NashvilleGab - Country music news and Nashville gossip

Donate to Nashville Rising, get a commemorative pass

The Nashville Rising concert may have come and gone, but the effort to raise money for flood victims goes on.  If you head over to Access Passes you can buy a commemorative pass for just $7.50 with $2.50 from each badge purchased going directly to The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, to support flood relief efforts.

Great souvenir, great cause. 

Behind the scenes of Burlesque

This is an older video but I missed it before so I'm posting it now.  You get a pretty good glimpse of not only Burlesque's plot line, but also Julianne as a red head. 

Burlesque hits theaters November 24, 2010. 

Forget Team Edward and Jacob, are you Team Trace or Richard?

Trace Adkins is a celebrity spokesman for BC Powder and now has a friendly rivalry going with Richard Petty who is the spokesman for the Goody's Headache Powder, to see who experiences the biggest pains in their given professions. 

Richard has crashes and Trace has to fight off those rabid fans - who do you suppose suffers the most bumps, bruises, and headaches?  Probably a pretty close call there. 

As part of the friendly rivalry, Trace and Richard are asking you to join their team.  They will then be trying to prove who has the tougher, pain-inducing job by attempting to perform in their rival's world in ways such as 6 foot 6 inch Trace will attempt to get into Richard's race car (through the window, how's that for a picture?) and Richard will try his hand singing karaoke.  All the challenges will be taped for your viewing pleasure and posted to www.pickapowder.com.

That's where you come in.  You get to help pick a winner of the rivalry by going to www.pickapowder.com and picking whose team you're on.  The team with the most team members at the end wins.  But that's not all because you've also got the chance to win.  Once you've picked your team, you will be entered for the chance to win a VIP experience prize package- Trace's is a VIP concert experience for his 2011 tour and Richard's is a VIP racing experience. 

All joking and jabs aside, the campaign also has a charity component with a donation being made to the Wounded Warrior Project on behalf of Adkins and BC, and Victory Junction Camp for seriously ill children on behalf of Petty and Goody's.

"I want to win and I want my fans to win, so I encourage everyone to join Team Trace," said Adkins. "I want to see Richard feel some of my pain for a change. He thinks we have it so easy out here on the road, but he has no idea."  

So be sure to head over to pick your team - Team Country or Team Racing, you decide.

Lady A got remixed and liked it

Okay, I don't know if Lady A actually likes this new dance remix of Need You Now, but it was posted on their website so I hope they're at least making some money from it. You can get your copy here just in time for your hot summer night dance party.

Baby news! Baby news!

 
That highly potent Nashville baby water has once again hit!  This time it's one of the boys of Rascal Flatts who has been happily afflicted. 

From a press release...

Rascal Flatts bassist and vocalist Jay DeMarcus and his wife, former Miss Tennessee and CMT Personality, Allison are anticipating the birth of their first child in January of 2011.   

"Allison and I are thrilled about becoming parents.  I am confident Ali will be a wonderful mother because she has done an incredible job raising me over the past six years," says Jay.

“Jay and I are thrilled to let everyone know we are going to be parents!  We can't wait and are ecstatic to share our news,” adds Allison.

Jay and Allison were married May 15, 2004 in Nashville, Tenn.

T-Pain's upset that no one wants Carrie Underwood to work with him

Rapper T-Pain - who notoriously teamed up with Taylor Swift for the CMT Music Awards last year for the far-from-thuggish Thug Story - says that teaming up with Taylor didn't raise any eyebrows, but when it comes to another country cutie he's set his eye on, well, that's another story.

He tells The Boombox that Carrie Underwood is on his bucket list of collaborations, but that there's a lot of people out there who don't think it will ever happen. 

T-Pain says, "It gets weird when I request a 'crazy' collaboration. It gets like downplayed, basically. When Taylor Swift said she wanted to work with me, it was like 'Oh, it's going to be such a great song, blah bah blah.' Then I came back and said I wanted to work with Carrie Underwood and it was like 'Carrie Underwood would never work someone with as less class as you!"

Well I kind of have a hard time believing that Carrie would ever do a collaboration with T-Pain but who really knows?  I do have a feeling, though, that Carrie wouldn't look down her nose at T-Pain like some people in his life seem to think she might.  She just doesn't honestly seem the type. 

On a side note, can I get a hell yeah for a C-Swizzle? 

And here's the videos of T-Swizzle (Taylor) and T-Pain's funny collaboration.

Vince Gill and the little woman head out on tour

 
Vince Gill and his lovely wife, Amy Grant, have announced that they will be heading out on an 11-city Christmas tour staring December 8th. According to Vince's website, each show will run about two hours and will include both classic Christmas songs as well as some newer holiday tunes. 

Here's their tour dates:

• The Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota, Fla (Dec. 8)
• King Center for the Performing Arts, Melbourne, Fla. (Dec. 9)
• Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall, Fort Myers, Fla. (Dec. 10)
• Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater, Fla. (Dec. 11)
• Peace Center for the Performing Arts, Greenville, S.C. (Dec. 13)
• Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham, N.C. (Dec. 14)
• Crown Theatre, Fayetteville, N.C. (Dec. 17)
• War Memorial Auditorium, Greensboro, N.C. (Dec. 18)
• Cabarrus Arena, Concord, N.C. (Dec. 19)
• The Fox Theatre, Atlanta (Dec. 20)
• Two shows at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium (Dec. 21 and 22)

Tim McGraw still loves his blankie

Photo via Reader's Digest

Lisa Dent from US 99.5 did a great backstage interview recently with Tim McGraw where he gives some advice to President Obama, let's the cat out of the bag about who taught Sandra Bullock to play guitar, tells us how he lost 37 pounds, and lets us in on his deep, dark secret.

Okay, maybe not so deep and dark, but at least very surprisingly sweet.

When asked what he still has from childhoo, Tim says, "I have a blanket that I got on my 12th birthday from my mom that I still sit in my chair with at home and watch movies.  My kids love it, my wife loves it, everybody loves it...it's everybody's favorite blanket."

Can I get a big awwwww.

Oh, and Tim also says he cries at commercials and the last movie that made him cry was The Greatest.

Wow, that Tim sure is a sentimental guy.  Who knew?

Check out the short but totally sweet interview here. And in case you want a good cry, here's the trailer for The Greatest.

Beyoncé apparently has the country gals in her hip pocket

I love Beyoncé and have more than a few of her songs on my iPod for those days I can actually drag my ass to the gym.  Her music has a good beat for getting my feet moving on the elliptical - but then again I also have the Pussycat Dolls, The Black Eyed Peas, and Prince on my iPod so I guess I'm sort of into all kinds of strange music. 

But who knew a couple of my favorite country gals had a thing for Beyoncé too?

Miranda Lambert let the Winnipeg Free Press in on her pre-performance routine and funny enough it involves Miss Sasha Fierce herself.

She says, "I love watching live-show DVDs from other artists before I go on stage," says the chart-topping, Grammy-nominated 26-year-old in an email interview. "I have a great selection and I try to mix it up a bit.

"I'm a big Beyoncé fan and have seen her many times live. I got to meet her at her show in Dallas last year... So I like to see her before I go on, as an inspiration... "

But Beyoncé isn't the only singer who gets Miranda's blood pumping.  She goes on to say: "And recently I got into Tina Turner, watching her live-show DVDs. She is the original entertainer when it comes to strong women artists." 

Amen to that, sistah. 

Now about Reba.  She surprised a lot of people when she performed Beyoncé's If I Were a Boy at her recent Unplugged performance (video below).  But how exactly did that performance come along?  Inquiring minds want to know.  Well come to find out it was all her husband's idea.

Reba says, "I am a big Beyoncé fan and it was Narvel's idea for me to do that.  They said for the Unplugged session they wanted me to do a cover song and I said, 'Well let's do Fancy.'  They said, 'No, you already recorded it.' I said, 'Yeah, I know, but it was Bobbie Gentry's.'  I didn't want to have to learn another song. Lazy!

And then I said...'I don't know, Lady Gaga, something from her?'  Narvel said, 'Let's do If I Were a Boy.' So he was the one that picked that one out."

All I can say is thank goodness Reba didn't cover Lady Gaga...unless of course she wore some of Lady G's outrageous outfits.  Now that would have made for an interesting Unplugged.

Jimmy Buffett show rescheduled, Kenny can't make it

The July 1st Jimmy Buffett concert to benefit the Gulf Coast had to be rescheduled to July 11 due to the possibility of Hurricane Alex wreaking havoc on the beaches where the concert is set be performed.  Unfortunately the date change has wreaked havoc on the talent lineup for the show and now Kenny Chesney can't make it. 

Chesney Tweeted his disappointment yesterday (via Chensey World):

I looked at Kenny's performance schedule and don't see anything going on until July 18th when he performs at the Craven County Jamboree so I'm not sure what he's got going on that he can't make it to the benefit concert, but I'm thinking there's going to be a heckuva lot of disappointed folks.