Gary Allan has released the video for his latest single, “Hangover Tonight.” Check it out below.

Little Big Town will return to host CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock for the third time. The special is scheduled to air August 4th at 8pm ET on ABC. “We are honored to host this incredible party for another year,” says LBT’s Jimi Westbrook. “We look forward to this week all year long, and being able to spend all four days with the fans is just incredible. Big thanks to ABC and the CMA for having us back!”

Keith Urban has been tapped as one of the headliners of the PlentiTogether Live concert July 19th at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The show will also feature performances by Nick Jonas and Pitbull.

Lady Antebellum, who picked up the CMT Award for Group Video of the Year for “Bartender” this week, tweeted that they will team up with electronic dance music producer and DJ Audien on the song called “Something Better.”

Lady Antebellum ‏@ladyantebellum  Jun 9

We are so excited to be featured on the upcoming song “Something Better” by our amazingly talented friend @Audien. Stay tuned…coming soon!

Grand Ole Opry member Jim Ed Brown passed away Thursday night (June 11^th). Brown, who was elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in March with his sisters Maxine and Bonnie, died at Williamson Medical Center in Franklin, Tennessee (south of Nashville). He was diagnosed with lung cancer in September. He was 81.

Fellow Opry member Dierks Bentley said he always enjoyed running into him backstage at the Opry, and the legendary performer always had a nice word to say.

He’s just a really nice, nice guy, a great singer and a great ambassador to the next generation of how country should be even as it grows and leaves some of its roots behind. He’s a great example of what it’s all about.”

Alan Jackson had a blast when he teamed up with Steven Tyler to film a couple of skits for Wednesday night’s CMT Music Awards. Steven played a “Guuber” driver, who picked Alan up to take him to the awards. The two seemed to get along famously, even singing Alan’s huge hit “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” together, followed by a little “Walk This Way.” Alan had previously met the Aerosmith rocker and his family at one of his shows in Boston years ago, and he says Steven is very genuine.

“He’s a character. I mean, I haven’t been around him that much, but he’s always wide open, and that’s the way he was at this little shoot, but really just full of energy,” says Alan. “He’s got a lot of soul. He’s a singer, and he’s just genuine. He seems really nice. I was very surprised at how nice he really is.”

Apparently, the second skit was due to some adlibbing the pair did during the shoot, and the show’s producer liked it so much, he put it in the show.

Alan is getting ready to release his new album, Angels and Alcohol, July 17th.

Sam Hunt took home his first award during Wednesday night’s CMT Music Awards for Breakthrough Video of the Year for “Leave the Night On.” He tells Entertainment Tonight that it’s his year of firsts for everything. “I said out there that a couple of years ago, I was standing in the pit there watching this awards show, so it was wild just to be a few feet away from where I stood and watched this show a couple of years ago and accept this award.”

Sam is climbing the country charts with latest single, “House Party,” which is the third single from his debut album, Montevallo.

The Georgia native is currently on the road with Lady Antebellum‘s Wheels Up 2015 Tour.

Billy Currington just released his latest single, “Drinkin’ Town With a Football Problem.” The tune was written by the family group, The Henningsens, who have the same manager as Billy, and thought it would be a great song for the Georgia native.

“My manager sent it to me. He was like, ‘Hey man, I’m managing this group and they wrote this song, but they’re not going to record it, and they wanted to send it to you,’” says Billy. “So, I pressed play, and my first thought with this song was like, ‘Wow! This song could for sure be in a commercial for the NFL.’ I mean it’s so perfect. I could hear it playing at stadiums during football games, and I can’t say enough about how happy the song is and how happy it made me feel, when I was recording it and when I was listening to the demo of it.”

“Drinkin’ Town With a Football Problem” is the follow-up to Billy’s 10th No. 1, “Don’t It,” from his new album, Summer Forever.

Billy is currently on the road with Tim McGraw on his Shotgun Rider Tour, which makes its next stop Friday (June 12th) in Mansfield, Massachussetts.

NASHVILLE – CMA and the CMA Foundation unveiled its new “Music Education Matters” campaign today during CMA Music Festival and announced that superstar Keith Urban will be the first national ambassador for the program, which provides musical instruments and teaching support to programs serving inner-city youth.  

“Music is not only powerful, it’s magical,” said Urban. “It has the ability to bring people together, to inspire, calm, enhance creativity and intelligence, and to improve concentration. There is nothing like seeing the genesis of the relationship between an instrument and a child or young adult. I’m so honored and proud that the CMA Foundation has given us this opportunity to be a part of something that can have such a positive effect on so many young lives.”

Getting instruments into the hands of children is not just something that Urban has championed through the years, but is something he’s supporting with a personal donation. He is contributing 60 Keith Urban guitars complete with amplifiers, strings, and picks to five Music Education Matters partner programs across the country including programs in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York City, and San Francisco.

“Several of these programs have instruments that were provided by the Foundation, but thanks to Keith’s generosity some of our most ambitious and talented students will have a guitar to take home for practice and improving their skills,” said Ron Samuels, Chairman of the CMA Foundation Board of Directors. “This donation is life changing and central to our message that Music Education Matters.”

“I am extremely grateful for Keith’s generosity and his commitment to advancing music education,” said Sarah Trahern, CMA Chief Executive Officer. “I have witnessed the difference an instrument makes in the development of a child. Just imagine if someone hadn’t put a guitar in Keith Urban’s hands.”

Young performers from Metro Nashville Public Schools – one of the recipient programs – participated in the announcement at the AT&T U-verse® Fan Fair X in the Music City Center. Students from JFK Middle School and Antioch High School surprised Urban with a rendition of his hit, “Days Go By” and four, high school guitar students from Nashville School of the Arts joined Urban and his band for a performance of Urban’s new single “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.”

“I have witnessed first-hand the effect a musical instrument can make in the life of a student,” said Linda Friend, a Metro Music Specialist at John F. Kennedy Middle School. “Rex Yape, a 2014 graduate of Antioch High School, was first provided with recorders through CMA while just a young performer in the Antioch-based ‘Renaissance Kids.’ During his sophomore year, while auditioning on recorder for membership into the Tri-M Music Honor Society, one of the judges suggested that Rex might make a fine oboe player. On Monday morning of the next week a brand new CMA oboe was presented to Rex.  Rex used that oboe to audition for All-State and to play as a member of the Curb Youth Symphony. Rex has just completed his first year at the Curtis Institute of Music, undeniably one of the top music institutions in the world, and is looking forward to a career as a professional musician, something that would not have been possible without the generosity of CMA.”

The guitars will be distributed to five separate in-school and after-school programs including Notes for Notes, which constructs and operates recording studios in Boys and Girls Clubs nationwide. The CMA Foundation has funded studios in Atlanta, Austin, Brooklyn, Detroit, Nashville, and San Francisco, with plans to expand into other markets in 2016.  

“Everyday youth in our studios are getting their hands on instruments but thanks to Keith we will be able to gift these guitars to our most dedicated players to take home and shred into their musical dreams,” said Phil Gilley, CEO/ Co-Founder Notes for Notes.

CMA Foundation partner programs that will be receiving guitars include:

Education Through Music: Education Through Music (ETM) partners with inner-city schools to provide all students with music as a core subject, and to create school communities that value the arts. In the 2014/2015 school year, ETM served 20,000 students and 40 teachers in 37 inner-city schools in New York City, and their model reaches another 8,000 children through the work of their licensed affiliate organization in Los Angeles.

Harmony Project: Harmony Project is a tuition free, after-school and weekend music program in Los Angeles that targets 2,000 at-risk students ages 6-18. Combining rigorous music instruction and enrichment activities, mentoring, family support services, and college scholarships, the program guides vulnerable youth through life’s challenges while building critical life skills that will serve them into adulthood. 

Little Kids Rock (LKR): Little Kids Rock is a national nonprofit that provides an innovative music education program called Modern Band to more than 195,000 students in 29 cities. LKR leverages the shared cultural capital of students (and their teachers) by connecting learning to the music styles that kids already know and love including rock, pop, hip hop, and Country. LKR provides instruments, curriculum, teacher training, and ongoing support.

Metro Nashville Public Schools: Since 2006, CMA and the CMA Foundation have donated more than $9 million to support an unprecedented effort to strengthen and improve music education in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Through this unique partnership with Metro Schools and the Nashville Public Education Foundation, CMA has provided thousands of instruments, enabling the city to accelerate access to quality music education for all students.

Notes for Notes: Notes for Notes funds the construction of music studios in Boys and Girls Clubs and other facilities across the U.S. The CMA Foundation made an initial donation to the Nashville Notes for Notes chapter and committed additional funds to expand the program in several markets including Atlanta, Austin, Brooklyn, Detroit, and San Francisco.  

The CMA Foundation receives the bulk of the funding to support these and other programs from CMA Music Festival. To date, CMA and the CMA Foundation have donated more than $11 million to this worthy cause on behalf of the artists who perform at CMA Music Festival for free.

The Foundation has made Music Education Matters its core initiative. Statistics show it is making a difference. Studies have proven that people who play instruments from childhood have above average general reasoning skills and verbal intelligence. Other studies indicated that learning music increases fine motor skills, enhanced hearing ability, and memory.

This means the skills acquired learning music give the child the foundation to succeed in other disciplines. For instance, the enhanced reasoning skills and verbal intelligence are the skills needed to excel in the language arts. The act of reading music is cognitively very similar to the act of reading words, so children who learn to read music at a young age generally read at a higher grade level than their peers.

Keith Urban’s seventh studio album FUSE, his fourth No. 1 album, marked the first time that a male Country artist has debuted atop the all-genre charts in the United States, Canada, and Australia. FUSE’s first single, “Little Bit of Everything” took the top spot on the Country Singles Chart, as did “We Were Us,” featuring Miranda Lambert, which gave Urban a streak of five consecutive No. 1 songs (dating back to 2011’s “Without You”).  In fact, with the release of FUSE’s fourth and fifth No. 1 singles, “Somewhere In My Car” and “Raise ‘Em Up,” Urban  extended his lead as the artist with the most consecutive Top 10 songs on Billboard’s Country Airplay Chart, a streak which started in August of 2000. He was the first Country artist to be named an American Idol judge, a role he willreprise for the show’s 15^th and final season.

Urban has long supported numerous charities. Amongst other things, he is an advisory board member at the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and a longtime supporter of The Grammy Foundation. In 2013, he introduced his new URBAN™ Guitar Collection via HSN, proceeds of which went to benefit both the Grammy Foundation and Mr. Holland’s Opus Fund. The offering resulted in the largest guitar debut ever for the entertainment/lifestyle retailer, selling out in a matter of hours. In 2014 his second offering, for his URBAN™ Guitar Collection via HSN, broke that record. His annual “All For The Hall” benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum© has raised nearly $2.5 million.

CMA created the nonprofit (501C3) CMA Foundation in 2011. Guided by the generosity of the Country Music community, the CMA Foundation focuses on improving and sustaining music education programs everywhere while supporting worthwhile causes important to the Country Music Association.

**Suggested Tweet**: The #CMAfoundation announces @KeithUrban as #MusicEducationMatters ambassador after performing w/ Nashville students at #CMAfest! {Link URL}

Darius Rucker has a lot of friends. Put them all together and they can do amazing things. Like raise more than $220,000 for childhood cancer and other life threatening diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Rucker and a handful of today’s top country music stars spent Monday night putting on the sold-out sixth annual “Darius and Friends” benefit concert at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville, then hit the course Tuesday for the Celebrity Tee-Off sponsored by State Water Heaters. The two-day total is almost two times as much as the record $120,000 Rucker earned last year and brings the annual benefit’s total contribution to St. Jude to $660,000.

Rucker was an active master of ceremonies at the Wildhorse, performing his own set of hits and joining every invited star – the lineup included Little Big Town, Brett Eldredge, A Thousand Horses, Brothers Osborne, Scotty McCreery and Steve Wariner – on stage at some point. He stretched his instantly recognizable baritone voice in every direction through a night that included – but was not limited to – a set heavy with songs from his latest No. 1 album, Southern Style. He also brought out a horn section so he and new friend Eldredge could explore their mutual love of Frank Sinatra with covers of “Come Fly With Me” and “That’s Life.”

The South Carolina singer started to show off when he joined A Thousand Horses for a cover of the Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle” and joined Wariner on the Beatles’ “Get Back.” Rucker finished the night with his now-standard cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain,” a song written for a club just like the Wildhorse.

Eldredge and the guys in A Thousand Horses – both opening on Rucker’s Southern Style Tour – and McCreery woke up early Tuesday for their tee times, joining Vince Gill, Eric Paslay, JT Hodges, Jon Pardi, Joe Nichols, Cole Swindell, David Nail, Dustin Lynch, James Otto and Jana Kramer on the links.

“Darius and Friends” is sponsored by State Water Heaters, Intel, CDW, Two Bits and Humdingers.

For more information about Darius Rucker or to buy tickets for the Southern Style Tour, please visit www.DariusRucker.comand follow @dariusrucker at Twitter.

About State Water Heaters
For nearly 70 years, State Water Heaters has built dependable, long lasting water heaters for commercial and residential applications. State offers over 500 water heater products, and has consistently developed new technologies to ensure longer product life. Based in Ashland City, Tennessee, State has seven water heater manufacturing plants. Hundreds of distribution centers across the United States ensure efficient service to State’s national customer base of residential homeowners, wholesalers, contractors, and other members of the engineering community. All State products are backed by customer technical support and durable tank and parts warranty. For more information, please visit www.StateWaterHeaters.com.

About St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Since opening 50 years ago, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has changed the way the world treats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. No family ever pays St. Jude for the care their child receives and, for every child treated here, thousands more have been saved worldwide through St. Jude discoveries. The hospital has played a pivotal role in pushing U.S. pediatric cancer survival rates from 20 to 80 percent overall, and is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted to children. It is also a leader in the research and treatment of blood disorders and infectious diseases in children. St. Jude was founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas, who believed that no child should die in the dawn of life. Join that mission by visiting stjude.org or followingfacebook.com/stjude and twitter.com/stjude.

The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s exhibition Alan Jackson: 25 Years of Keepin’ It Country will end its run Sunday, June 21, 2015. Originally scheduled to end in March this year, the exhibit was held over by popular demand to give CMA Music Fest fans one last opportunity to see the exhibit before it closes.

An expertly curated deep-dive into Jackson’s career, the exhibition includes awards, instruments, costumes and personal mementos—many that fans will recognize from his concerts and music videos—as well as never-before-seen treasures from Jackson’s private man-cave.

Artifacts on display in the exhibition include:

• The guitar he played on the CMA Awards when he debuted “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning),” just two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks and the nation’s response that inspired the song.

• The front of an old, red Ford pickup truck that served as Jackson’s first Fan Fair booth, before his sister and brother-in-law had it made into a desk.
• Items from Jackson’s collection of “Mayberry” memorabilia—a jacket, jersey and autographed picture from Don Knotts—from Jackson’s television favorite, The Andy Griffith Show.
• Jackson’s first tricycle, childhood bike and scooter, evidence that his love of vehicles started early.
• Harley-Davidson motorcycle from the cover of the seminal album A Lot About Livin’ (And a Little ’bout Love).
• The water ski Jackson used, while wearing his trademark white cowboy hat, in the “Chattahoochee” music video.

Jackson will release Angels and Alcohol, his 15th studio album and first of all new music in three years, on Friday, July 17. The album comes 25 years after the debut of his landmark album Here in the Real World.

Throughout his 25-year career, Jackson has been steadfast in his love for traditional music while enjoying major chart success. Since signing his record deal in June 1989, he has sold nearly 60 million albums worldwide and ranks as one of the 10 best-selling male vocalists of all-time in all genres. He has released more than 60 singles—registering 50 Top Ten hits and 35 #1s (including 26 Billboard #1s). He has earned more than 150 music industry awards—including 18 Academy of Country Music Awards, 16 Country Music Association Awards, a pair of Grammys and ASCAP’s Founders and Golden Note Awards. Jackson received the first-ever ASCAP Heritage Award in 2014 having earned the title of most performed country music songwriter-artist of ASCAP’s first 100 years.  He is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry.

To learn more about the exhibition, visit countrymusichalloffame.org

Follow @countrymusichof on Twitter and join the conversation using #AlanJacksonExhibit.

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Suggested Tweet: #AlanJacksonExhibit ends June 21 @countrymusichof. Don’t miss 25 Years of Keepin’ It Country http://bit.ly/1FC2B7J