Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood and his wife Kelli are welcoming their first child – a boy – in September. Sweet Dave is definitely raising the bar for first-time fathers out there as he is planning on giving his wife her first Mother’s Day gift on Sunday.

“I’ve got a little something for my wife, actually, this year because she’s pregnant. So, this’ll be her first Mother’s Day,” says Dave. “I’ve got something lined up for her, ‘cause this’ll be a first, a special moment for us.”

This will be bandmate Hillary Scott’s actual first Mother’s Day this Sunday, as she gave birth to daughter Eisele in July.

Lady A (Dave-first mother’s day) OC: …moment for us. :14
“I’ve got a little something for my wife, actually, this year because she’s pregnant. So, this’ll be her first Mother’s Day…you can still count Mother’s Day when you’re pregnant, right?” HILLARY: “Yeah. Oh Lord yeah! You’re carrying the thing. [laughs]” DAVE: “Just making sure. So, anyways, I’ve got something lined up for her, ‘cause this’ll be a first, a special moment for us.”

Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban and Luke Bryan are among the artists performing during Good Morning America’s Summer Concert Series this year. Lady A is set to kick off the series May 23rd, while Keith will perform July 11th.  Luke will ‘Play It Again’ August 8th. Brad Paisley and Florida Georgia Line, Robin Thicke, Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez, Kings of Leon, Demi Lovato and 50 Cent are among the other acts playing the Summer Concert Series on ABC’s Good Morning America.

For more information, go to ABC News here.

(New York, NY May 7, 2014) – Shania Twain today announced a new role in her extraordinary career, as a big cat conservationist with the world’s leading cat conservation organization, Panthera. Twain, international superstar, and the world’s best-selling female country artist of all time is the Global Ambassador for Panthera’s newly launched leopard conservation initiative, Project Pardus.

The leopard has the widest range of all the big cats, as well as one of the most instantly recognizable and evocative appearances in the animal kingdom. It is the most global of the big cats, with a range from southern Africa to far eastern Russia. Not surprisingly, the magnificent fur of the leopard – “pardus” in Latin – is one of the most widely emulated images in the global fashion industry. Ironically, however, less widely known is the tragic fact that the leopard is now the world’s most persecuted big cat. Project Pardus is the first program to be established by any conservation organization to highlight the leopard’s perilous state and to stop the widespread killing of leopards by people across its range. Twain intends to use her global platform to make the connection between the cat’s renowned beauty and its plight in the wild.

“The image and spirit of the leopard is an inspiration to millions around the world, including myself,” said Shania. “That it is also the most oppressed of the big cats is almost unknown. If we’re to save this animal in the wild, we have to get ahead of the curve before it suffers the same fate as so many other species that we once felt to be secure in their numbers. I feel privileged to give back to a creature that depends for its future on what we do now to save it…and I urge the wider world to join Panthera and me in this mission.”

A long-time and passionate animal lover, Twain’s support comes at a critical time. Leopards are threatened by the relentless destruction of habitat, and are being killed in the thousands by livestock herders, unsustainable trophy-hunting and poaching for their skins and body parts. Panthera’s work already encompasses the African leopard as well as the endangered Persian or Caucasian leopard of Central Asia and the highly persecuted Indian leopard. With Project Pardus, the organization will launch new conservation initiatives that target other highly endangered sub-species including the Arabian leopard and the Sri Lankan leopard.

“The leopard is an amazingly versatile cat, able to live in habitats ranging from tropical rainforests to the Kalahari Desert,” said Dr. Luke Hunter, Panthera’s President and one of the world’s authorities on leopards. “However, that adaptability has meant the species has been largely ignored by conservationists. We are delighted and honored that Shania will help put the leopard onto the conservation radar. With her help, the leopard will receive the urgent attention it needs.”

Shania Twain is one of the most successful artists of all time. Her 1995 album The Woman in Mebrought her fame, and her 1997 album Come On Over became the best-selling album of all time by a female musician and the best-selling country album of all time. With more than 75 million albums sold worldwide, she is the top-selling female country artist of all time; has multi-platinum album sales in 32 countries; has the eighth-biggest selling album of all time in the U.S. and 18 top ten songs, eight of which reached #1. Her iconic leopard-print outfit and beautiful images of leopards appear in her current show Shania: Still the One at the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. She first learned of Panthera’s leopard program through a fortuitous meeting with Dr. Thomas Kaplan, Panthera’s Founder and Chairman, with whom he found an immediate connection in leopard conservation:

“Shania got the nature of the challenge, and embraced the mantle, immediately. She has now become a role model…yet again. Shania’s passion for nature is an integral part of who she is, and her empathy for wildlife is inspirational. What Shania has done to translate her charismatic identification with the leopard, and to join with Panthera to raise the red flags regarding the leopard’s future, is a huge breakthrough for our cause. Moreover, by “giving back” to an animal that has a “global brand but not a copyright”, she is leading the way in showing that all who benefit from and indeed enjoy the iconic image of the big cats should welcome the opportunity to save them.”
 
Dr. Kaplan continued, “Shania’s timing in giving her voice to the voiceless is pitch perfect. Because of their adaptability and intelligence, the future of the leopard is often taken for granted…but the complacency about the leopard must end now before it encounters the fate of its cousins. A century ago it was impossible to imagine that the tiger would face extinction in the wild and that sub-species like the Caspian, Bali and Javan tigers would blink out entirely. Just last month, Panthera revealed that the once flourishing lion population is nearly gone from West Africa. The last Asiatic cheetahs, also once a thriving population, now number in the dozens. Even with leopards today, the Amur leopard is nearly gone, the Arabian leopard resides in the smaller and smaller range, and the Persian leopard is measured in the hundreds. If we don’t raise the alarm now, our children will look back upon man’s treatment of these glorious creatures more in shock than in awe.”

Panthera’s work on leopards includes the highly innovative Furs for Life Leopard Project, which provides high quality faux leopard fur capes to members of the Shembe Baptist Church in southern Africa. The Shembe have worn real leopard fur as religious regalia since the early 1900s, but have enthusiastically adopted Panthera’s capes as a sustainable alternative. Project Pardus will also launch the first GPS radio-telemetry research on rainforest leopards in Gabon. The leopard is the top carnivore of the African rainforest, and the groundbreaking new work will use the leopard as a ‘landscape detective’, to reveal the movement corridors between important populations across northeast Gabon. The work comes at a time that large-scale industrial logging and mining in the region threatens to leave leopards and other large mammals including forest elephants stranded in isolated, protected parks.

Elsewhere in the leopard’s range, Project Pardus will focus on the heavy toll taken by people killing leopards as a perceived danger to life and livestock, as well as the pernicious trade in leopard furs and body parts. Despite the outlawing of trade in spotted cat fur decades ago, the species is still heavily trafficked especially in the Middle East and Asia, key geographies for the new initiative. In India – ground-zero for leopard-human conflict – Project Pardus is devising methods to foster co-existence of leopards with rural communities. Leopards have an astonishing ability to live close to villages, but fear and ignorance of the big cats frequently leads to pre-emptive killing. Pardus will train and equip local community members – Leopard Guardians – to monitor leopards and help their villages avoid conflict with leopards in the first place. Under Project Pardus, the methods pioneered by the Leopard Guardians will be transferred throughout the species’ range, wherever conflict and persecution is killing off the big cat.

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Click here for more information about Project Pardus.

Mother’s Day is an annual holiday celebrated on the second Sunday each May. Most, if not all, of your favorite country artists will be honoring their moms and/or wives, or rejoicing over the fact that they are mothers on Sunday (May 12th). Check out Mother’s Day memories and moments from our artists, including Darius Rucker, Eric Church, Keith Urban, Lady A, Lauren Alaina, Little Big Town and Shania Twain, among many others.

Darius Rucker (Mother’s Day) OC: …killed me. :17
“I think that’s the main reason I am how I am…an innate fear of disappointing my mom.  My mom’s not even alive, and I have a fear of her looking down from heaven and going, ‘Man I’m just disappointed in my son.’ She could have said anything in the world to me, but if she would have said, ‘Son, you just disappointed me,’ That would have killed me. It would have killed me.” 

Eric Church (apology to mom) OC: …I’m sorry. [laughs] :15
“Probably too much [laughs]. If I’ve gotten away with it this long I’m not about to…I’m not letting it out now I’ve made it. The guilt is even gone now, I’m good [laughs]. So probably, but I’m not going to admit any of it. I’ll say I’m sorry, just blanket I’m sorry [laughs].”

Eric Paslay (Mother’s Day) OC: …it’s good. :21
“I wanna thank my mom for giving me faith, laughter and pride in the family I came from. She’d be the fun Mom, just goofing off in the sprinklers outside or we’d go out and play in the rain and all that stuff growing up. She’s always good to be around; always happy, and it’s good.”

Keith Urban (Nicole is extraordinary mother) OC: …to see. :45
“She’s an extraordinary mum, she really, really is. Those girls are very, very lucky, and I feel very lucky that the children I should have in this world happen to be with Nic. I don’t know anything about raising kids and Nic does, and that comes in extremely, um, it’s really made for an experience I wouldn’t have had without that. Her patience, her recognizing them as people and not just little kids is really extraordinary. Her attention to honoring their feelings and listening to them right from day one – really being attentive to that is not how I was raised at all, so it’s really beautiful to see.”

Lauren Alaina (Mother’s Day) OC: …same for her. :19
“I honestly would not be able to do it without my mom. I get overwhelmed sometimes, and if she wasn’t there to comfort me or tell me, ‘Look just realize what you’ve got going for you,’ I’d be up the creek [without a paddle]. She’s got my back. My mom would walk through a fire pit for me, and I’d do the same for her.”

LBT (Mother’s Day) OC: …for my mother. :34
“Being a mother is a life-long dream for me. When I was a kid, that’s what I wanted to be is a mama. It took a long time. I wasn’t ever sure that I would be, but I am now, and it’s the greatest gift of my life. And as I’m a mother now, I see what my mother gave up and her sacrifices and her love and how she made us the most important thing in her life, and that’s what I strive to do for my little girl. It’s the most important job I have, and it’s the most responsibility that I have, and I try to live up to a great example that I had for my mother.”

LBT (Mother’s Day-Karen) OC: …every day. :23
“There isn’t anything that means more to me than sitting on the bench and eating a grilled cheese sandwich with this little guy who calls me Mama. There isn’t anything better than that. He’s just a little miracle. I went from dreaming about him to eating grilled cheese sandwiches and ketchup with him, and I could never have dreamed this up – how good it could be, and it just gets better every day.”

Shania Twain (joy to be a parent) OC: …means everything. :14
“It’s such a joy to be a parent. So, I relate to all the mums out there who are getting all their love and appreciation from their kids, and I hope, when you’re a kid, a child of somebody, show your mum you love her, because it means everything.”

In the latest episode of Keith Urban‘s Idle Chatter, Episode 4, he gets a little, perhaps unwanted, advice from Randy Jackson.

Scotty McCreery and some of his friends were victims of a home-invasion robbery late Sunday night/early Monday morning (May 5th) in Raleigh, North Carolina. Apparently, three men entered the apartment located near the North Carolina State college campus around 2am, according to ABC affiliate WTVD-TV. The robbers took cash, wallets and electronic items before fleeing the scene, however no one was hurt. One of Scotty’s friends were able to call 911 and told the operator, “They took everything we have. They were like, ‘Get down. Get on the floor and give us everything you got.’” The caller said the robbers told the group to count down from 100 before they were allowed to get up.

The “Feelin’ It” singer released a statement on his Facebook account:

“Yes, it was definitely a very scary night. Luckily, my friends and I are safe and the Raleigh PD is on the case. I will share more when the time is right, but as of now we do not want to do or say anything that could hinder the investigation. Thanks to everyone for the prayers and support. A huge thank you to the Raleigh PD for their quick response and hard work in solving this case.”

We’ll keep you updated on developments as they happen.

Keith Urban’s fifth annual All 4 The Hall show to benefit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville has quite the lineup and theme this year. With co-host Vince Gill, they’ll welcome performances from  Darius Rucker, David Nail, Kacey Musgraves, Kip Moore,  Brantley Gilbert, Brett Eldredge, Carrie Underwood, Deana Carter, Lee Ann Womack with Buddy Miller, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Reba McEntire and Ronnie Milsap. The theme of Tuesday night’s (May 6th) show, Songtellers (A LARGE Intimate Evening) will have each artist perform songs they’ve recorded and/or written, or a classic, and they’ll tell a story about the song – why they wrote it, why they recorded it and what it means to them.

“I chose to have song tellers, because some of the artists like Reba [McEntire], Ronnie [Milsap] aren’t traditionally known as songwriters, they’re more song interpreters,” says Keith. “I thought well, they’ve got their own stories to probably tell us about why they chose certain songs. I was curious to know – as some of the fans probably are – did they have to fight other artists to get that song, and that sort of stuff as well. So, I wanted to know a bit of a story about the song, not just the writing necessarily.”

Funds raised through the All 4 The All concerts have collectively raised more than $2 million in support of the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum’s preservation efforts, exhibitions and educational programs that teach audiences about the enduring beauty and cultural importance of country music. In addition, Urban has teamed up again with Rally.org to help fans raise funds for the Country Music Hall of Fame and to compete for prizes including VIP tickets. For more information go to all4thehall.keithurban.net.

Keith Urban (A4TH 2014) OC: …to hear some stories. :30
“I chose to have song tellers, because some of the artists like Reba [McEntire], Ronnie [Milsap] aren’t traditionally known as songwriters, they’re more song interpreters. I thought well, they’ve got their own stories to probably tell us about why they chose certain songs. I was curious to know – as some of the fans probably are – did they have to fight other artists to get that song, and that sort of stuff as well. So, I wanted to know a bit of a story about the song, not just the writing necessarily. So, I think it’s going to be an interesting evening to hear some stories.”

Keith Urban (A4TH-performer list) OC: …I wanted. :41
“It’s a labor of love in the best way. It really is. If I say there’s only one challenge to it is condensing the guest list. Right from the beginning it was like putting a wedding  guest list together and which family member, you have to either invite everybody or elope. But we’ve opnly got limited time, and it’s very, very hard to have certain people who are very good friends of mine say, ‘What the? What the? Waiting on the call and nothing.’ So, I thought how do I get around this problem, and thenthe idea of themes came up, so at least there was some type of criteria to be able to put a guest list together. Otherwise, this show would be days and days long if I invited everybody I wanted.”

Nashville, TN – May 2, 2014 – In preparation for the launch of his headlining 2014 RISER TOUR next week, Dierks Bentley is giving fans the opportunity to “Rise Up Line Up” for upcoming tour dates. The interactive program will roll out in each tour market over the coming weeks on www.dierks.com andwww.facebook.com/dierksbentley, giving ticket holders the opportunity earn points and move to the front of a virtual line to win upgraded tickets.

“When I was in my 20’s, I could only afford a lawn ticket to the big shows because I had to save my money for beer once I got in the gate,” laughed Bentley.  “This is a cool way to give the fans an opportunity to get up closer to the stage and maybe even get them involved in the show.  I just can’t wait to get out there and get it going!”

Bentley’s RISER TOUR kicks off in Charlotte, North Carolina Friday (May 9th) and Raleigh, North Carolina on Saturday (May 10th) with special guests Chris Young, Chase Rice and Jon Pardi.  For a full list of upcoming tour dates, visit www.dierks.com.

Dierks Bentley (Riser Tour rehearsals) OC: …everything at it. :52
“We’re over in this abandoned kind of steel mill that’s being used these days for tour rehearsals. It’s great, and it’s a little north of town, and we’ve got all the stuff up. I’ve had a talk with my business manager about our production, him just saying ‘I just want you to know what to expect at the end of the year, because you’re kinda overdoing it here.’ But I kinda told everyone that this is our first chance at headlining. After all those years of doing this, this is our first amphitheater headlining tour. I’ve spent years walking through amphitheaters and seeing everyone’s picture that’s headlined. Headlining amphitheater, catering usually, on the walls in the back, there’s usually a picture of the person that’s headlined. I’ve bene support. I’ve been co-headlines, and I’ve always, I’m like, ‘I just want the picture on the wall, you know?’ by the toilet. I don’t care. Over the toilet, in the toilet, maybe in the toilet. I want to be represented in that particular amphitheater. And I’ve said I just want to tour like this is the last tour we’re ever gonna do, so I’m gonna throw everything at it.”

Kip Moore co-wrote his current single, “Dirt Road,” with close friends and bandmates, Dan Couch and Westin Davis. We’ve provided a lyric video to the song below. Check it out!