Carrie Underwood will make her first-ever trip to Australia this summer to promote the June 10 release of Play On: Deluxe Edition in Australia and New Zealand. The special two-disc set includes her entire current album Play On, plus six of her previous No. 1 singles.
Underwood’s Australian visit will launch mid-June and will undertake a full promotional schedule while visiting Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane.
Soul Surfer, the film in which Underwood made her big screen debut, will be released in Australia later this month.
Underwood is the latest in a string of country artists embracing fans in Australia. Earlier this year Alan Jackson and Lady Antebellum also toured the continent.
Play On: Deluxe Edition
1. Cowboy Casanova
2. Quitter
3. Mama’s Song
4. Change
5. Undo It
6. Someday When I Stop Loving You
7. Songs Like This
8. Temporary Home
9. This Time
10. Look At Me
11. Unapologize
12. What Can I Say (Featuring Sons of Sylvia)
13. Play On
(Additional Tracks)
1. Don’t Forget To Remember Me
2. Jesus, Take The Wheel
3. Before He Cheats
4. So Small
5. Just A Dream
6. Last Name
7. Home Sweet Home

Bob Mercer Scholarship Fund Donates to W.O. Smith School
An annual scholarship fund has been established in memory of renowned record executive Bob Mercer who passed away in May of last year. The Rising Star Music Fund created the scholarship fund, and the first annual contribution was presented to W.O. Smith Music School Executive Director Jonah Rabinowitz by Mercer’s widow, Margie Mercer. The money will be used to purchase musical instruments for students at the Nashville school. The first annual fundraiser for the Bob Mercer Memorial Fund is being planned for the fall and will take place in Nashville.

Jennette McCurdy Tour Benefits St. Jude
Capitol Records Nashville recording artist and star of Nickelodeon’s iCarly Jennette McCurdy visited St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis over the weekend where she presented the hospital with a check for $139,643. McCurdy collected the money while on her cross country mall tour, Generation Love Tour for St. Jude.


Nettles Boosts Music Education
Jennifer Nettles helped raise over $50,000 for the Attic Community Playground through an online auction she recently hosted on CharityBuzz. Up for bid were items from Katy Perry, Carrie Underwood, Sheryl Crow, Jon Bon Jovi, Keith Urban, Kid Rock, Kenny Chesney, Reba McEntire, Martina McBride and Sugarland. The money will benefit Atlanta-based charity Attic Community Playground, which helps provide music education opportunities for kids.
 
 
 
 

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame members Pat Alger and Don Schlitz have volunteered to provide musical benediction at the grand re-opening of the downtown medical clinic on Friday morning.
Operated by United Neighborhood Health Services, the clinic provides medical, dental and counseling to Nashville’s homeless population. UNHS CEO Mary Bufwack, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, Rep. Jim Cooper, UNHS Medical Director Dr. Keith Junior and UNHS Director of Homeless Services Bill Friskics-Warren will preside at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Pat Alger was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010. He has written songs for Brenda Lee, Hal Ketchum, Trisha Yearwood, Kathy Mattea, The Everly Brothers, Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Tanya Tucker, Nanci Griffith and others. Among his hits are “Small Town Saturday Night,” “Goin’ Gone” and “Like We Never Had a Broken Heart.” Alger has co-written four of Garth Brooks’s biggest hits, including “The Thunder Rolls” and “Unanswered Prayers.”
Don Schlitz, a 1993 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, is the only person named ASCAP Songwriter of the Year four consecutive times (1988-91). He is also the only songwriter to have won three CMA Song of the Year awards. His dozens of hits include “Strong Enough to Bend,” “When You Say Nothing at All,” “Forty Hour Week,” “Give Me Wings,” “Rockin’ with the Rhythm of the Rain” and “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her.” Schlitz has two Grammy Awards for writing Country Song of the Year winners “The Gambler” and “Forever and Ever, Amen.”
United Neighborhood Health Services is a non-profit network of health centers that has served Nashville for more than 30 years. It operates nine neighborhood clinics, five school clinics, two mobile health units and a clinic in Hartsville, TN, as well as the downtown homeless clinic. UNHS serves approximately 32,000 patients, about half of whom have no health insurance.
The clinic’s renovation was funded by $450,000 from the Federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and $50,000 from the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA). The ceremony will take place on the clinic’s courtyard at 526 8^th Ave. S. on Friday, May 20, beginning at 10 a.m. The public is welcome.