Eight-time country music Entertainer of the Year Kenny Chesney returns to CMT Crossroads to share the stage with one of his musical influences, rock icon Steve Miller, in the latest episode of the hit CMT series.  CMT Crossroads: The Steve Miller Band and Kenny Chesney premieres Friday, July 9 at 8:00 p.m. CT on CMT.

Longtime friends, Miller and Chesney have shared the stage at San Francisco stadiums during Chesney’s summer tours, performing classic Miller hits. Now, the two join forces to perform each other’s songs and swap stories for what promises to be another landmark episode of CMT Crossroads. 

Featured in the hour-long episode are Chesney’s hits “Living In Fast Forward” and “I Go Back,” along with the Steve Miller Band classics “The Joker” and “Abracadabra.” Chesney is making his second appearance on the series; his first was October 2003’s pairing with heartland rocker John Mellencamp.

With songs such as “Rockin’ Me,” “Jet Airliner,” “The Joker,” “Fly Like An Eagle,” “Livin’ in the USA,” “Take the Money and Run” and “Abracadabra,” Miller is one of the cornerstones of classic rock. Born in Milwaukee, he grew up in a home frequented by musicians like Charles Mingus, Les Paul and T-Bone Walker and formed his first band at age 12 with friend Boz Scaggs. After stints in Madison, Wis. and Chicago, Ill. blues bands, he moved to San Francisco and The Steve Miller Band (known initially as the Steve Miller Blues Band) emerged from San Francisco’s summer of love with a sound that was distinctively different from its peers. Over 40 years later, the band has sold over 25 million records and is still a mainstay of the summer concert season. Miller’s new album, Bingo!, was released earlier this week to rave reviews.

Chesney has notched 19 No. 1s, including “Young,” “Summertime,” “Out Last Night,” “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven,” “Beer in Mexico,” “Anything But Mine” and “Who You’d Be Today,” and has sold an excess of 35 million records. He is the only artist to sell more than a million tickets each of the past eight summers, and he has come to define summer for those coming of age across the country. Beyond his four consecutive ACM and four CMA Entertainer of the Year Awards, Chesney has also won the CMA’s prestigious Album of the Year for “When the Sun Goes Down”, the ACM’s Top Male Vocalist and Top New Male Vocalist awards, the American Music Awards’ all-genre Fan Favorite Award and multiple ASCAP awards for his songwriting.

Randy Owen, lead singer and principal songwriter for the Country Music Hall of Fame members Alabama, told attendees at his annual fan club party in Ft. Payne, Alabama last week that earlier this year he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

During a recent checkup, Dr. Woody Fritz in Birmingham, Alabama, noticed an elevated level of a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) in a routine blood test. He referred Owen to Dr. Ronald Wheeler, M.D., a world expert in High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) and medical director of the Diagnostic Center for Disease in Sarasota, Florida. Owen chose the HIFU procedure as his form of cancer treatment which was performed by Dr. Wheeler the beginning of May and has been deemed a complete success.

“After my routine six-month physical, I was referred by Dr. Fritz to Dr. Wheeler, and I feel very good and positive about my future,” said Owen.  I look forward to seeing the fans and doing what I do.”

“Randy did everything right by having his PSA checked regularly, avoiding random biopsy, and educating himself about his treatment options,” said Dr. Wheeler. “He has set an example all men should follow to beat prostate cancer and live an excellent quality of life.”

Dr. Fritz went on to say, “we are happy with the successful outcome of the treatment. Randy is doing great and is just about fully recovered.”

As the front man for Alabama, Owen racked up sales of over 73 million albums, which includes 21 gold, platinum and multi-platinum certifications, 42 number one singles and a mantle loaded with over 150 industry awards. Owen released his debut solo album, One On One, and his memoir, Born Country, in November, 2008. He will be tending to his cattle business in Ft. Payne, Alabama through the summer and is planning on resuming touring in mid-September.

(l-r) Nan Kelley, GAC host; Melissa Hudson-Gant, LLS campaign director; Kaye Skonieczny, LLS national director of partnership development; Carol Large, Blake Shelton fan club president; and Blake Shelton present a check for $30,609 to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Warner Bros. Records artist Blake Shelton partnered with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to hold a CMA Music Fest fan party at the Wildhorse Saloon on Friday, June 10. Shelton and his fans raised $30,609 to be used for patient aid and research for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through participation in Light The Night Walk’s Country Faces Cancer.

Country Faces Cancer (CFC) is an industry-wide effort led by Great American Country’s Nan Kelley, a lymphoma survivor, to help raise awareness and support for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) through its Light The Night Walk.

Light The Night is the nation’s night to pay tribute and bring hope to people battling cancer. Walks take place in communities throughout the United States and Canada, typically in the fall. Thousands of participants carry illuminated balloons and raise funds for vital, lifesaving research and patient services.

Nashville’s 11th annual Light The Night Walk will take place Thursday, October 7, at 7:30 PM at LP Field. The walk is 1.75 miles, and features live music, food and activities for children. The walk is open to the public, and teams and individuals can register online at www.lightthenight.org.

“God bless the working man,” sings Alan Jackson in “Hard Hat and a Hammer,” the latest hit single from his acclaimed Freight Train album.  Award-winning director Theresa Wingert (Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Taylor Swift) traveled all across the Southeast to film real working men and women on construction sites and in mines, at fire stations and in restaurants, to star with Jackson in the new video for “Hard Hat and a Hammer,” which makes its world premier this Friday, June 18, on CMT’s Big New Music Weekend.

Wingert captured imagery of Americans “getting the job done” as a celebration of the great workforce that is “the glue that keeps the world together.” Featured are miners from Stilhouse mining in Benham, KY, workers from the Bayou La Batre, AL shipyard, railroad workers from TRR Railroad in Mobile and more. She filmed at paper mills, foundries, taxi stands, Nashville’s Fire Station No. 16 and Bar-B-Cutie and more than a dozen other locations.

“Hard Hat and a Hammer” is the latest of Jackson’s songs to honor his working class roots and family upbringing. Last month he honored the fallen miners and rescue workers from April’s Upper Big Branch mining disaster with a benefit concert performance at the Charleston, WV Civic Center. The 31 families affected and 230 rescue workers who were on site at the mining disaster were offered free tickets to the show. Jackson met with the families who lost loved ones and raised over $150,000 for the Montcoal Mining Disaster Fund.

Just last week, Billboard Magazine announced that Jackson was voted in the top 5 of the top 25 country artists of the last 25 years.

VIDEO LOCATIONS:
Rock Slide, TN
Stilhouse Mining, Benham, KY
Yeehaw Industries (printing press), Knoxville, TN
Domtar Paper Mill, Kingsport, TN
Golden’s On The Square, Newnan, GA
Royale Cafe, Columbus, GA
Golden Foundry, Columbus, GA
All State Port Authority, Mobile, AL
Shipyard in Bayou La Batre, AL
TRR Railroad, Mobile, AL
Farmers Market, Nashville
Nashville Fire Station No. 16
Johnson’s Hardware, Nashville, TN
Nashville Yellow Cab
Nashville Intercity Ministry
Bar-B-Cutie, Nashville

On July 27 Rounder Records will release the soundtrack to Sony Pictures Classics’ Get Low. The soundtrack features new material recorded especially for the film by Rounder artists Alison Krauss – her first new track since 2007’s A Hundred Miles or More – and The SteelDrivers (the latter also appear in the movie).  Academy Award winning composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek (Finding Neverland) and 12-time Grammy-winning dobro player Jerry Douglas wrote the scores, while the rest of the soundtrack includes vintage tracks from The Ink Spots, Gene Austin, Paul Whiteman and Bix Beiderbecke.

Starring Academy Award winner Robert Duvall, Golden Globe winner Bill Murray, Academy Award winner Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black, Get Low is based on the true story of Felix “Bush” Breazeale – a Tennessee recluse who planned his own funeral while he was still alive and could enjoy it. To draw a crowd, Breazeale sold lottery tickets offering his valuable plot of land as the prize, and the ploy worked. The “living funeral” commanded national attention and in the end it was said that as many as 12,000 “mourners” from at least 14 different states showed up on June 26, 1938, including a Life Magazine photographer and major newspaper reporters – to pay their respects to Breazeale as he watched it all transpire.

The SteelDrivers will also be releasing their much anticipated sophomore release, Reckless, September 14 on Rounder Records.

Get Low Track Listing:
1. Lay My Burden Down – Alison Krauss
2. If I Didn’t Care – The Ink Spots
3. Jesus Come For Me – The SteelDrivers
4. Sitting Mule/Drive to Town ‐ Score – Jerry Douglas
5. Drive to Town for Clothes ‐ Score – Jerry Douglas and Stuart Duncan
6. No Haircut ‐ Score – Jerry Douglas
7. Farewell Blues – Paul Whiteman
8. Monkey Bay – Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer & Russ Barenberg
9. Whiskey Before Breakfast – The SteelDrivers
10. East Virginia Fast – The SteelDrivers
11. North ‐ Score – Jerry Douglas
12. Bush Shows Maddie Around ‐ Score
13. Angelina Baker – The SteelDrivers
14. The Mystery of Felix ‐ Score
15. I’m Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover ‐ Bix Beiderbecke (aka Billy Murray & Jean Goldkette Orchestra)
16. My Blue Heaven – Gene Austin