ERNEST is headed to Texas April 19 to play music from his upcoming album, Nashville, Tennessee. Tickets are available now at axs.com. Nashville, Tennessee arrives April 12, and is available for preorder and presave now.
Hailey Whitters is the latest country artist to praise Beyoncé and her new album, Cowboy Carter. “idc how country you are the new Beyoncé record slaps im a sucker for lyrics and im hangin on to every word here,” Hailey shares on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Ahead of Sunday’s CMT Music Awards, Luke Bryan is trekking down memory lane to recount a special memory of the awards show.
“The CMT Awards holds a special place in my heart because it was my first big TV performance of ‘Country Girl (Shake It for Me).’ I think back then, I started trending on Twitter because of that performance,” Luke recalls to the press of his 2011 delivery. “At that time, I’m not even sure what ‘trending on Twitter’ was. I just knew I was trending there and that was a good thing.”
Going into this year’s show, Luke’s excited to be a Collaborative Video of the Year nominee with his buddy Jon Pardi for their single, “Cowboys and Plowboys.”
“To be nominated with Pardi on this as a collaboration is very special,” says Luke. “Loving that Pardi and I have this song out right now, too.”
The 2024 CMT Music Awards air live from Austin, Texas, on Sunday, April 7, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.
Beyoncé‘s put a new lasso twirl on her #1 hit “Texas Hold ‘Em,” releasing a “Pony Up” remix with different lyrics and vocals.
The song includes a new breakdown, during which Beyonce commands, “Now I’ma need all my cowboys to the dancefloor/ Get to the dancefloor.” There’s also a whole new lengthy second verse with a different melody, as Bey sings, “Woke up this mornin’, my heart keeps racin’/ Straight to the bottom, we all need salvation/ Need you to end this drought, take me downtown.”
A new outro completes the remix, as Bey sings, “Pony up and salute your town/ Chasin’ our sins away with brown/ And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you/ Baby, pour that sugar and liquor on me, too/ Furs, spurs, boots/ There’s a whole lot of South comin’ out … whole lot of truth comin’ out.”
Meanwhile, the superstar has launched a mysterious website, BeenCountry.com. It features three pictures: one of Bey as a young girl competing at the Texas Sweetheart Pageant; a school photo of her mom, Celestine “Tina” Beyincé, as a little girl; and a current picture of Bey in full cowboy regalia.
There’s also a picture of a banjo, the words “Always Been Country” and the repetition of what Beyoncé has always said about Cowboy Carter: “This ain’t a country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.”
Fans have noted billboards with similar imagery in Los Angeles. Since the website also has an invitation to sign up for updates, some are speculating that it’s teasing a possible tour.
Cowboy Carter‘s lead single, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” is now approaching the top 30 of the country charts. The 27-track album also features cameos by Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson on interludes.
To celebrate her 10th year in country music, Kelsea Ballerini‘s digging back into the archives to release a reimagined version of her debut single, “Love Me Like You Mean It.”
“Ten years ago, i was twenty, naive, starry eyed, and absolutely relentless on putting my music out into the world. i'm proud to say, nothing has changed.except a DECADE of this wildly beautiful journey we've gotten to share full of tours and sing alongs, wins and losses, and growing up together,” Kelsea reflects on Instagram.
She continues, “soooo, before we move into new music (yes, it's coming i swear) i wanted to celebrate the beginning with you. the song that started it all, love me like you mean it (reimagined and ten years later) comes out tomorrow night at midnight.”
“oh, and i'll be performing it on the @cmt awards sunday. see you there. love you, mean it,” adds Kelsea.
Kelsea’s post also includes a preview clip of the reimagined track and its cover art.
“Love Me Like You Mean It” arrived in 2014 and became Kelsea’s first #1 hit. It was also the lead single from her debut album, The First Time.
You can presave the reimagined version of “Love Me Like You Mean It” now to hear it as soon as it drops.
The 2024 CMT Music Awards, hosted by Kelsea, air live from Austin, Texas, on Sunday, April 7, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.
Kelly Clarkson recently covered Keith Urban‘s “Somebody Like You” on her talk show’s Kellyoke segment, and Keith’s singing his praises about it.
“Kelly !!!!!! loooooove you singing this. hell, I love you singing anything.. do you take requests ?! @kellyclarkson,” Keith wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, while reposting Kelly’s performance video.
With a cover in the books, naturally fans have asked for a Kelly and Keith collab.
“Fan of both of you, would love for the two of you to do a duet,” one fan wrote.
“Somebody Like You” arrived in 2002 as the lead single off Keith’s third album, Golden Road.
Lady A was on ABC’s Good Morning America Thursday to perform their latest single, “Love You Back.”
Before their performance, Lady A’s Hillary Scott chatted about their heartbreak tune and its storyline.
“I think we all have had that experience where we realize like, ‘OK, continuing to just think about all these memories, they’re not giving me what the person really did.’ So it’s just, how do you move forward from that? It feels [like] just a very, very relatable message, and [I] love singing it with [Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood],” shares Hillary.
The group then performed “Love You Back” with their signature harmonies, accompanied by acoustic guitars, a brushed drum and a shaker.
“Love You Back” is the lead single from Lady A’s forthcoming new project. Their latest full-length album is 2021’s What A Song Can Do.
Lainey Wilson, Brooks & Dunn and rocker Sammy Hagar will perform a tribute to Toby Keith at Sunday’s CMT Music Awards.
Reported by Variety, the news arrives on the heels of the Country Music Association’s announcement of Toby’s forthcoming posthumous induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Additionally, Lukas Nelson and former professional baseball pitcher Roger Clemons will also pay homage to Toby via guest appearances.
CMT will also air a tribute special, CMT Music Awards Celebrates Toby Keith, on April 11 at 10 p.m.
The 2024 CMT Music Awards air live from Austin, Texas, on Sunday, April 7, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.
At Disney’s virtual 2024 meeting of shareholders on Wednesday, members rejected nominees allied with activist investor Nelson Peltz‘s effort to win seats on their Board of Directors. Peltz, 81 who heads investment firm Trian Partners, failed to get enough votes in his favor to clinch a board seat (as did Trian’s other nominee, ex-Disney Jay Rasulo).
The company announced that the majority of shareholders voted in support of a 12-person slate of board nominees put forward by Disney (including CEO Bob Iger), ending a months-long proxy battle centered on the company’s navigation of the onset of the streaming era. Trian Partners had leveraged its standing as one of Disney’s largest shareholders to carry out a high-profile campaign critical of the company’s growth strategy. Peltz sought board seats for himself as well as former Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo, calling on shareholders to deliver them the seats currently held by Maria Elena Lagomasino and Michael Froman.
Per Variety, preliminary results show that Iger won reelection with 94% of the votes cast in his favor, with Peltz receiving just 31% and Rasulo much less. Maria Elena Lagomasino, the incumbent Disney director, received twice as many votes as Peltz and five times as many as Rasulo. Investors voted on three competing board candidate slates — Disney’s own recommended 12-member lineup; Trian’s nominees, Peltz and Rasulo; and three from investment firm Blackwells Capital, which also did not get enough votes to win board seats.
Iger said in a statement: “I want to thank our shareholders for their trust and confidence in our board and management. With the distracting proxy contest now behind us, we’re eager to focus 100% of our attention on our most important priorities: growth and value creation for our shareholders and creative excellence for our consumers.”
Two brothers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to insider trading in securities in the company that ultimately took former President Donald Trump’s media business public.
According to federal prosecutors in New York, Michael Shvartsman, 53, and Gerald Shvartsman, 46, made millions by trading in shares of Digital World Acquisition Corporation before it merged with Trump Media. Michael Shvartsman, head of Miami-based venture capital firm Rocket One Capital, and Gerald Shvartsman, 46, each pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud before U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan. Rocket One’s chief investment officer, Bruce Garelick, is scheduled to face trial on related charges on April 29.
Reuters reports that prosecutors charged the trio last year with illegally trading on inside information about Trump Media & Technology Group’s (TMTG) plan to go public through a merger with a blank-check company. TMTG operates Truth Social, Trump’s main social media platform. It is alleged that the trio signed confidentiality agreements in June 2021, when they were approached to become early investors in Digital World Acquisition, the blank-check company, which required them to keep information they learned confidential and not trade the company’s securities in the open market. Prosecutors say that after hearing the company was in merger talks with TMTG, the trio tipped others and bought Digital World securities, selling them after the deal was announced on Oct. 20, 2021, to make a total of $22 million in illegal profit.
Per ABC News, each of the men face up to 20 years in prison when they’re sentenced in July, but prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence of about three years. There was no evidence that former President Trump was aware of the brothers’ conduct, and he was not part of the case.
Did you know it’s been a while since Sam Hunt performed onstage at an award show?
“I did a run of award shows for a few years there and haven’t done any in a while, especially the country music award shows,” Sam shares ahead of his 2024 CMT Music Awards performance, before talking about some changes he’s noticed.
“There are a lot of new acts and the artists who I would call peers [have] changed. There was a time when I kind of knew everybody and had at least a cordial acquaintance relationship with everybody, and now there’s a lot of them that I don’t know,” he says.
“It’ll be interesting, I think, to play in front of what feels like a slightly different award show audience in terms of the industry and my peers [that] would have been there maybe in 2016 and 2017,” Sam explains. “Maybe there are a few more butterflies, just because I’m not quite as comfortable or don’t necessarily feel as a part of the current club, you know?”
“But I think that’ll be fine. There are a lot of folks that I still know, and a lot of familiar faces will still be out there,” he says. “And of course, the fans that have been with me for a long time.”
So, what can fans expect from his “Locked Up” performance?
“I’m going to try to recreate some of that Folsom prison vibe,” Sam teases. “I don’t know if we settled on exactly how much they’re going to let us do with how we’re going to recreate that scene, but we’re going to try to go for it if we can.”
The 2024 CMT Music Awards airs live Sunday, April 7, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.
