Universal Universal Music Group Nashville Pressroom

Chris Stapleton’s Traveller continues to dominate on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. His CMA Album of the Year sold 97,000 copies in pure album sales, but pushed 124,000 equivalent album units, which includes traditional album sales, digital tracks and streaming, to land at No. 1 on both the overall and country charts.

Last week, the collection made history as the first album to reenter the chart at No. 1, after Traveller popped back after the Kentucky native’s three CMA Award wins earlier this month.

Eric Church’s Mr. Misunderstood climbed a spot to No. 2 in its second week of release with 58,000 in pure album sales/65,000 units overall.

Chris’ new single, “Nobody to Blame,” has vaulted into the Top 40 this week.

Eric Church and Chris Stapleton are among the artists paying tribute to the late John Lennon in a new AMC all-star special, Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert, December 19th. The special, being recorded December 5th in New York City, will also include performances by Kris Kristofferson, Peter Frampton, Steven Tyler, Sheryl Crow, Train’s Pat Monahan and Aloe Blacc.

Tim McGraw performed the song “Here Tonight” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon this week. TJ and John of Brothers Osborne wrote the song.

Sam Hunt has been chosen as a curator for the fourth annual Grammy Amplifier program – an online music initiative that gives a platform to aspiring artists. Big Sean and Lzzy Hale have also been named curators for the program, which invites hopeful singers to upload their songs for consideration at www.grammyamplifier.com. Hunt, Big Sean and Hale will select three winners from the top 25 most popular submissions to win one-of-a-kind experiences that include an in-studio recording session with a Grammy Award-winning producer, an opening spot for a popular artist and/or a series of festival shows, and a music video with a notable director. “I’m honored to be part of a program where I can help elevate new and emerging talent,” Sam said in a prepared statement. “It wasn’t long ago I was an unknown artist, and I couldn’t be more grateful to the people who helped me with the tools I needed to start my career. I look forward to shining a light on these aspiring musicians.” The Grammy Amplifier program is open to submissions through December.

Little Big Town will honor rock icon Gregg Allman during the second season premiere of Nashville-based performance webcast series Skyville Live on December 11th at 8pm ET.

On Monday (November 16th), Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott will host Leadership Music’s Dale Franklin Awards honoring three music industry leaders in Nashville, including Reba.

Darius Rucker recently presented a $1 million grant from the CMA Foundation to Metro Nashville Public Schools to provide instruments and music education for more than 85,000 local students. “A defining moment in my life was when my mother gave me my first guitar – I can honestly say it completely changed my life,” says Darius. “So to know that we, as artists with CMA, are helping kids get the option for that kind of discovery is really incredible.”

Charles Kelley has hit the airwaves with his solo single, “The Driver,” which also features Eric Paslay and Dierks Bentley. The song, which was written by Charles, Eric and Abe Stoklasa, is an idea Charles had for over a year.

“It’s kind of about the touring experience, and it’s about the driver, the actual bus driver and these truck drivers, but they also represent the crew and everything else that it takes to put on the show,” says Charles. “Then the second verse, Eric Paslay sings and it’s about the audience, you know, the dreamers, the believers. And then the third verse is Dierks’ verse, and it’s about the singer.”

As soon as he got Dierks to sing on it, he felt the power of the song. “I played it for Dierks, and I said, ‘Man, I’d just always had you in mind with this thing.’ The way his voice sounds, it sounds like a grizzled singer, you know? He heard it and fell in love with it and put his vocal on it, and it was just like, there was the magic right there.”

The Driver Tour is set to begin at November 28th in Cleveland, Ohio, and is set to wrap up in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 28th.

In the latest episode of LBTV, Luke Bryan takes fans behind-the-scenes of this year’s CMA Awards, where he picked up his second consecutive Entertainer of the Year Award. He also performed his recent chart-topping single, “Strip It Down.”

Sam Hunt is up for three American Music Awards later this month including Favorite Country Male Artist, Favorite Country Album for Montevallo and overall New Artist of the Year. Sam is honored to be nominated and honored and humbled to represent Nashville and the Country Music format at the show.

“When you put it in the big picture like that, I sort feel like in some of those categories, I’m not just representing myself as an artist, but I’m representing country music in Nashville and the genre and all these other people who I feel like would be much worthier than me to represent the genre,” says the Georgia native. “It’s an honor…I was flattered to be recognized not just myself as an artist, but as someone who’s a part of this awards show as a representative of country music. So, that’s bigger than me and it’s something that I feel and appreciate.”

The 2015 American Music Awards will broadcast live on Sunday, November 22 at 8:00pm ET on ABC.

Sam is currently making his way up the country charts with his latest single, “Break Up in a Small Town.”

Get to know McKinley James, the face of Eric Church‘s new album, Mr. Misunderstood. Check out the video below.

Luke Bryan, the CMA Entertainer of the Year, has been selected as one of the five finalists for Artist of the Year at this year’s American Music Awards. He’ll be vying for the fan-voted award against Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, One Direction and Taylor Swift. Luke is also nominated for Favorite Country Male Artist.

Luke, alongside Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild, is slated to perform at the show, in addition to host and performer Jennifer Lopez, One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer, Coldplay, Selena Gomez, Nick Jonas, Demi Lovato, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Gwen Stefani, Carrie Underwood, WALK THE MOON, a duet from Meghan Trainor and Charlie Puth and the legendary Star Wars score to be performed by pop super group Pentatonix and a full symphony orchestra.

The 2015 American Music Awards will broadcast live on Sunday, November 22nd at 8pm ET on ABC.

The American Music Awards winners are voted entirely by fans. Voting for all categories except New Artist of the Year Presented by Kohl’s, Artist of the Year and Collaboration of the Year Unleashed by T-Mobile is now closed.

Chris Stapleton has been receiving a lot of recognition ever since last week’s CMA Awards, where he picked up trophies for Male Vocalist, Album and New Artist of the Year. It sounds like he was born to be a vehicle for music, a conveyor of song…a singer…and that’s exactly what he’s always been, even as a small boy growing up in Kentucky.

“I don’t remember ever not singing. I always sang. I sang with my brother. We would sing at home and sing at church and different things. I don’t ever remember not singing. I don’t have any memory of where I didn’t sing,” says Chris. “I found it out because I didn’t like anything else, and I found out a bunch of things that I was not.”

He drove an ice truck, sold cars, went to college and had a handful of other jobs, but he always turned to music. “The thought of doing anything else just made me so miserable, I think that really [laughs] steered my path and for better or worse.”

Chris is currently on the West Coast with sold-out shows, including Thursday night in Portland, Oregon, Friday in Chico, California, Sunday in San Francisco and Monday in Los Angeles. He’s also set to perform during Music City’s New Year’s Bash on Broadway, along with Kings of Leon, The Whigs and Kelsea Ballerini, among others.

As part of ESPN’s season-long relationship with Interscope/Universal Music Group Nashville’s artists, this weekend’s ABC Saturday Night Football featuring No. 12 Oklahoma at No. 6 Baylor (8 p.m. ET) will air the exclusive broadcast debut of the live video for GRAMMY®-nominated David Nail‘s current single “Night’s on Fire.” The song, written by Jonathan Singleton and Deric Ruttan, is from the platinum-selling artist’s  forthcoming new album Fighter. Already, Nail’s “Good at Tonight” has been used in ESPN’s college football coverage throughout the 2015 season.

Clips from the video will accompany bumps at the end of the game’s first and third quarters with an extended clip played during halftime. The song will also be featured during Sunday’s “Plays of the Week” segment on SportsCenter and be used the rest of the college football season on ABC/ESPN games.

About David Nail:
GRAMMY®-nominated MCA Nashville recording artist David Nail, considered to have one of the most distinct and powerful voices in country music today, released his third album, I’m A Fire, to massive acclaim. I’m A Fire landed on many 2014 BEST OF lists including Rolling Stone Country, NPR, iTunesand Billboard. And the album’s first single, “Whatever She’s Got,” was a No. 1 certified PLATINUM hit and was named one of the Top 3 country songs of 2014 by Billboard. Nail is currently on the road with Darius Rucker’s Southern Style Tour.

Originally slated as a ten-week run with My Country Nation, Lauren Alaina’s “SWAK” weekly web series took off with fans, accumulating over 1.6 million views. Lauren and My Country Nation have extended the lighthearted series another ten installments. The latest webisode, “21 Things You Don’t Know About Me,” in honor of Lauren turning 21 this month, posted yesterday HERE.

Lauren is currently touring in support of her new single, “Next Boyfriend,” off her self-titled EP, recently released on Mercury Nashville / 19 / Interscope Records. Also featured on the five-song EP is “History,” a song Lauren wrote and recorded at ESPN’s request for an exclusive promo track to run throughout the network’s extensive football coverage this season. To preview and purchase the Lauren Alaina EP, click HERE.

For more information, images, tour dates and more, please visit www.LaurenAlainaOfficial.com.