Nashville, TN – Mercury Records singer/songwriter Canaan Smith is pleased to announce his recent engagement with his girlfriend, Christy. Canaan proposed over the weekend in Florida.

“Of all the blessings in my life, she’s the greatest,” Canaan exclaims. “We’re so excited for everything to come.”

Canaan is currently working on new music for his debut album. Catch him out on the road with the AT&T Country Deep Tour. For a full list of Canaan tour dates, click here. 

NASHVILLE – CMA is proud to announce the performers for the sold out Nightly Concerts at LP Field for the 2014 CMA Music Festival. Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Florida Georgia Line, Brantley Gilbert, Hunter Hayes, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, Thomas Rhett, Darius Rucker, Blake Shelton, The Band Perry, Keith Urban, Chris Young, and Zac Brown Band will all take the stage at this year’s Festival, which will be held Thursday through Sunday, June 5-8, in downtown Nashville.

The artists announced for the Nightly Concerts at LP Field are no strangers to CMA Music Festival, all but one having performed on the LP Field stage in past years. Collectively they have won 80 CMA Awards and have earned an astounding 289 nominations.

The highly anticipated lineup announcement comes at the end of #CMAFestGuess, the multi-week social media campaign that clued fans in to who would be performing on the big stage each night. A special #CMAFestGuess video announcement revealing the performing artists was released Wednesday morning and can be viewed here.

“Since LP Field was already sold out before we announced a single artist, we had an opportunity to create a fun and engaging way to get our social media audience buzzing about the lineup,” said CMA Senior Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships Damon Whiteside. “The #CMAFestGuess clues drummed up excitement about the Festival, and our artist community really supported the effort, sharing and retweeting the clues to their followers to keep the conversation going.”

While tickets to the Nightly Concerts at LP Field are sold out, there are numerous other entertainment and music stages, special events, and activities throughout downtown Nashville to enjoy during CMA Music Festival.

CMA Music Festival’s newest attraction, AT&T U-verse Fan Fair X at the Music City Center, features artist performances, celebrity Q&A sessions, and more. Fans can play paparazzi and snap photos of the stars, shop the Fan Fair X Marketplace, and more. Fan Fair X tickets are $10 a day or $25 for four days. Children eight and under are admitted free. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster at Ticketmaster.com or the CMA Music Festival Box Office by calling 1-800-CMA-FEST (262-3378) (price includes handling fees). Visit CMAfest.com for details.

The Ultimate Country Music Fan Experience began in 1972 as Fan Fair®, bringing 5,000 fans to Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium. More than 40 years later, the now legendary festival has become the city’s signature music event. In 2013, CMA Music Festival attracted more than 80,000 daily visitors from every state and two dozen foreign countries.

For all the latest info on CMA Music Festival visit CMAfest.com. To stay connected with CMA visit Facebook.com/CMA, Twitter.com/CountryMusic, and Instagram.com/CMA or text FESTIVAL to 66937.

CMA Music Festival will once again be filmed for a national television special to air on the ABC Television Network. This is the 11^th consecutive year that the event has been filmed for a network television special, a feat no other music festival has achieved. “CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock” will be executive-produced by Robert Deaton

ENCINO, CA (March 19, 2014) – The Academy of Country Music announced today that chart-topping country music star and ACM Award nominee Darius Rucker will return to host the ACM Lifting Lives® Celebrity Golf Classic at TPC Las Vegas for the third consecutive year on Saturday, April 5, 2014. The ACM Lifting Lives Celebrity Golf Classic—the eighth held since 2004—brings together country music artists Frankie Ballard, Charles Kelley, Scotty McCreery, Jake Owen, and Cole Swindell as well as other members of the music community in a star-studded scramble tournament to raise funds and awareness for ACM Lifting Lives’ Diane Holcomb Emergency Relief Fund.

This fund enables ACM Lifting Lives to respond quickly to unforeseen, immediate financial needs of music related organizations and individuals. Funds are disbursed at the discretion of a committee made up of ACM Lifting Lives Board Members. The ACM Lifting Lives’ Diane Holcomb Emergency Relief Fund resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. The fund was established to honor Diane Holcomb’s memory by her only daughter, Gayle Holcomb, who served four years as Chairman of the Board of the Academy of Country Music. ACM Lifting Lives has helped 45 people and given over $230,000 through this fund since its inception in 2007.

The ACM Lifting Lives Celebrity Golf Classic, 2nd Annual ACM Party for a Cause® Festival, and more will all be taking place in conjunction with “The Week Vegas Goes Country®,” leading up to the 49^th ANNUAL ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS­, a star-studded event produced for television by dick clark productions, that will be broadcast LIVE from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 8:00 PM live ET/delayed PT on the CBS Television Network. 

About ACM Lifting Lives
ACM Lifting Lives® is the philanthropic arm of the Academy of Country Music dedicated to improving lives through the power of music.  Through partnerships with artists and strong ties in the music industry, ACM Lifting Lives develops and funds music-related therapy and education programs, and serves members of the community who face unexpected hardships through its Diane Holcomb Emergency Relief Fund. Through generous donations and the support of artists and fans, ACM Lifting Lives is able to fund everything from disaster relief and helping communities in need, to music education in schools and music camps for those with disabilities, to supporting programs that use music therapy as a means to help our veterans and wounded warriors, while providing grants to help them ease back into life. For more information, please visit www.ACMLiftingLives.org. 

Darius Rucker (Golf) OC: …I love that. :09
“First of all, I love being outside, and I get outside so little, really, if you look at the whole thing. I mean, I just love the ‘it’s me against the course.’ I love that.”

Eric Paslay performs his recent No. 1 hit, “Friday Night,” on The Queen Latifah Show on Thursday (March 20th).

Darius Rucker will host his fifth annual Darius and Friends benefit concert June 2nd at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville. Proceeds benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He’ll also host his annual Darius and Friends Celebrity Golf Tournament June 3rd. Got to Dariusrucker.com for more information.

David Nail will perform during the ACM Week Kick-Off Party April 3rd at The LINQ in Las Vegas. He’ll be joined by Hunter Hayes, Cole Swindell and Sasha McVeigh.

David Nail and Eric Paslay are on the bill for the inaugural Buckle Up Music Festival taking place July 18th – 21st in Cincinnati, Ohio. They’ll be joined by The Band Perry, Eli Young Band, Thompson Square and Alabama.

A little tidbit: Oscar-winning hairstylist, Adruitha Lee (Dallas Buyers Club), got her start in Nashville working on music videos for country artists, including Gary Allan.

Kip Moore is giving one lucky sorority or fraternity house a $4000 shopping spree to Best Buy and the chance to meet him in the #MooreForYourHouse sweepstakes. Now through April 6th, you can vote for your sorority or fraternity house at MooreForYourHouse.com. 

ACM Awards show co-host and reigning Entertainer of the Year Luke Bryan is celebrating the No. 1 debut of his digital EP, Spring Break 6… Like We Ain’t Ever, on Billboard’s Country Albums chart with 74,296 copies sold. In addition to topping the Country Albums chart, Bryan landed at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart with the sixth installment of his Spring Break series. Combined Luke’s six Spring Break releases have sold over 825,000 copies and last year’s Spring Break…Here To Party was the first and only retail release of the Spring Break releases. Spring Break 6… Like We Ain’t Ever contains six original songs, all co-written by Luke. 

Last week, Luke performed two spring break concerts in Panama City at Spinnaker Beach Club to a crowd of over 230,000 fans. The Ellen DeGeneres Show correspondent Jeannie joined Luke in Panama City and the show aired an interview piece and performance of “She Get Me High” which can be viewed here.  The video for “She Get Me High” will premiere on CMT’s Hot 20 on March 22. 

Luke’s current single “Play It Again” from his Platinum selling Crash My Party album was just released to country radio. 

Crash My Party sold one million copies in just six weeks and was the best-selling country album in 2013.  The album contains three No. 1 hits thus far including “That’s My Kind of Night,” “Crash My Party” and “Drink A Beer.”

Luke is currently headlining his “My Kind Of Night Tour” and will be co-hosting the ACM Awards on Sunday, April 6 at 8pm ET on CBS.

Luke Bryan (sky’s the limit on Spring Break) OC: …Spring Break. :13
“The sky’s the limit, I mean, I can kind of say what I want to on Spring Break, and nobody’s gonna hold it against me. You know what I mean. It’s not gonna come back and haunt me if I kinda do a crazy song for Spring Break.”

Nashville, TN – March 19, 2014 – Coming on the heels of the international release of RISER, award-winning singer/songwriter Dierks Bentley crossed the pond for the  Country to Country Festival that hit Dublin and London. The Daily Mirror noted, “Dierks was a revelation. We are now fans,” while the BBC reported “he blew the roof off.”
 
“Dierks’ show was full of energy,” said Iain Snodgrass, VP of International Marketing at Universal Music Group International. “He connected with people of all ages and even pulled out an exclusive performance of Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You were Here’ that segued into Avicii’s ‘Hey Brother.’ He received the strongest crowd reaction of the night and we all think he needs to come back soon!”
 
To watch a video of Bentley covering Avicii’s “Hey Brother” from this weekend, click here:  http://youtu.be/JDhySx0qkJE

On Friday (3/21), fans can catch Bentley take the stage for CMT Crossroads: OneRepublic and Dierks Bentley at 9:00P CT. From the Crossroads stage, Bentley will prepare for the launch of his headlining 2014 RISER TOUR kicking off May 9th in Charlotte, NC. For a full list of upcoming tour dates and appearances, visit www.dierks.com. 

Kacey Musgraves and Kip Moore join Lady Antebellum on the song, “Landslide,” during a recent stop on the trio’s Take Me Downtown Tour. Check it out in the latest installment of Webisode Wednesday below.

Capitol Nashville recording artist Jon Pardi is celebrating his first RIAA Gold-certified single “Up All Night.”  Written by Pardi, Bart Butler and Brett Beavers, “Up All Night” was also the up-and-coming star’s first Top 10 single and the launch pad for his debut album, Write You A Song.  The New York Times calls the album “redolent of the buttoned-up power-country of a couple decades ago, from Garth Brooks to Mark Chesnutt, and also the swinging attitude of Dwight Yoakam, who updated the Bakersfield sound.” NPR compliments Jon’s knack for “straddling two markets — what the large mainstream country demo wants, which is pop-country-rock as party anthems, and the smaller segment of the market that prizes its own concept of authenticity: the lineage that carries back to George Jones and Merle Haggard even unto Hank Williams.” 

“I still can’t believe we’ve surpassed 500,000!” an enthusiastic Pardi exclaims.  “I just want to say ‘thank you’ to country radio for taking a chance on this song.”

Pardi just wrapped up a tour with Thomas Rhett and played Luke Bryan’s Spring Break event in Panama City Beach, Fla. He will join Dierks Bentley on the RISER Tour this summer, as well as headline several of his own dates. 

Pardi’s new single “What I Can’t Put Down” impacts country radio today.

For more information, visit www.JonPardi.com.  Fans can also connect with Pardi via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

Jon Pardi (Up All Night) OC: …favorites too. :19
“You know, it’s a hard-workin’, getting off work, hanging out with your chick, staying up all night, having a couple of beers [song], right? It’s awesome. It’s been on the radio all year. We started with that drum loop, and we just got a feel-good kind of melody, and beat and groove, and I kind of threw out ‘Up All Night,’ and really, I’m very pleased with ‘Up All Night,’ man. It’s a fun song, and it’s always been one of my favorites too.” 

When Scotty McCreery looked over treatments for the video for his Top 10 single, “See You Tonight,” he wanted to go with something that would follow the lyrics of the song, but would also be a bit more powerful. The finished product tugs gently at your heartstrings.

“The theme behind the song ‘See You Tonight,’ is a guy that really has to go see his girl tonight. When you’re thinking about that, you obviously think about a guy who hops in his car and going to see his girl and just can’t wait to her,” says Scotty. “But if you really think about it, the ultimate can’t wait to see your girl is somebody that’s just coming back from duty, somebody in the military, that hasn’t seen his wife or her husband in so long. So, when you think about that, it really makes the song a lot more powerful to me when you see that in the video form.”

“See You Tonight” is the title track from Scotty’s latest album, which was released last fall.

Scotty McCreery (SYT video) OC: …take life. :30
“This one came out really cool. You know, the theme behind the song ‘See You Tonight,’ is a guy that really has to go see his girl tonight. When you’re thinking about that, you obviously think about a guy who hops in his car and going to see his girl and just can’t wait to her. But if you really think about it, the ultimate can’t wait to see your girl is somebody that’s just coming back from duty, somebody in the military, that hasn’t seen his wife or her husband in so long. So, when you think about that, it really makes the song a lot more powerful to me when you see that in the video form. So, it was really cool to kind of see it take life.”

Dierks Bentley recently taped a new installment of CMT Crossroads One Republic where they shared vocals on each other’s songs. Dierks is a longtime fan of the band, and in fact, still considers their recent album one of his all-time favorites.

“People who know me know I’m a huge One Republic fan. I think their records are really great,” says Dierks. “I think Ryan’s a great writer, Ryan Tedder, and that Native album was like the album of 2013 for me. I mean it’s still in heavy rotation on my phone.”

The two acts met for the first time when they went in to rehearse for the show. They performed One Republic’s “Counting Stars” and “Good Life,” as well as Dierks’ current hit “I Hold On,” and his bluegrass offering “Up on the Ridge.”

The pairing happened in nearly record time. “It was just so weird for my manager to call me and say, ‘Do you want to do Crossroads with One Republic?’ I was like, ‘Yeah! Are you serious?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, but we have to do it quick because they’re going to Europe, so we’ve got about, we have to do it in about six days.’ And I was like, ‘Okay. [I’ve got to] start woodshedding.’”

CMT Crossroads featuring Dierks and One Republic will air on Friday (March 21st) at 10pm ET on CMT.

Dierks Bentley (CMT Crossroads) OC: …start woodshedding.” :54
“I love the CMT Crossroads concept. I think it’s amazing and there’s been amazing Crossroads, and I’ve always wanted to be a part of it, and John Hamlin and the CMT folks have always been pulling for me to do it, and asking me and throwing different artists at me and bands. There were a few that were really close, but ever felt like the right one, and I really wanted to hold out for just the right band. And then I just kind of forgot about pursuing it, you know? A couple of years go by and just hadn’t thought about doing it in a while, and in the meantime, I’m a huge, people who know me know I’m a huge One Republic fan. I think their records are really great. I think Ryan’s a great writer, Ryan Tedder, and that Native album was like the album of 2013 for me. I mean it’s still in heavy rotation on my phone. It was just so weird for my manager to call me and say, ‘Do you want to do Crossroads with One Republic?’ I was like, ‘Yeah! Are you serious?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, but we have to do it quick because they’re going to Europe, so we’ve got about, we have to do it in about six days.’ And I was like, ‘Okay. [I’ve got to] start woodshedding.’”