It’s been another great year in country music…and as we get ready for 2010, we’re looking back at some of the highlights of 2009.
IN MAY…
• Brad Paisley attended the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner as the guest of CBS chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Carrie Underwood‘s footage of her second trip to Africa, where she visited orphanages and health centers near Luanda, Angola, participating in the area’s battle against malaria, is featured on American Idol. The episode focuses on American Idol’s continuing “Idol Gives Back” charity initiative. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Montgomery Gentry showed up at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in North Carolina, as the Grand Marshals for the 25th running of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.
• Brad Paisley hit number-one with “Then,” from his American Saturday Night CD. This is his tenth consecutive chart-topper! Brad’s the only artist in nearly twenty years to rack up that many number-ones in a row on Billboard’s country airplay chart! (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Kenny Chesney releases his Greatest Hits 2 featuring the new song, “Out Last Night.” (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Martina McBride appeared on ABC’s hit series The Bachelorette to peform two of her songs from her Shine album, “Ride” and “I Just Call You Mine.” (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Carrie Underwood hit number-one with “I Told You So” from her Carnival Ride CD. This is the second time the song has hit the top of the chart. “I Told You So” writer and original singer Randy Travis hit number with it in 1988…when Carrie was five years old.
009 HIGHLIGHTS: May" width="16" height="14" /> Brad Paisley talks about CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, who invited him to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. (:22)
“He and I got to be good friends when he came and did the Opry during the debates, and he invited me. He said, ‘I want you to sit at my table,’ and he was just great. And I can’t wait. You know, it’s just as much fun just to hang out with him for the evening, and see it through his eyes, you know, what he’s seen, as a journalist…it’s crazy.”
009 HIGHLIGHTS: May" width="16" height="14" /> Carrie Underwood talks about her second trip to Africa. (:23)
“This trip to Africa is going to be a lot different than the last one that we did, because the first one that I got to do for ‘Idol Gives Back’ kind of showed everybody what the problem was. And so many people have donated, and so many people have done such good things. And ‘Idol Gives Back’ has done such good things. This trip is about showing people what good their money has done.”
009 HIGHLIGHTS: May" width="16" height="14" /> Brad Paisley recalls how his hit, “Then,” came to be. (:36)
“That song was somethin’ I wanted to write for a long time — that exact thing, essentially. I didn’t know I wanted to write that exact song, or I would have written that exact song a long time ago, but we had a goal in mind — the three writers and I who wrote that — and it was to capture the feelings that you have early in a relationship, and then to sort of take what is a mature relationship and describe how those feelings change and really do get better. I mean, we were all three in that place in our lives, and being able to say that as well as I think we did, it was really cool to see that come to life like it did.”
009 HIGHLIGHTS: May" width="16" height="14" /> Kenny Chesney says that every song on this hits collection has a special meaning for him. (:30)
“I look at the list of songs on this Greatest Hits 2 record, and I know why they mean somethin’ to me. I mean, I can look at every song and tell ya why I wrote a specific song or why I recorded that specific song. I mean, each one of these songs takes me to a different place on stage. Each song takes me to a relationship, it takes me to a break-up, or it takes me to new love, old love; it takes me to a night on stage when the people were singin’ one of these songs back to me so loud that I couldn’t have ever have dreamt it.”
009 HIGHLIGHTS: May" width="16" height="14" /> Martina McBride believes that her latest hit, “I Just Call You Mine,” connects with people in a number of different ways. (:42)
“I just think it’s…it is the way I feel about John, and he’s a particularly great people-person, so the line really resonates to me about ‘everyone that sees you always wants to know you’ because they do, that’s true, you know, they…he’s a very…he has that thing that attracts people. So I can really identify with the song in that way. But you know what? I also sing it in some ways for other people in my life, too, you know? And I think it’s a song you can sing about lots of different people in your life from different perspectives, so I just love it. I feel like this song…everybody wants to have somebody they can sing this to, and everybody wants to have somebody feel this way about them. So, it’s a very universal feeling, and I just think it’s beautiful.”