Today in 2002, the numbers were made final and Faith Hill was tapped as logging a record setting 6-million streams as AOL’s “Artist of the Month” campaign. The achievement proved to be the online provider’s most successful in history. This news also came on the heels of Faith’s nomination as Favorite Female Artist by the People’s Choice Awards and the highest network ratings for any music special broadcast during Thanksgiving week.
Jon Pardi may not be the musician he is today if it wasn’t for a very special Christmas present he got when he was young.
Jon says when he was “real young” he got a guitar for Christmas, although he admits he didn’t take very good care of it. “This guitar spent multiple nights in the backyard and probably got hit by a sprinkler,” he shares. “I was a kid. I didn’t know what to do with this thing.”
But apparently that guitar had an impact on him. “I always tell parents you just never know, if you get a little toy that’s a guitar or drum set, you never know what that’ll spark in a child’s mind,” he shares. “So, who would’ve know if I had never gotten that guitar.”
Meanwhile, like most people, Jon loves a good holiday movie, but what he watches definitely depends on who he’s watching it with. Jon says that while he’s a fan of the raunchy Christmas comedy “Bad Santa,” if he’s watching with his little cousins the movie choice tends to be “Elf.”
As for what he plans to do this Christmas, Jon and his fiancée Summer invited their family to Hawaii, with the caveat of “no gifts.” “We’re just gonna go and help celebrate as a family and everybody and Christmas in Maui,” he shares. “So we kinda turned it into this nice family vacation that’s over Christmas, and then we’ll fly back to Nashville and have Christmas there. So, it’s cool.”
Today in 1966, Tracy Byrd was born in Vidor, Texas. He emerged in 1993 to record a series of hits, including “Lifestyles Of The Not So Rich And Famous,” “Watermelon Crawl,” and “The Keeper Of The Stars.”
Byrd has charted more than thirty hit singles in his career, including eleven additional Top Ten hits. He has also released ten studio albums and two greatest-hits albums, with four gold certifications and one double-platinum certification from the RIAA.
Byrd has been the National Spokesperson for Special Olympics International for the Country Music Association. He developed a crank bait fishing lure marketed by Norman Lures called The Lifestyles Of The Not So Rich & Famous’, named after his hit recording of the song written by Byron Hill and Wayne Tester. For every one of the lures sold Byrd donated ten cents to the Special Olympics.
For several years Byrd hosted an annual golfing/fishing/music event, “The Tracy Byrd Homecoming Weekend,” later called “The Beaumont Boys Bash”, in Southeast Texas to raise money for local charities, including the March of Dimes, the Children’s Miracle Network, and culminating in the donation of money to fund the Tracy Byrd Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Care Center at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Beaumont. Byrd also raised money by soliciting pledges for his attempt to complete the 2002 Houston Marathon. He finished the marathon, and donated all of his pledges to the Children’s Miracle Network.
In 2003 Byrd published Eat Like a Byrd: The Tracy Byrd Cookbook. He also launched a line of spices, rubs, and marinades to go along with it, called “Tracy Byrd’s Tiny Town Products”; a portion of these sales were donated to the Children’s Miracle Network.
Source: Wikipedia
It doesn’t take much to get Keith Urban in the Christmas spirit, and that started pretty early this year.
Keith says “the lights going up” is guaranteed to put him in a holiday mood, and this year they got that done by Thanksgiving. “We didn’t wait. We just put those puppies up, and the place looked awesome,” he shares. “We had the best Christmas-looking Thanksgiving ever.”
But growing up in Australia, Christmas felt a little bit different for Keith than it does for kids here in the States, because even though he got up early like other kids to open presents, when that was all over he and his family would do something very untraditional.
“We’d go to the beach, you know, ’cause there it’s summertime,” Keith shares. “Load up the station wagon and head off to the beach.”
And now that he has kids of his own, Keith is carrying on the same traditions. “Yeah, we still love going to the beach at Christmas time, as long as we’re in Australia,” he says. “It’s huge. Everybody’s out. It feels very celebratory.”
But if Keith and the family, wife Nicole Kidman and daughters Sunday and Faith, spend Christmas Down Under this year, they won’t be able to stay long. Keith will need to be back in order to headline New Year’s Eve in Nashville for the fourth year in a row.
Today in 1994, Garth Brooks released his “best of” album, “The Hits.” It’s since gone on to sell 10-million copies, making it the best-selling country greatest hits record in history.
Country music fans will have a new TV channel to tune into in the New Year. Circle is set to launch January 1st, featuring a variety of country-themed programming.
One of the key shows on the new network will be “Opry Live,” which will feature clips of performances from the Grand Ole Opry, including footage of legends, new singers and guests.
Other shows include: “Bluebird Café Sessions,” featuring performances from Nashville’s Bluebird Café, “Phil Vassar’s Songs From The Cellar,” with Phil joined by a variety of guests including Kelsea Ballerini and Hunter Hayes, “Craig’s World,” a reality series centered around Craig Morgan and his family and “Upstream,” which has singer Elizabeth Cook going fishing with stars like Cam and Shooter Jennnings.
Circle is expected to be available across 56 markets throughout the United States.
Source: Rolling Stone
Today in 1960, Brenda Lee’s perennial Christmas single, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” makes its first appearance on the charts.
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is a Christmas song written by Johnny Marks and recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958; it has since been recorded by numerous other music artists. By the song’s 50th anniversary in 2008, Lee’s original version had sold over 25 million copies with the 4th most digital downloads sold of any Christmas single.
Because of her mature-sounding voice, Lee recorded this song when she was only thirteen years old. The song’s declaration of a rock and roll sound notwithstanding, its instrumentation also fits the country music genre, which Lee more fully embraced as her career evolved. The recording features Hank Garland and Harold Bradley on guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano, Boots Randolph on sax, Bob Moore on bass, and veteran session player Buddy Harman on drums.
An instrumental version of the song appears as background music in the 1964 television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which exclusively featured music written by Marks. It can be heard in the scene where Rudolph first arrives at the Reindeer Games and meets another reindeer named Fireball. A fully sung version of the song would later appear in Rankin/Bass’s 1979 sequel Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July. The song was also used in the 1990 film Home Alone during a scene when Kevin McCallister pretends that there is a holiday party taking place in his house, and discourages the burglars from robbing it. The song was also featured in The Christmas Special episode of Regular Show in 2012. The song was also used in D-TV set to the Disney cartoons, Pluto’s Christmas Tree and Mickey’s Christmas Carol.
Although Decca released the single in both 1958 and again in 1959, it did not sell well until Lee became a popular star in 1960. That Christmas holiday season, it placed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time, eventually peaking at No. 14. It continued to sell well during subsequent holiday seasons, peaking as high as No. 3 on Billboard’s Christmas Singles chart in December 1965. Lee’s 1958 recording still receives a great deal of airplay, as radio station formats ranging from top 40 to adult contemporary to country music to oldies to even adult standards have played this version. It has since turned into a perennial holiday favorite, and due to rule changes in 2014 has returned annually to the Billboard Hot 100 chart, reaching an all-time chart peak of No. 8 during the 2019 holiday season.
Source: Wikipedia
With 2019 coming to a close, “Billboard” has revealed their year-end charts, and it certainly seems like it was the year of Luke Combs.
Luke tops eight of “Billboard’s” year-end lists, including the all-encompassing Top Country Artists list, as well as Top Country Artists — Male, Top Hot Country Songs Artists, Top Country Airplay Artists, Top Country Digital Songs Artists, Top Country Albums Artists and Top Country Streaming Songs Artists.
In addition, Luke’s album “This One’s For You,” which tied Shania Twain’s “Come On Over” for the most weeks at number one with 50, was named 2019’s Top Country Album.
The number one entries on “Billboard’s” other year-end lists include:
Top Country Artists — Duo/Group: Dan + Shay
Top Country Artists — Female: Maren Morris
Top Country Artists — New: Blanco Brown
Top Hot Country Songs — “Whiskey Glasses,” Morgan Wallen
Top Country Airplay Songs — “Whiskey Glasses,” Morgan Wallen
Top Country Digital Songs Titles — “God’s Country,” Blake Shelton
Top Country Streaming Songs — “Meant to Be,” Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line
Top Country Tours — Eric Church
Source: Billboard
Today in 2001, Garth Brooks was named as the next recipient of the American Music Awards’ Award of Merit. Following in the footsteps of some of music’s biggest names, Garth received a tribute during the 29th annual American Music Awards telecast, which took place on January 9th. Previous winners of the “Award of Merit” include Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Bing Crosby, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Frank Sinatra and Tammy Wynette. The news followed some other pretty incredible news. Also on this day, Garth Brooks’ “Scarecrow” album was certified gold, platinum, double and triple platinum simultaneously.
Shania Twain kicked off her Las Vegas residency at Planet Hollywood this weekend, treating fans to a lot of the hits they know and love.
“Shania Twain ‘Let’s Go!’ The Vegas Residency,” features a set that includes such Shania classics as “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” You’re Still the One,” “Come On Over,” Honey I’m Home,” “Man I Feel Like A Woman,” and more.
The two-hour show is definitely a party, with Shania encouraging her audience to get up and dance. She even invited some audience members on stage to join her at her “Twain Town Saloon,” dressing them in skirts to perform a “country can-can” during the song “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?”
Shania also brought out her dog Melody and dedicated the song “Forever and For Always” to Prince, noting “He was a fan of mine and I was very inspired to put it back in my show and to dedicate the color purple to Prince.”
Source: Rolling Stone
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