’m trying to give to them every night.”

Keith Urban has quite the plethora of nods going into this year’s ACM Awards, including Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Song of the Year for “Female”  and twice, as both artist and producer in the Vocal Event of the Year category for “The Fighter” (featuring Carrie Underwood). Urban won Top New Male Vocalist of the Year in 2000, and Top Male Vocalist of the Year in 2004 and 2005.

Keith’s “Female” was nominated for Song of the Year. The Top 10 hit was written by Nicolle Galyon, Shane McAnally and Ross Copperman, and he said he just had a feel that he needed to record the song and let everyone hear it. “The song spoke to me. It just spoke to me,” said Keith. “As I was singing it, I thought I feel like I’ve known this song my whole life. Something else was going on with it how it felt to me. So, I love it. I believe in it. I didn’t record it for any other reason than it was a heart reaction that I had to it.”

In addition to Vocal Event of the Year for “The Fighter” with Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, is also nominated in the Female Vocalist of the Year category.

Lauren Alaina was announced as the Top New Female Vocalist of the Year a couple of weeks ago, and she still gets emotional talking about the “love” and recognition she has received from her peers and industry insiders.

Previously announced ACM Awards performers include Carrie Underwood, Lauren Alaina, Jason Aldean, Kelsea Ballerini, Dierks Bentley, Kane Brown, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Kelly Clarkson, Florida Georgia Line, Alan Jackson, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Midland,Maren Morris, Jon Pardi, Bebe Rexha, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban and Brett Young.

The 53rd annual Academy of Country Music Awards will broadcast live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas April 15th at 8pm ET on CBS.

The nominees for this year’s ACM Awards:

Entertainer of the Year
Jason Aldean
Garth Brooks
Luke Bryan
Chris Stapleton
Keith Urban

Male Vocalist of the Year
Jason Aldean
Thomas Rhett
Chris Stapleton
Keith Urban
Chris Young

Female Vocalist of the Year
Kelsea Ballerini
Miranda Lambert
Maren Morris
Carrie Underwood
Reba McEntire

Vocal Duo of the Year
Brothers Osborne
Dan + Shay
Florida Georgia Line
LoCash
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

Vocal Group of the Year
Lady Antebellum
Lanco
Little Big Town
Midland
Old Dominion
Song of the Year
Sam Hunt, “Body Like a Back Road”
Keith Urban, “Female”
Miranda Lambert, “Tin Man”
Chris Stapleton, “Whiskey and You”

Single of the Year
“Better Man,” Little Big Town
“Body Like a Back Road,” Sam Hunt
“Broken Halos,” Chris Stapleton
“Drinkin’ Problem,” Midland
“I’ll Name the Dogs,” Blake Shelton

Album of the Year
Breaker, Little Big Town
California Sunrise, Jon Pardi
From A Room: Vol. 1, Chris Stapleton
Happy Endings, Old Dominion
Life Changes, Thomas Rhett

Video of the Year
“Black,” Dierks Bentley
“It Ain’t My Fault,” Brothers Osborne
“Legends,” Kelsea Ballerini
“Marry Me,” Thomas Rhett
“We Should Be Friends,” Miranda Lambert

Vocal Event of the Year
“Craving You,” Thomas Rhett f/Maren Morris
“Dear Hate,” Maren Morris f/Vince Gill
“(Funny) How Time Slips Away,” Glen Campbell and Willie Nelson
“The Fighter,” Keith Urban f/Carrie Underwood
“What Ifs,” Kane Brown f/Lauren Alaina

The 53rd Annual ACM Awards, hosted by Reba McEntire, will broadcast live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas April 15th at 8pm ET on CBS.

It’s been over a year since Sam Hunt released a song, and this week he dropped “Downtown’s Dead,” the follow-up to the multi-week, five-times platinum “Body Like a Back Road.” It’s also been a year since he married his wife, Hannah, so over the past year or so, Sam’s been busy being a husband, being at home, traveling all over and experiencing the world after his whirlwind rise to the top of the charts and headlining tours. He’s also been busy writing songs following the success of his multi-platinum Montevallo album. He told us he’s probably written 50 or 60 songs, including “Downtown’s Dead,” which he says stood out from the rest of the pack.

“That song…checked all the boxes that I needed to check in a song, and I felt like it was lyrics that are lyrics I felt comfortable saying,” says Sam. “The idea I thought was relatable to people, and it just sounded like a song that people would come out to shows to sing and would inspire people to come out to shows. But ‘Downtown’s Dead,’ it’s hard for me to really say for sure what made that song stand out. I could break it down, I guess theoretically, but I just have those moments where there’s just a gut feeling that says, ‘Okay, this is the song you should put out. This is how you need to say it. This is what you need to say. This is how it should sound,’ and when I get to that point, then I put it out. That song was the one that sort of rose up from the batch that I’ve been working over the past year or two.”

Sam is nominated in five categories at Sunday night’s (May 20th) Billboard Music Awards, including Top Selling Song for “Body Like a Back Road,” as well as Top Country Song, Top Country Artist, Chart Achievement and Top Country Male Artist. Tune in to NBC on Sunday beginning at 8pm ET.

Sam will hit the road with Luke Bryan on the What Makes You Country XL Tour, which will hit stadiums beginning May 31st in Toronto Ontario. He has one date prior to the tour – he’s performing at the Indianapolis 500 next weekend.