Universal Universal Music Group Nashville Pressroom

Even though Alan Jackson did not write his latest single, “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore,” he does appreciate the talents of other singer-songwriters. The humble superstar liked the song so much, however, he wanted to make sure the songwriter(s) – Adam Wright and Jay Knowles — absolutely wanted him to record the song. “It just happened to be that one of the co-writers on it is Adam Wright, my nephew that lives up here in Nashville that’s a singer and songwriter,” says Alan. “I called Adam and said, ‘Man, this is a great song. Are you sure you want to let me have it? I mean, there’s a lot of people that can sing this thing out there!’ And he said, no – if I wanted it, he wanted me to sing it, so I was proud to have it. And after we recorded it, the record just came out beautiful.” 

• “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore” will be available on iTunes Tuesday (February 14th).
• The video for “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore” has been the best-selling country video on iTunes for the past couple of weeks.

AUDIO: Alan Jackson talks about “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore.”

AJ (So You Don’t) OC: …this song. :39

“‘So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore’ – you know, the first time I heard that song, I knew it was a great song and I called the writer. It just happened to be that one of the co-writers on it is Adam Wright, my nephew that lives up here in Nashville that’s a singer and songwriter. I called Adam and said, ‘Man, this is a great song. Are you sure you want to let me have it? I mean, there’s a lot of people that can sing this thing out there!’ And he said, no – if I wanted it, he wanted me to sing it, so I was proud to have it. And after we recorded it, the record just came out beautiful. And everybody that heard it, the first thing they said was, ‘Man, that thing gave me goosebumps on my arms!’ It’s just a great song, a great melody. You know, I’m a songwriter and I appreciate songs, so I definitely appreciate this song.”

The holiday of romance and love is upon us, and that dastardly Cupid has been shooting his arrows all over the place. On this holiday, some of the Capitol/EMI artists have offered up their thoughts and ideas of love and relationships.

AUDIO: Alan Jackson talks about his love for wife, Denise, over the years. 

AJ (Valentine’s Day) OC: …continue to. :24

“We got a lot of history together now, and we’re happier than we’ve ever been. So, she’s still beautiful, and she’s always inspired songs. I mean, one of my early hitswas a song called ‘I’d Love You All Over Again,’ I wrote for her for our 10^th anniversary. I mean, there’s been a zillion songs that have pieces of our good days and bad days inspired, and they continue to.” 

AUDIO: Darius Rucker knew he would marry his wife, Beth, on their first date. 

Darius Rucker (wife) OC: …her and country music saved my life. :43

“I don’t know what it was about her. I mean, it was EVERYTHING about her. I knew, I told her I was going to marry her on our first date, [laughs] yeah. Beth’s a strong woman. It takes a strong woman to be married to a musician, especially a musician who was drinking and partying as hard as I was, and I think life for us is where we are now. It took a long time for us to get to where we are now, and we say to each other all the time, ‘I love us. I love our family. I love us.’ And I thank her every day for staying with me and being the strong woman she is, because with Hootie & the Blowfish, I could be gone for three months and then I’d come home for two days and then I’d be gone again for a month, and she put up with all that crap. You know, her and country music saved my life.” 

AUDIO: Before tying the knot with wife Cassady, Dierks Bentley says Valentine’s Day wasn’t always a pleasant holiday for him.  

Dierks Bentley (Valentine’s Day) 1 OC: …want to. :19

“Well, before, as a single guy in the past, if you were dating someone, it’s that holiday that comes along where you have to really like stamp out on paper exactly where the relationship really stands. You don’t want to undershoot it ’cause then you’ll be in trouble, you know, if you don’t give the right present or don’t say the right things, you’re gonna be in the doghouse. But then if you overstate your hand, then you’re moving the relationship way faster than you actually want to.”   

Dierks Bentley (Valentine’s Day) 2 OC: …could before. :27

“You get married and that’s a long-term, bigger image of what love can be. Then you have a child, and your heart gets spread so thin and it’s so vulnerable, like it’s a really tough, tough feeling, and it can kill you. It can really be painful at times, and at the same time, it’s so great. But it definitely stretches your heart…and it doesn’t change anything, it just makes your heart, I think it just makes it bigger. I think y6ou just find that you can love more than you ever thought you could before.” 

AUDIO: Eric Church says his wife, Katherine, loves him “Like Jesus Does,” which also happens to be a song on his latest album, Chief. 

Eric Church (Valentine’s Day) OC: …love song is. :48

“True love to me is when you love a person in spite of all their fallibilities, and for me, I have a lot of ‘em. I’m definitely at times hard to love, and that’s what’s great about Katherine and the way she loves me. She loves me in spite of those things and really for those things. That’s what’s so neat about the song is it’s not getting around those things, that’s a part of who the person is and it can be challenging at times, and that’s what the song talks about, but it’s what true love is. I think if you ask Katherine, I mean her favorite song on the record is ‘Like Jesus Does.’ Wonder why that is? [chuckles] But it’s something that I’m proud that it’s on the record. And again, I just think it’s a great, realistic version of what a true love song is.” 

AUDIO: Keith Urban says love means being aware of each other even as the newness of the relationship wears off. 

Keith Urban (Valentine’s Day) OC: …just me or… [laughs] :60

“I mean for me, I think a lot of it has to do with just staying present, because you know, when we start relationships, we’re so capable of honoring each other at the beginning off a relationship with cards and flowers and chocolates and attention and affection and priority. And then all of that all too many times starts to drift away, and it drifts away because it’s easy at the beginning. It just happens naturally. You’re almost overdoing it sometimes in the beginning. I was listening to the radio, [and] they’re talking about when is a relationship too soon to give Valentine’s gifts? [laughs] If you’ve been dating a guy six days, and it just started before the 14th…[laughs] and some woman said, ‘I was dating this guy three weeks and it was Valentine’s Day, and he gave me an iPad for Valentine’s Day.’ [laughs] That’s a ridiculous gift for Valentine’s Day. Is it just me, or…[laughs]” 

AUDIO: Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley, who eloped with wife Cassie nearly three years ago, says he and the rest of his happy bandmates write mostly about love. 

Lady A (write about love) OC: …good spot. :09

“Obviously, what we usually write about revolves around love. We don’t know how to change the world. We write about love lost and love gained. Right now, we’re all in a really good spot.” 

AUDIO: Little Big Town’s Kimberly Schlapman says falling in love with her husband, Stephen Schlapman, came as a big surprise. 

Little Big Town (Kimberly falling in love) OC: …healed me. 1:20

Kimberly: “Well, I wasn’t planning on falling in love, at all. I didn’t want to…I wasn’t sure that I ever would.  So, my husband now and I were just really good friends, and after my late husband died all my friends were calling me, all the time. Just checking up on me. He was just an old friends. We had known each other for about six years and he started calling me just like everybody else did.  But, he started calling me more than everybody else did [laughs]. We had both been through similar losses, he hadn’t lost a mate but he had lost a close friend, so we kind of bonded over that. I grieved, kind of, at him a lot. He took my grief, I had a lot of grief left, and he just took it and listened and accepted it and was so understanding and let me talk about my late husband all the time. We still talk about him a lot, and he’s totally fine with it. He says that, that made me who he fell in love with and he never minds if I bring anything from the past up which is just really sweet. I was shocked, I remember when I first realized that I was having feelings. I just thought, OK, this is so weird.  What is this?  I haven’t felt this in a long, long, time. This is weird. But, eventually I allowed myself and it’s been the most beautiful gift of my life. It pulled me out of the deepest hole that I’ve ever been in and healed me.”

AUDIO: Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Jimi Westbrook had a chemistry performing together, but it wasn’t until they each found themselves single…at the same time…that sparks flew romantically. The pair, who wed in 2006, have a son, Elijah, who turns two March 5th.           

Little Big Town (Jimi & Karen fell in love) OC: (Kimberly) …to be together. :48

JIMI: “We were in the band a long time before there was ever anything which is interesting. I think there was always something underlying there that we were kind of trying to ignore. And then when the opportunity came, when all of us, ended up single kind of at the same time, a very strange turn of events for the band in a lot of different ways. And those feelings, you were able to come out with them finally. It was like, we’re single. Let’s get together. And, you know, she has a beautiful heart and she’s absolutely gorgeous and I just love her dearly.”

PHILLIP: “Get a room!” [laughs]

KIMBERLY: “They’re a perfect match. They really are. They were meant to be together.”

AUDIO: Little Big Town’s Phillip Sweet was ready for love when he met Rebecca, his wife of nearly five years.

Little Big Town (Phillip – reasons fell in love) OC: …real love. :17

“I think everything that I had gone through before had prepared me to be ready to see that there was genuine love there for me, and my Rebecca.  So, it was just a great time, I wouldn’t have been ready before I met her…Now it’s just been a really great journey to heal through the past and to know real love.”

AUDIO: Luke Bryan says he was able to take his wife, Caroline, out ON Valentine’s Day last year, which hasn’t happened in years. 

Luke Bryan (Valentine’s) OC: …really, really nice. :36

Valentine’s Day is upon us, and many of your favorite country artists want to send their wishes your way.

LINER Darius Rucker (Valentine’s Day)

“What’s up y’all? This is Darius Rucker, hoping you have a very Happy Valentine’s Day.”

LINER Dierks Bentley (Valentine’s Day)

“Hey, it’s Dierks Bentley, hoping you have a very Happy Valentine’s Day.”

LINER Eric Church (Valentine’s Day)

“Hey! This is Eric Church, hoping you have a very Happy Valentine’s Day.”

LINER Eric Paslay (Valentine’s Day)

“Hi! This is Eric Paslay, hoping you have a very Happy Valentine’s Day.” 

LINER Jon Pardi (Valentine’s Day)

“Hi! It’s Jon Pardi, hoping you have a very Happy Valentine’s Day.” 

LINER LBT (Valentine’s Day)

“Hey! We’re Little Big Town. Happy Valentine’s Day!” 

LINER Luke Bryan (Valentine’s Day)

“Hey y’all, it’s Luke Bryan. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Lady Antebellum took home the award for Best Country Album for Own the Night at Sunday’s Grammy Awards. The trio told the audience, and the Grammys, “Thanks for changing our lives last year,” referring to their massive wins at the Grammys in 2011.

Eric Church is up for a Grammy tonight (February 12th) for Best Country Album for Chief. He and his lovely wife, Katherine, walked the red carpet. The entertainer looked dapper on the Grammys red carpet in a suit by designer John Varvatos. Check out the photo tweeted from the carpet below.

Luke Bryan has done it again! Spring Break 4… Suntan City, his fourth Spring Break EP, is being released March 6th. You can also catch the live performances of this EP as well as Luke’s other hits at his back-to-back shows in Panama City Beach, FL at Spinnaker Beach Club on March 13th & 14th.

Dierks Bentley talks about his new album, Home, and how it is reflective of his real life as a musician, a husband and a father.

Both Lady Antebellum’s Own the Night and Eric Church’s Chief will be vying for a Best Country Album at this year’s Grammy Awards, taking place this Sunday (February 13th).

Lady A have spent numerous weeks at the top of the country album chart with their latest release, Own the Night, which has already been certified platinum. The collection has also earned the trio two No. 1 songs — “Just a Kiss” and “We Owned the Night.”

Last year, Lady A OWNED the Grammy Awards taking home five grammophone awards. Their hit single, “Need You Now,” earned Record and Song of the Year, as well as Best Country Song and Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. They also came home with Best Country Album honors for their previous album, Need You Now.

Eric earned his first Grammy nomination this year, thanks to his chart-topping album, Chief. “The Grammys are the Holy Grail for every recording artist,” says Eric. “The thing I’m most proud of is we were able to get the Grammy nomination without ever changing what we do. I didn’t change the music or change the path that I was on to try to win awards or get nominated for awards. We just kept doing what we do.”

Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party, Blake Shelton’s Red River Blue, George Strait’s Here for a Good Time and Taylor Swift’s Speak Now are also up for Best Country Album.

Capitol Nashville’s Dierks Bentley, who released his latest album Home, and Lady Antebellum have been tapped as presenters on the show.

The 54th Annual Grammy Awards will air live February 12th beginning at 8pm ET on CBS.

AUDIO: Own The Night is the title of Lady Antebellum’s third album, and the band’s Hillary Scott explains what kind of statement she hopes the album makes.

Lady Antebellum (Title statement) OC: …celebrate it. :23

HS: “Oh gosh. I mean, we hope that this album makes an honest statement and one of just truly enjoying your life, every moment in it, whether it’s a heartbreaking moment or a moment where you’re about to float off the ground you’re so head-over-heels for someone. It’s really embrace every single moment and choose to celebrate it.”

AUDIO: Eric Church talks about his very first Grammy nomination.

Eric Church (Grammy nod) OC: …going to the Grammys. :27

“The Grammys are the Holy Grail for every recording artist. The thing I’m most proud of is we were able to get the Grammy nomination without ever changing what we do. I didn’t change the music or change the path that I was on to try to win awards or get nominated for awards. We just kept doing what we do. You know, the places that the Chief record has taken us so far is unbelievable, and it’s been an unreal ride, and I’m very proud to have the Grammy nomination, and I look forward to going to the Grammys.”

Alan Jackson’s “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore,” written by Jay Knowles and Adam Wright (Alan’s nephew), has been hitting the airwaves in a BIG way! The video for the single is also enjoying its share of success, as well. In fact, the clip was No. 4 OVERALL on iTunes last week. It ranked just behind Nicki Minaj and ahead of Chris Brown. The digital single will be available on February 14th (Valentine’s Day).

 While Alan didn’t write his latest single, he certainly has had his share of hit songs. He tells us there’s basically no formula to his songwriting, though. “I pretty much write what comes out at the time. I get ideas all throughout the year, you know,” says Alan. “It could be reflective, or it could be something situational that causes me to think about it, or it could be something goofy that’s on television or something…life always seems to bring something to write about.”

AUDIO: Alan Jackson says there’s no formula for writing songs.

AJ (song ideas) OC: …write about. :29

“I can’t say that I put that much thought into all of it. I don’t know why. I pretty much write what comes out at the time. I get ideas all throughout the year, you know. It could be reflective, or it could be something situational that causes me to think about it or it could be something goofy that’s on television or something. But you know, whatever, I just write down or jot down ideas and titles. Sometimes they come out as a song right away or sometimes they lay there for a while. But life always seems to bring something to write about.”

Darius Rucker is taking a break from the studio where he’s working on his next album to play a little golf…in Pebble Beach’s 3M Celebrity Challenge. The singer and comedian Bill Murray, who is also the defending pro-am champ, picked up a skin in the five-hole game to win $10,000 each for their respective charities.

ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman and actor Lucas Black were the big winners, capturing four skins and $40,000 apiece for their causes.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, playing alternate shot, Darius and Murray won the third hole with a birdie.

Clay Walker, George Lopez, Ray Romano, Chris O’Donnell, Huey Lewis, Michael Bolton and NFL quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Tony Romo (Dallas Cowboys) are also playing in the tournament.