It’s been another great year in country music…and as we get ready for 2011, we’re looking back at some of the highlights of 2010.
IN SEPTEMBER…
• Kenny Chesney hit number-one with “The Boys of Fall,” from his album Hemingway’s Whiskey.
• Brooks & Dunn play their final show as a duo as they wrap up The Last Rodeo tour in Nashville, Tennessee. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Kenny Chesney released his album Hemingway’s Whiskey, featuring the number-one hit, “The Boys of Fall,” and his current single, “Somewhere with You.” (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Alan Jackson received the prestigious ASCAP Founders Award. The award is given to writers who possess a unique style of creative genius that will enrich generations to come. Past recipients include such artists as Paul McCartney, Garth Brooks, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Smokey Robinson, Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne.
• Loretta Lynn is joined by Miranda Lambert and Sheryl Crow on a new version of Loretta’s classic, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which is the debut single from the all-star album, Coal Miner’s Daughter: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
010 HIGHLIGHTS: September" width="16" height="14" /> Brooks & Dunn remember the very first meeting where they were put together as a duo. (:18)
Ronnie: “I don’t know. I don’t even remember what we talked about. Do you?”
Kix: “No, it wasn’t much.”
Ronnie: “Just kind of small talk. And he just kind of said, ‘Hey, would you guys, you know, maybe get together, put your heads together, maybe write one or two, and see how it works?’ I had never co-written. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what that was about, and I think he was just seeing how it was going to work, and it did.”
010 HIGHLIGHTS: September" width="16" height="14" /> Kenny Chesney talks about his album, Hemingway’s Whiskey. (:30)
“I think in this record that there are traces of a lot of different sides of me. I think that I’m totally capable of being two different people, you know, (laughs) in my everyday life and especially as an artist, and…because there is a big part of me that really wants to be on stage and never do a ballad, ever. But there’s also a part of me that wants to write a record like Be as You Are and Lucky Old Sun, because that’s how I live a lot of my life, you know? And so, I think with this album, with Hemingway’s Whiskey, I have kind of combined a little bit of those two worlds.”
010 HIGHLIGHTS: September" width="16" height="14" /> Miranda Lambert couldn’t believe that Loretta Lynn asked her to sing on ”Coal Miner’s Daughter.” (:31)
“It’s ridiculous. I mean, when I got the…I actually got a note from Loretta, a little card, and it said ‘Miranda honey’ is how it started, and she just went on to talk about me and my career and her…you know, she writes just like she talks, and she asked me to do ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ and I just…of all songs, and it’s not just me cutting ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ it’s me singing it with Loretta. That’s the utmost compliment to me as an artist that she would ask me to do it.”