Faith Hill's shoes

On CMT Insider, Faith Hill says she lives in her Crocs. Never heard of them, but they sound terrific. If they're good enough for Mrs. McGraw, I'm sold!

Gretchen Wilson continues to kick ass

Heard Gretchen Wilson's new song, All Jacked Up, on the radio for the first time today. Go, Gretchen, go!

Also heard them offering tickets to see Faith Hill on the Tonight Show. Pass!

Rock and Roll turns Country

Gary Allan's latest single "Best I Ever Had" is a cover of a song originally by rock group Vertical Horizon. Gary's voice adds a lot, but the original is pretty wonderful. Looking forward to Toby Keith's cover of Beck's current hit "Girl"...

Keith Urban Hearts Tom Cruise's Ex

I know, I know, too much Keith Urban on thhis blog lately. But how could I ignore this celebrity spotting in today's Gawker Stawker:

I was traveling in upstate NY, stopped by Woodstock, NY and saw Nicole Kidman sitting on a bench with Keith Urban on the main street in Woodstock. After they finished there drinks, they got up and walked down an adjoining street and down a dead end road going to a drive way that said private property. Nicole is at least 6’1 looking very tall and thin, dressed down in a Yankee cap , jeans and converse sneakers. Keith looking very rocker is t-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

Play Something That Sounds Like Werewolves of London

Judging from their new single, Brooks & Dunn have been listening to a little too much Warren Zevon.

Keith Urban a Go Go

I am on record as not caring very much for Keith Urban and usually I just flip channels when his videos come on, but somehow I caught his old hit "But For the Grace Of God" -- and was amazed to note he wrote it along with Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go's. How in the world did that threesome get together? And does this mean that Keith is the new Belinda Carlisle?

Sugarland, no spring chickens.

I read a great quote from them (where could it have been?) about being older and having their song Baby Girl mean so much to them... Their songs sound great on the radio, but their videos are somehow alienating. We'll have to give them a break because this is their moment and they've waited around long enough.

Faith Hill, so predictable....

From CMT: To promote her new CD Fireflies, set for release Aug. 2, Faith Hill has scheduled radio and TV specials for this fall. She taped a one-hour radio special on Monday (July 11) at the Ford Theater in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. On Aug. 15-16, Hill will perform concerts at Los Angeles' Pantages Theatre. Those concerts, her first in the Los Angeles area in five years, will be part of an NBC television special that will air Nov. 23.

Who predicted it? The Girls Guide to Country blog.

Unexpected Dwight Yoakam sighting

Did you catch Wedding Crashers this weekend? Were you just as surprised as I was by Dwight Yoakam being in the opening scene?

Faith Hill at the Pantages

I got an email of advance ticket sales for Faith Hill appearing for two nights at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood (Monday August 15 - Tuesday August 16).

What could this mean -- the Pantages, is that more impressive than the Staples Center for one night, like her hubby and the other hatted hunks can headline? Or less?

My guess is they're filming it for a TV special. Let's monitor and see if I'm right...

Meanwhile, Mr. Faith Hill and Los Lonely Boys will be at the Hollywood Bowl on Oct. 8. Are Los Lonely Boys a good opening act? They certainly have the critical raves, Grammy noms, and Willie Nelson endorsement street cred. But I'm not so interested. Better to have caught him when Big & Rich were the supporting act...

Every vote counts!

For Country Weekly's Hottest Bachelor. Vote now, vote often.

P.S. Adding photos to this blog just got easier, so expect a lot of photos in the future! The use of posterboy Keith Anderson's image in no way indicates that we're pushing him for Hottest Bachelor over the other worthy contenders. But he sure is hot!

Lonestar GAC Artist of the Month

Lonestar, the group I like to identify as John Rich's ex-band, is the GAC artist of the month on the Comcast on demand site -- meaning you can watch all their videos if you're interested. I'm not.

Take that, Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow!

So Coldplay, who are being positioned as the new U2, the next big super group, the best thing since sliced bread just because they write and perform catchy music and the lead singer is married to a movie star, were kicked off their spot of having the top spot on the nation's Billboard chart by none other than the last remaining old school hero of country music, Mr. George Strait. As much as people want to assume George's day has come and gone, he once again proves he's here to stay with his new album debuting on top of the all-music genre charts.

Here's the news brief:

George Strait's Somewhere Down in Texas knocking Coldplay's X&Y off the top of the charts after selling close to 245,000 copies in the week ended July 3, per Nielsen SoundScan. X&Y dropping to number three and the Ying Yang Twins' USA (United State of Atlanta) debuting at number two.

Now the only question is, who are in the hell are the Ying Yang Twins?!!

More Amazon customers who bought comparisons...

Since the new Dwight Yoakam CD is going to be the CD of the month on the Girls Guide to country website, I once again went to the Amazon page and became obsessed with the reporting of what Dwight customers also bought:

The Very Best of Dwight Yoakam ~ Dwight Yoakam
In Others' Words ~ Dwight Yoakam
Fair and Square ~ John Prine
Honkytonk University ~ Toby Keith
Somewhere Down in Texas ~ George Strait
Master of Disaster ~ John Hiatt
The Notorious Cherry Bombs ~ The Notorious Cherry Bombs
Magic Time ~ Van Morrison

Guess I'm going to have to buy that Notorious Cherry Bombs CD since it keeps on turning up on these lists!

John Rich removes his hat!

Some will think the big news about last night's Boston Pop's Fireworks special is the ratings. Here's what the Hollywood Reporter reported:

CBS had the most-watched program of the night with its 10 p.m."Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular 2005" special, which brought in 8.1 million viewers and 1.9 rating/7 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research.

But I'm here to tell you the biggest news what that John Rich removed his hat to perform the America song with Big Kenny, Cowboy Troy and Gretchen Wilson -- and he's got hair. Now, there weren't any shots of the top or the back of his head, so the jury's still out as to if he's balding in any way, but from what he showed off last night he's no Kenny Chesney or Tim McGraw!

One can download for free the extremely patriotic song John and his cohorts sang on the show sans hat.

And for those also fascinated beyond reason with the mustached half of B&R, enjoy this article on John Rich taking over the world.

And the Live 8 audience couldn't care less....

Thankfully CMT has a best of Live8 hour long special because none of the country acts got decent airtime on the actual Live8 MTV/ABC recap thing.

Several thoughts -- why did Faith Hill think the Italian audience she performed for would understand her current hit saga of a Mississippi Girl -- and I'm sure they loved the lyrics which address the listener as "y'all".

Tim McGraw's shirt was a horror -- what was his stylist thinking? And his song Live Like You Were Dying seemed odd when the cause was to bring notice to poverty striken Africa. Yes, we're all thinking of those poor people in Africa who should just ride bulls and go ski diving to get their minds off of their situation. Ignoring the fact that they really do live like they are dying because they are dying.

Keith Urban-- kudos for the homemade anti-poverty shirt. And credit to him for doing a ballad -- a brave choice to do it before a crowd there to party and who mostly have no idea who he is. Personally, I'm not a fan of Mr. Urban, but of all the country artists performing he came out on top.

The other Keith -- Toby Keith -- strangely sang songs off his previous album. I'm sure he decided these were his most rocking songs to win over the audience that was not there for country music. But everytime the camera panned over the crowd you could tell they could careless. Toby just looked liked a pissed off guy wearing (oddly) a trucker hat advertising a golf club. And of course his guitar has a Ford logo -- free global advertising for Ford. Toby's a good company man.

Definitely catch the CMT best of live 8 if you want to see the country hotshots bomb in front of non-country fans!