ShowbizJunkies

By Bob Doerschuk Used by Permission © 2013 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.   Imagine your name has just been announced at the CMA Awards as New Artist of the Year. Celebrities seated around you in Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, the ones you admired as you were growing up, are applauding. [...]

By Sarah Skates Used by Permission, © 2013 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.   In Blue Sky Riders, members Gary Burr, Kenny Loggins and Georgia Middleman draw from years of musical experience to create a sum greater than its parts. The result is a showcase of finely crafted songs and [...]

By Bob Doerschuk Used by Permission © 2013 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc. You don’t need to know that Tyler Hubbard comes from Monroe, Ga., or that his partner in Florida Georgia Line, Brian Kelley, comes from Ormond Beach, Fla. It’s the music that lets you know these two guys [...]

By Bob Doerschuk Used by Permission © 2013 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc. If Westerns are your type of film, then the name Lucky Ned Pepper might ring a bell: It’s the bad guy in True Grit, a nasty, cantankerous character typical of those that prowled the plains and prairies. [...]

By Tom Roland   Used by Permission © 2013 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.   Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party won CMA’s Album of the Year Award in 2011, amassing more sales than any other Country album in that calendar year. And if anyone still harbored doubts about his stature, [...]

By Bob Doerschuk Used by Permission © 2012 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc. You don’t need to know that Tyler Hubbard comes from Monroe, Ga., or that his partner in Florida Georgia Line, Brian Kelley, comes from Ormond Beach, Fla. It’s the music that lets you know these two guys [...]

By Bob Doerschuk Used by Permission © 2012 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc. Kelleigh Bannen never made the trek to Nashville — she was already there. Born and raised in Music City, she was singing and writing songs when she was 2 years old. Well, actually, as she notes in [...]

By Bob Doerschuk Used by Permission © 2012 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.   Rather than flow in one direction, similar to a storyline in a single song, Bill Gentry’s life has veered in a dozen directions. The son of a minister who died when he was 2, Gentry won [...]

By Bob Doerschuk Used by Permission © 2012 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.   Counting down the days to his self-titled debut, JT Hodges proclaimed August “Prize Month.” On his various social sites, he invited fans to vie for more than 160 prizes, ranging from personalized handwritten notes to autographed [...]

By Deborah Evans Price Used by Permission © 2012 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.   Few people on Music Row, if any, possess a more diverse résumé than Kix Brooks. He can be heard weekly as host of the syndicated radio show “American Country Countdown with Kix Brooks.” He co-owns [...]