Downtown Nashville will be making a few traffic adjustments in preparation for The 48th Annual CMA Awards, which will air live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Production set-up for the CMA Awards will require special traffic patterns.
Monday, Oct. 27 to Saturday, Nov. 1, and Friday, Nov. 7 to Monday, Nov. 10, from 6:00 AM– 6:00 PM/CT, the Demonbreun Street Northside curb lane, next to Walk of Fame Park, will be closed between Fourth and Fifth Avenues South.
From 6:00 AM/CT Sunday, Nov. 2 to 6:00 AM/CT Saturday, Nov. 8, Sixth Avenue South will be closed between Demonbreun Street and Broadway.
From 6:00 AM/CT Sunday, Nov. 2 to 6:00 AM/CT Thursday, Nov. 6, Demonbreun Street will be closed between Fifth and Sixth Avenues South.
From 9:00 AM/CT Monday, Nov. 3 to 5:00 PM/ CT Thursday, Nov. 6, Fifth Avenue South will be closed between Demonbreun Street and Broadway.
From 8:00 PM/CT Monday, Nov. 3 to 2:00 AM/CT Tuesday, Nov. 4, Broadway will be closed between Fourth and Seventh Avenues South.
From 9:00 AM/CT Tuesday, Nov. 4 to 4:00 AM/CT Wednesday, Nov. 5, the westbound lanes of Demonbreun Street will be closed from Fifth to Fourth Avenues.
From 6:00 AM/CT Wednesday, Nov. 5 to 3:00 AM/CT Thursday, Nov. 6, the following streets will be closed:
Sixth Avenue South will be closed between Korean Veterans Blvd. and Demonbreun Street
Fifth Avenue South between Korean Veterans Blvd. and Demonbreun Street.
Demonbreun Street will close between Eighth and Sixth Avenues South.
Seventh Avenue South will close between Demonbreun Street and Broadway.
McGavock Pike will close between Eighth and Seventh Avenues South.
From 6:00 AM/CT Wednesday, Nov. 5 to 4:00 AM/CT Thursday, Nov. 6, Demonbreun Street will close between Fourth and Fifth Avenues South.
Wednesday, Nov. 5, from 6:00 AM – 10:00 PM/CT, the Fourth Avenue Southbound curb lane (West) will close between Broadway and Demonbreun Street.
The 48^th Annual CMA Awards will air on the ABC Television Network on Wednesday November 5 at 8p/Eastern.

Allison and Jay DeMarcus and Clarence Spalding helped the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt launch the “Growing to New Heights” fundraising campaign at an event on Wednesday night, Oct. 22. The Rascal Flatts member and his wife emceed the event which was attended by patients and their families, community supporters and Vanderbilt University officials. 

Spalding and Kix Brooks are among the co-chairs of the campaign to raise $30 million over three years to help fund a $100 million expansion of the hospital. The four-floor building expansion will add 160,000 square feet of space atop the hospital’s existing structure. Construction on the new tower is expected to begin in 2015.

During the leadership phase of the campaign, $17.7 million was committed, including a $10 million gift from the daughters of Monroe Carell Jr., the hospital’s namesake, and his wife Ann Scott Carell, both now deceased. The gift is from Kathryn Carell Brown, Julie Carell Stadler, and Edie Carell Johnson and their families.

Last week, sibling trio The Band Perry visited Belmont University’s School of Music in Nashville to lead a Master Class, aimed at giving advice to aspiring musicians. The trio discussed the band’s history, including raising money for sound gear by selling caramel apples door to door, as well as early gigs playing shopping malls, campsites and restaurants. They offered advice on perseverance, accepting constructive criticism, and the importance of developing stage presence alongside technical skills.
They ended the hour talk by answering questions from students, and played an impromptu acoustic rendition of their 2010 hit “If I Die Young.”
“It was great to have Kimberly, Reid and Neil speak to our music students,” said Dr. Cynthia Curtis, Dean of The College of Visual and Performing Arts. “Practical advice from professional musicians is an integral part of our students’ education, and we could not have scripted this Master Class any better. The Band Perry offered our students real-life information about what the combination of talent and hard work can bring. Coming from an intelligent, accomplished and relatable act like The Band Perry, this advice was exactly what our students needed to hear as they begin to pursue their own professional careers.”

Reba‘s father Clark McEntire died Thursday (Oct. 23) in Coalgate, Okla. He was 86.
“Daddy passed away last night in Coalgate, OK at 11 pm CST,” entertainer Reba told fans via social media. “He had been in the nursing home for a while and we’re very thankful he is not suffering anymore. He was a born and bred cowboy through and through. He had been sick for 5 years. It makes total sense to me, he always told us kids never to run your horse to the barn. He was just taking his time to go on home.”
He leaves behind wife Jacqueline, as well as daughters Reba, Susie, Alice, and son Pake. Born Nov. 30, 1927, McEntire was a three-time World Champion steer roper (1957-58; 1961), and was inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1979.
Arrangement are pending.
Earlier this week, Reba became the first artist to sign with the NASH Icon label. The singer is planning new music for 2015.

[Updated, 3:00 p.m.]

Taylor Swift’s album 1989 has leaked online. This afternoon the album was available for streaming on sites including Eonline.com, but has since been taken down. Vulture.com has more on the story.

[Previous story, 10:30 a.m.]

Taylor Swift’s 1989 will be released Monday (Oct. 27) and industry sources are forecasting a debut week sales tally of between 800K and 900K copies, according to Billboard. This would make it the biggest-selling album released in 2014, upping Coldplay’s Ghost Stories which came out this year and has sold 737K (Nielsen Soundscan).

Swift’s previous albums, Red (2012) and Speak Now (2010), crossed the million sales mark during their first weeks of release. Since then, overall album sales have continued to decline, so it remains to be seen if 1989 will break the one million threshold.
The current Swift media blitz has included some interesting articles. In Esquire, she discussed songwriting and why Nashville is boot-camp for superstars:

TS: Country music teaches you to work. You hear stories about these artists who show up four hours late to a photo shoot, and in Nashville that doesn’t happen. In Nashville, if you go four hours late to a photo shoot, everyone leaves. In Nashville, if you don’t care about radio and being kind to the people who are being good to you … It’s a symbiotic relationship, and if you don’t take care of it, then they won’t take care of you. I’ve never been more proud to have come from a community that’s so rooted in songwriting, so rooted in hard work and in treating people well. It was the best kind of training…
I’m not gonna let them make me have a meltdown. But, I think, as a songwriter you lose your edge if you find a way to protect yourself from everything they’re going to say about you. You lose touch with what made you vulnerable enough to connect with people in your songwriting. And that’s not something I wanna do. So it’s all about walking a tightrope between not being so fragile and breakable that they can level you with one blow and being raw enough to feel it and write about it when you feel it. And it’s not just a celebrity-takedown culture. It’s a takedown culture. I know it when I see these kids—they’re gonna get tortured socially until they find their calling in life.

The New York Times delved into her decision to leave behind Country music and wage a war on pop:

[Excerpts]: Most important, country gave Ms. Swift context. It made her a transgressor, which means even her most benign songs could be read with mischievous intent. From the outside, she looked like a conquering titan. But from the inside looking out, even as the genre’s biggest star, she was always something of an underdog, multiplatinum albums and accolades be damned…
“1989” (Big Machine), though, her fifth album and the first that doesn’t at all bother with country, manages to find a new foe…. There is an implicit enemy on this breezily effective album: the rest of mainstream pop, which “1989” has almost nothing in common with…
What she doesn’t do on this album is as important as what she does. There is no production by Diplo or Mike Will Made-It here, no guest verse by Drake or Pitbull.
“1989,” which is largely filled with upbeat, tense songs on which the singer stomps out much of whatever was left of her youthful innocence. The Taylor Swift of this album is savage, wry, and pointed…
But by making pop with almost no contemporary references, Ms. Swift is aiming somewhere even higher, a mode of timelessness that few true pop stars — aside from, say, Adele, who has a vocal gift that demands such an approach — even bother aspiring to.