Keith Urban is gearing up to kick off his Raise ‘Em Up Tour July 12^th at the Calgary Stampede, and debuting in the U.S. July 17^th in Atlantic City. He’ll once again play amphitheaters on the new tour (the first time during last year’s Light the Fuse Tour).

“There’s a big celebratory feeling that was a little more looser and a little more relaxed in that sort of outdoor setting, which is what a summer concert feeling is,” says Keith. “It’s a different thing to an arena. I mean, audiences know that because they go and they feel that too. It’s a little more liberated, looser, chill, and it feels kind of sexier in a way, actually.”

Keith will be taking along Jerrod Niemann and Brett Eldredge along for the ride.

In the meantime, you can catch Keith performing during Good Morning America’s Fun in the Sun 2014 Summer Concert Series on Friday (July 11th).

Keith is also nominated for Choice Male Country Artist at this year’s Teen Music Awards, taking place August 10th at 8pm ET on FOX.

Keith Urban (outdoor venues) OC: …describe it. :26
“There’s a big celebratory feeling that was a little more looser and a little more relaxed in that sort of outdoor setting, which is what a summer concert feeling is. It’s a different thing to an arena. I mean audiences know that because they go and they feel that too. It’s a little more liberated, looser, chill, and it feels kind of sexier in a way, actually. That’s how I would describe it.”

Little Big Town performed at the annual Fourth of July MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) concert at Fort Sill for more than 7,000 fans on Saturday night.

David Nail will play in the Taco Bell Celebrity Softball game during the MLB All-Star Weekend in Minneapolis. The game takes place July 13th, and will also feature rapper Nelly, TV personality Andy Cohen; comedian Chris Distefano, actors Charlie McDermott (The Middle), James Denton (Desperate Housewives), Olympic Softball gold medalist Jennie Finch, Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals and Adrian Peterson of the Vikings. The game will air on ESPN July 14th at 10:30pm ET.

Eric Church and Luke Bryan are among the artists topping the 2014 mid-year album and single sales figures, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Eric‘s The Outsiders is country’s highest-selling album so far this year with 642,000 copies sold this year, while Luke’s Crash My Party is second, with 455,000 copies. Luke’s “Play It Again” is at No. 2 on the list with just under 1.3 million downloads, while Luke and Florida Georgia Line’s duet “This Is How We Roll” tops the list with more than 1.5 million copies sold.

Lady Antebellum are featured in a new ad campaign “Put Your Spin on It” for Samsung’s Milk Music streaming service. It launched over the holiday weekend, and it features Lady A, along with John Legend, Iggy Azalea, Chromea, Cold War Kids and more, taking over a life-sized dial of different musical genres. As the dial lands on each genre, a section lights up and the featured artist is shown performing one of their songs.

Scotty McCreery is certainly “Feeling It”…the cold ice water, that is. He was called out to participate in the #Chillin4Charity for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Each person who called him out will donate $50 tot he charity. So, he called out four others, including Brad Paisley and Kellie Pickler to do the challenge. If they choose to accept it, Scotty will pay $50 per person. If they don’t, they’ll owe the fund $250. Check it out below!

Luke Bryan takes on the biggest show of his career at Heinz field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on his That’s My Kind of Night Tour.

Luke is getting ready to hit the airwaves with his latest single, “Roller Coaster.”

Joey Hyde‘s debut single, “Get It On,” is being added today (June 30th), and in the latest video installment, the singer reveals the band rules on tour.

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain. The holiday is commonly associated with fireworks displays, parades, barbecues and concerts. Some of your favorite country stars take time to remember their Fourth of July traditions, memories and what the holiday really means to them.

David Nail (singing God Bless America at World Series) OC: …a drink. :55
“It was as nervous as I’ve ever been in my entire life. The lady, we were actually sitting in the stands, and the lady said, ‘Well, we’ll come and get you in the sixth inning.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, like you need to come get me in the fourth inning. I’ve got to get prepared. I’ve got to warm up.’ She was like, ‘Well, we can’t have you underneath the stadium for that long.’ So, I’m just sitting there. Normally, when you’re, especially for a Cardinals fan, you’re watching the World Series and the game just flies by because you’re so into the game. It just seemed like every inning was an hour, and you just had more and more time to think about how many people are getting ready to hear you sing. I just went out there and prayed I remembered the words and prayed that I wasn’t trying to do anything special or anything fancy. I was just trying to get through it. I remember the weight that was lifted off of my shoulders. I cared who won the game, but there was part of me who didn’t care who won the game, I was ready to go have a drink.”

Kip Moore (Fourth of July-soldiers) OC: …every day. :32
“I’m a very, very patriotic person, proud of the country that I live in, and I’m very proud of what those guys do for us each and every day, and I don’t take it for granted one bit. My grandparents were in the military, fought wars, and I’ve seen the battle that they go through, just the horror of remember things. When I start to think that I’m half-way tough, I realize how I’m not one bit when I talk to soldiers when I’m out and realize the things that they go through. I can’t imagine facing what those guys face every day.” 

[[4]]AUDIO: Sam Hunt talks about what he and his family did over the Fourth of July holiday when he was growing up in Georgia.

Sam Hunt (Fourth of July) OC: …good time. :39
“My granddad on the other side of my family, he would always take a lot of pride…fireworks were actually, I’m from Georgia, and most of them were illegal, I’m pretty sure, growing up. But over in Alabama, that’s where all the firework stands were, and we only had to drive 10, 15 minutes to get to the Alabama line, so we could go get a bundle of fireworks pretty easy. But he would always take a lot of pride in going and finding all the good stuff, and coming back with a  big pile. He’d have his torch out there at the end of the driveway and we’d all eat homemade ice cream and put down towels on the driveway and he’d shoot off fireworks for 30-45 minutes. Such a good time.”

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain. The holiday is commonly associated with fireworks displays, parades, barbecues and concerts. Some of your favorite country stars take time to remember their Fourth of July traditions, memories and what the holiday really means to them.

Billy Currington (4^th of July) OC: …of my life. :16
“My best memories would be hanging out with my mom, brother and sister on the beach on Tybee Island right off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. We’d go there every year, and we’d light our own fireworks and watch the ones that they had for us. They were the best times, some of the best times of my life.”

Darius Rucker (fireworks) OC: …off once. :15
“Oh, I love fireworks. We had the bottle rocket fights and all that good stuff. I was the typical little crazy kid, you know. In South Carolina, it was always legal, so we shot fireworks when it was legal. We did all that sort of stuff. I almost blew my hand off once.”

Dierks (people are America) OC: …all about. :17
“The definition of America to me, you know, getting a chance to travel across the country on a tour bus, stepping upon stages whether it be county fairs, state fairs, arenas, rock bars, the Opry stage, anywhere across the country and looking out at that crowd and seeing people. The people, to me, are what America’s all about.”

Dierks Bentley (4^th of July-patriotic) OC: …all the time. :17
“I’m extremely patriotic. I love this country, and I love the history of this country. I read books on this country. I spend my time on the road traveling physically throughout the country. The soldiers and their families are constantly on my mind. We work closely with the Wounded Warriors Project. We think about this stuff all the time.”

Eric Church (4th of July) OC: …freedoms. 1:17
“The Fourth of July for me, growing up we would always go to the lake, we didn’t live on the lake but we would all go to the lake. Had a buddy who had a pontoon and we would always get on the pontoon and you go out and you’d tie all the pontoons together and just have a big time. This was before, I was younger then, the adults were having more fun than we were, you know it was just to go swim in the water and shoot off fireworks. Basically, water tailgating is what it was. And then as we got older, same thing…we would just, us younger kids had our own boat and we had as much fun as the adults.”

Josh Turner (fireworks) OC: …of money. [laughs] :20
“Yeah, we had fireworks around, especially my Daddy’s family. All the individual families had a lot of competition with each other and tried to outdo each other to try to see who had the biggest and baddest fireworks and all that. [laughs] My daddy, I think, was the smartest one. He just went out and bought maybe $25 worth of fireworks and let everybody else put on the big show, so he saved a lot of money.” [laughs]

Keith Urban (patriotism) OC: …the unity. :24
“It’s common, shared beliefs and identity. And I think at its core, it’s an incredibly strengthening, vital thing for our people to have, and it’s particularly gratifying in the midst of so much separating of ideas that it can get fractious. And it’s kind of nice that a sense of patriotism can remind everybody of the unity.”

Lady A (4th of July-Hillary) OC: …on my hand. :29
“For many, many years in a row, we would be up at the lake for Fourth of July, and having those memories of being on the boat and going tubing and skiing and enjoying being out in the summertime, great weather on the water. But, then for me, Fourth of July was when [husband] Chris [Tyrell] proposed. So, I got proposed to on July 2nd up at the lake, the same lake I grew up going to, and so that’s probably the biggest highlight of Fourth of July to me – getting a rock on my hand.”

LBT (military) OC: (Karen) …whenever we can. (Kimberly: “Yeah.”) :
“It’s such a huge sacrifice what these men and women do for us, and not only the ones that are serving, but the families that are left here at home. Kimberly and I met a young girl that, she’s 21 years old and she has a third baby and her husband has served multiple times overseas. She’s raising these children at home, and doing a great job and the best she can, and he’s serving his country. And he’s making a monstrous sacrifice, but so is she and so are those children, and we just can’t take it for granted. I mean, it’s just a huge commitment that they make, and what an honor. We love to be able to sing for them and entertain them and to say thank you whenever we can.” (Kimberly: “Yeah.”)

Luke Bryan (4th of July memories) OC: …we used to. :21
“Some of my favorite Fourth of July memories were spent on Lake Blackshear down in Georgia with my family. I was always kind of in charge of driving home from Tennessee and picking up all the fireworks and my nieces and nephews always got excited when I rolled in because they knew I had all the fireworks. But, it was always a great memory, and I miss not getting to do that as much as we used to.”

Luke Bryan (American) OC: …we want. :17
“I think the definition of an American is somebody who stands up during the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ and stands up when ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is being sung and just appreciates what all the fallen heroes and soldiers have done to keep us living in a country that’s free where we have the right to do anything we want.”

Jennifer Nettles will headline this year’s Southwest Freedom Over Texas concert and celebration.

[[20]]LINER Willie Robertson (4^th of July)
“Hey! It’s Willie Robertson from Duck Dynasty. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July.”

Little Big Town premiered the video for their latest hit, “Day Drinking,” this week, and it looks like they had a blast. They filmed the clip in Miami with director DeClan Whitebloom (Taylor Swift, Sugarland, One Direction, The Band Perry), and at first the forecast was predicting less than sunny weather.

“We thought it was gonna rain. Like, all week it had said 60 percent chance of rain, 75 percent chance of rain,” says LBT’s Jimi Westbrook. “And even that morning when we got up, it was supposed to be, but it turned out perfect and beautiful.”

“The night before when we had supper with DeClan Whitebloom, the director, somebody said, ‘OK, what are we gonna do if it rains tomorrow? He wouldn’t even entertain the thought,” recalls Kimberly Schlapman. “He was like, ‘I can’t think about that. That’s not gonna happen. That’s not gonna happen.’ And it didn’t.”

Catch Little Big Town performing “Day Drinking” on NBC’s Today Show on Tuesday (July 1st).

AUDIO: The members of Little Big Town talk about shooting their new video for “Day Drinking.”

LBT (Day Drinking video) OC: …El Dorado. :47
JIMI: “We went down to Miami [Florida], and it was a perfect, beautiful day. We thought it was gonna rain. There was, like, all week it had said 60 percent chance of rain, 75 percent chance of rain. And even that morning when we got up, it was supposed to be, but it turned out perfect and beautiful.” PHILLIP: “Spending a day on the beach is not a bad way to shoot a video.” JIMI: “Not a bad day’s work.” KIMBERLY: “The night before when we had supper with DeClan Whitebloom, the director, somebody said, ‘OK, what are we gonna do if it rains tomorrow? He wouldn’t even entertain the thought. Did you notice? He was like, ‘I can’t think about that. That’s not gonna happen. That’s not gonna happen.’ And it didn’t.” [laughter] PHILLIP: “It was fun…the traffic part of it, it was interesting. That was the hardest we worked all day.” KIMBERLY: “In that car, in that beautiful old…(EVERYONE) El Dorado.”