NashvilleGab - Country music news and Nashville celebrity gossip

Garth Brooks sued

Garth Brooks is a paranoid, angry, deceitful man? Who knew?

According to TMZ, Garth's former business partner, Lisa Sanderson, is suing Garth, who she worked with for 20 years, claiming that Garth talked her into jump starting his TV and movie career only to ruin everything by making ridiculous demands. She also says Garth pretends to be "a humble and highly principled 'everyman'" -- he's actually a "paranoid, angry, deceitful and vindictive man who will turn against those closest to him on a dime."

Sanderson says she helped Brooks land roles in movies such as "Saving Private Ryan," but refused to take them because "he wanted to be the star and was unwilling to share the limelight with ... Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Edward Burns." He was also, according to the suit, offered a role as a bad guy in "Twister" but didn't want to play second fiddle to a tornado. 

Sanderson is suing for $425,000 in unpaid bonuses and salary, as well as punitive damages. So far Garth hasn't responded publicly to the lawsuit.

Best and worst of the ACM Awards according to fans

According to a recent poll (done by me), the highlight of the night belongs to two different incidents.

First, 36% of those polled agreed that both Blake and Luke's joshing about each others 'junk' and Garth and George performing together were the best moments of the night. As for lowlights, the winner of the losers poll with 32% of the vote were the shortened performances from Jana Kramer, Brantley Gilbert, and Florida Georgia Line.

Care to chime in? Let us know in the comments what your highlights and lowlights of the ACM Awards were. 

Posted by Broadway (Guest Writer) Listen to my radio show weekday mornings, 6-10a eastern oniHeartRadio and follow me on twitter @broadwayonair.

Lee Brice attempts April Fool's Day prank and fails

April Fool's Day: Either you love it or you hate it, usually depending on whether you're the giver or the receiver of the pranks.

Apparently, Lee Brice is a giver, although it sounds like not a very good one. 

During a recent interview, Lee told me about an April Fool's joke that fell flat. 

"I texted my manager and my other manager and my booking agent. I told them that I ran into Brad Paisley and he got smart with me out of nowhere, so I told him off. And I told him that I didn't want to go out on tour with him anyway and all this stuff. I just thought they would freak out going, 'What are you doing?!' Of course they were like, 'Whatever dude, you're April Foolin' us!" 

We also talked about pranking Brad on the upcoming tour, wedding planning and music, the Bacon Brothers, Garth Brooks comeback, and his son's name.

Click Here to hear the full interview.

Posted by Broadway (Guest Writer) Listen to my radio show weekday mornings, 6-10a eastern on iHeartRadio and follow me on twitter @broadwayonair.

Scotty McCreery is 'In a Relationship'

Sorry girls, Scotty McCreery's officially taken! My guess is he's dating a longtime friend-fling, Gabi Dugal. Here's what he said when I asked...

Scotty: Oh man, the dating life on the road, it's a tough thing to get around, you know what I mean? It's tough to even workout anything. I don't know. That is my answer.
Broadway: You don't know?
Scotty: No, I do know.
Broadway: You're dating both of them? (Gabi and Lauren Alaina)
Scotty: Naw, it ain't like that.

Click Here for the full interview

Posted by Broadway (Guest Writer)
Listen to my radio show weekday mornings, 6-10a eastern on iHeartRadio and follow me on twitter @broadwayonair.

Billboard names its top 10 most powerful musical couples

Photo courtesy People.com/Picturegroup

This is pretty cool. Billboard.com just came out with a top 10 list of the most powerful musical couples out there and three of the top 10, including the #1 spot, are country artists. 

Couples were ranked based on the pair's combined U.S. album sales from 1991-present, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

1. GARTH BROOKS & TRISHA YEARWOOD -- 78.9 million albums sold. 
2. JAY-Z & BEYONCE -- 62.3 million copies sold. 
3. TIM McGRAW & FAITH HILL -- Hill and McGraw have moved 60.9 million albums combined. 
4. MARIAH CAREY & NICK CANNON -- combined 54 million copies sold. 
5. CHAD KROEGER & AVRIL LAVIGNE -- 34.3 million copies sold. 
6. GWEN STEFANI & GAVIN ROSSDALE -- 32.7 million albums sold.
7. ALICIA KEYS & SWIZZ BEATZ -- over 17.3 million copies sold.
8. JUSTIN BIEBER & SELENA GOMEZ -- 11.2 million album copies sold.
9. BLAKE SHELTON & MIRANDA LAMBERT -- 9.6 million copies sold. 
10. SKRILLEX & ELLIE GOULDING -- 1.1 million copies sold. 

Garth Brooks says, "Hey Dugan"

Now how about this phone call. Some fans were waiting outside the 'Teachers Rock' taping and were lucky enough to catch Garth as he was leaving. They called him over and he came to sign autographs. 

One fan mentions that his friend Dugan said that Garth wouldn't be there for one reason or another so Garth chats with Dugan on the phone to prove that he was actually at the taping.

Can you imagine?

Garth Brooks and Carrie Underwood on tonight's 'Teachers Rock' special

 

Garth Brooks talks about the teachers in his life at the Teachers Rock TV special

Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, and Dierks Bentley were among the stars who took part in this week's "Teachers Rock" special that will air tonight. Garth was interviewed on the red carpet before the show and explained to Hollywood TV what made him want to do the show. 

"Well first of all, the people putting it on are all friends of mine so they called me. My two brothers are teachers and my sister-in-law is a teacher so it's all in our family, and so it was an honor to come here. I love what the cause is about and when I got to sing with the kids -- I said, 'Can I sing with children?' and they said, 'Sure,' and they were fantastic. They stole the show like they should have."

You can watch Garth's interview in the video below as well as several other stars. 

The special will air tonight, Friday, August 17 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on CBS.

Taylor Swift really is country royalty, turns out she's cousins with Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, and Loretta Lynn

As I mentioned earlier today, genealogy is one of my favorite past times....following genealogy charts, however, is not.  

I love the history, the stories behind the names, knowing that I have ancestors that I can trace to pre 1400s. Genealogy charts, however, might as well be written in ancient Greek because it's about that difficult for me to follow them sometimes.  

This person was related to this person who married this person and she was married to this person's uncle who was this person's cousin twice removed. Ugh, it makes my head hurt. 

Anyway, it seems if you follow anyone's family tree back far enough, they're going to be related to someone else they know and it seems famous country stars are no different.  

The genealogy website Geni.com has put together a few handy little family charts that show that Taylor Swift is a 15th cousin once removed to Reba McEntire, a 9th cousin once removed to Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks' 12th cousin once removed, and Loretta Lynn's 14th cousin.  

The crazy thing is she's related to everyone via her father's side. 

Talk about some talented roots.  

Here's the family tree that has Taylor and Reba being cousins: 

Taylor to Reba: Taylor Swift →Scott Swift (her father)→Archie Swift (his father)→Berniece Thompson (his mother)→Barbara Kingsley (her mother)→Rev Alanson Kingsley (her father)→Orin Kingsley, Jr. (his father)→Oren Kingsley (his father)→Lydia Kingsley (his mother)→Joseph Burgess, Jr. (her father)→Thomasina Bangs (his mother)→Mary 1645 Mayo (her mother)→(Capt. Samuel Mayo) her father→Thomasine Mayo (Constable) (his mother)→Thomas Constable (her father)→Robert Constable (his father)→Katherine Chomley (his sister)→Sir Knight Richard Cholmeley (her son)→John Cholmeley (his son)→Dionisia Norton (his daughter)→Captain Francis Norton, Immigrant (her son)→Mary (Norton) Northrup (his daughter)→Joseph Northrup (1649-1700) (her son)→Moses Northrup, 1695 (his son)→Sarah Fuller (his daughter)→Northrup Fuller (her son)→Sarah (Fuller) Terry (his daughter)→Elizabeth Terry (her daughter)→Elizabeth Stevens (her daughter)→Clark McEntire (her son)→John McEntire (his son)→Clark McEntire (his son)→Reba McEntire (his daughter)

Whew, did you get all that?  See what I mean about genealogy charts being able to completely fry your brain?  

If you're interested in seeing how Taylor is related to Garth, Willie, and Loretta Lynn, be sure to check out Geni.com.  

Maybe Taylor can do an episode of Who Do You Think You Are and follow her roots to see how she's related to most of Nashville.

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Police search for trespasser at Garth Brooks' home

The stolen burnt SUV found outside of Garth's property

Scary stuff.  

Oklahoma police are on the look out for a guy who either set a car on fire or had the car he was driving catch fire today outside of Garth Brooks' property. One of Garth's neighbors reported the burning car but when police arrived, the man sprinted across Garth's land.  It was later learned that the car had been reported stolen on Wednesday, March 7.  

It sounds like the guy probably didn't know it was Garth's property, it just happened to be a handy spot to run through.  

There's no word on if Garth or wife, Trisha Yearwood, were at home at the time of all the excitement.