Dolly Parton is getting ready to host the ACM Awards on Monday and she is certainly excited.

“I am real excited. It is always fun to do the shows,” she tells “Entertainment Weekly. “It has been a long time since I have done the ACMs, so I am looking forward to hosting that with my wonderful co-hosts,” referring to Jimmie Allen and Gabby Barrett. 

She adds, “We are looking forward to being in Vegas… It’s a big night and a big, exiting deal for me and for the fans.”

Kelly Clarkson is set to honor Dolly with a tribute performance, and Dolly says it “makes me feel great” that Kelly is the one handling it, noting she “is one of the greatest singers in the world.”

“With her, you know it’s going to be real good. I do love her to death,” she says. “I love her personality. I just love the way she is. I have known her for a long time… so that is going to be special to me, of course.”

The 57^th Annual ACM Awards airs Monday at 8 pm on Prime Video, live from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

• ONE MORE THING! ACM took to Twitter to reveal some of the peformances fans will be seeing Monday night, sharing, “In honor of our host @DollyParton, we’ll be ???? working 9 to 5 ???? today bringing YOU #ACMawards exclusives,” adding, “At the top of every hour, we’ll reveal a new song name that will be performed during this year’s show.”
• Among the confirmed performances:
• Kelly Clarkson – “I Will Always Love You”
• Thomas Rhett – “Slow Down Summer”
• Brothers Osborne – “Skeletons”
• Maren Morris – “Circles Around This Town”
• Walker Hayes – “Fancy Like” and “AA”
• Brothers Osborne and Brittney Spencer – “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’”
• Gabby Barrett and Jimmie Allen – “Viva Las Vegas” and “Let’s Go To Vegas.”
• Thomas Rhett and Breland – “Praise The Lord.”

It’s been a while since Brad Paisley dropped a new album, and after the craziness of the past two year’s he’s taking his time to figure out what comes next.

“I feel like I’m resetting a little bit right now,” Brad tells CMT. “We toured all last summer, and it was never back to normal, but it was back to something,” adding, “I don’t even want to say new normal because that better not be the case. I don’t want new normal. Normal better come back.”

And while Brad has released some singles over the past couple of years, he hasn’t quite gotten ready to commit to an album.

“I wrote and did things, and I’ve taken my time,” he says. “But for now, it’s been nice to sort of sit on what I’m working on and try to figure out with some clarity what comes next.” Finally, he shares, “When I do an album, it’ll fully be an album and hopefully not things that feel like I wrote them when everybody was hoarding toilet paper.”

Source: CMT

Carrie Underwood is once again in the running for Entertainer of the Year at the ACM Awards Monday, and she considers the nomination an “honor.”

“I feel like I’m so blessed to have so many facets of my job and things that I do,” she says, “obviously performing live on stage, but there’s about a million other irons that we’ve always got in the fire that we’re always working on and we’re always busy.”

Carrie says the category “kind of encapsulates all of that,” noting, “and being recognized for all the things going on is always a good thing.”

Carrie is nominated against Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert, Eric Church and Luke Combs and as far as her chances she notes, “You never know what’s going to happen.” She offers, “There’s only a select handful that get nominated and it’s obviously very exciting and we’ll see what happens.”

The 57th Annual ACM Awards airs Monday on Prime Video, live from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Source: Carrie Underwood

Midland is up for Vocal Group of the Year at next week’s ACM Awards, and it doesn’t sound like they’ll be super upset if they lose this year.

Cameron Duddy says the nomination serves as “validation,” calling it a “tip of the hat,” from people they respect.

Mark Wystrach adds, “Anytime we’re getting recognized like this, it means that we’re getting more exposure and more and more people are gonna hear Midland,” noting, “It’s great to be in the mix and in the talk, and getting nominated is like a win already.”

Source: Midland

Luke Combs was joined by his friend Adam Church for this “Doin’ This” music video. He’s sharing how excited he was to have his pal with him.

“It was really, really killer having my buddy Adam be a part of that music video. You know, he’s been, you know, a huge part of my musical journey. You know, since the very beginning, you know, he helped me out, you know, back when I didn’t have anything going on. And, you know, we kind of just started playing together. And we played so many, so many shows together, you know, three hour sets in a bar, you know, on stools, setting up our own little PA systems.”

He continued, “And, you know, he’d let me borrow his guitar some times and vice versa. You know, somebody would have some guitar strings, and the other one couldn’t afford any. And, you know, he’s still chasing his dream of doing what he wants to do. And it just felt like something that was very important to me to shine a light on somebody that, you know, has been so helpful and beneficial to me and just to try to be there any way for him that I can is something that I’ll do and that I’ll continue to do.”

Source: Luke Combs