Tuesday, June 14th, marks another amazing coming-together of the country music community with the star-packed fundraising event, BAMA RISING: A Benefit Concert for Alabama Tornado Relief. Spearheaded by iconic supergroup Alabama, more than a dozen artists will take the stage, including Birmingham resident Sara Evans, Brad Paisley, Kellie Pickler, Jake Owen, Martina McBride, Darius Rucker, and many more. The concert at Birmingham’s BJCC Arena is now sold-out according to The Birmingham News, with the exception of some deluxe $1,000 VIP packages. The event benefits the Bama Rising Fund, established by the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham to support long-term statewide tornado recovery efforts. Visit www.bamarising.org for more details on the event and how you can help.

• Sara Evans, together with husband Jay Barker and their children, live in Birmingham, Alabama, and Sara recently said, “I’m so proud of country music for coming together and doing this benefit concert. It just warms my heart that this is taking place. It’s on our anniversary, and Jay and I are both saying we can’t think of a better way to spend our anniversary than to be helping out the people of Alabama.” Jay, who is also a sports radio personality and former University of Alabama star quarterback, will be among the special guests making appearances at BAMA RISING.
• Brad Paisley‘s music has twice been coincidentally connected to natural disasters, with his single “Water” and his H2O tour launch happening around 2010’s Nashville flooding, and recently with “Old Alabama” on the radio at the time of the Alabama tornado destruction in April. Brad looks at these instances as if he’s been “tapped on the shoulder, like ‘you can help,'” and he says that when Jeff Cook and the Alabama boys called, he was ready for whatever they wanted him to do. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• In addition, Brad has previously announced that all artist royalties from U.S. sales of the digital single for “Old Alabama” are being donated for tornado relief via the American Red Cross.
• As Florida natives, Jake Owen and his family and friends have all been touched by the effects of severe weather at times, and Jake is more than happy to lend a hand for BAMA RISING. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
• Kellie Pickler is another BAMA RISING performer, and she tells us that she’s always proud of the country music community, both the artists and the fans, for the way they strive to look out for those in need. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

  Brad Paisley told supergroup Alabama that he was willing to help with whatever ideas they had for tornado relief in their home state. (:26)
“I said, ‘Whatever you want, I’ll do it,’ and that’s when they came up with the idea to do this concert. I think it’s been well thought out now, and they’ve taken their time in getting this ready. They didn’t jump and do it the next week, you know? We’ve got plenty of time to be ready for that and do a nice thing that night. And what a line-up they’re gonna have. It’s crazy. It’s gonna be memorable, and hopefully we can fix some of what happened. Not everything, but some of it.”

  Brad Paisley may have owed a favor to supergroup Alabama for recording “Old Alabama” with him, but playing BAMA RISING is something Brad is glad to do. (:27)
“These guys, I do…I happen to be capitalizing on music that was made by one of my favorite bands that happened to live exactly where this happened. And around them, around their farms, people lost everything. And they’ve been down there working the whole time to make it better, and they called me right afterwards and just…Jeff Cook left me a message and said, ‘Well, I told you when I was gonna do this with you, payback would be a bear, so, here it comes.'”

  Jake Owen talks about his involvement in the BAMA RISING benefit. (:59)
“I’m pretty lucky. We all are. And it doesn’t take much out of our day to go down and do that and entertain people in order to raise money for a cause like that. But growin’ up in Florida, we were affected a lot growin’ up, multiple times — in my life, three or four times — where we lost a lot of things, personally for us, through hurricanes down in Florida. And I’ve had friends that lost everything, and it’s like a time of despair. People don’t know what to do, and they’re just kind of lost. And if you can do something for those people and make ’em feel better, obviously, we try to do that. But I feel like if I can go play guitar and sing some songs and make people, number one, maybe forget about some things for a little bit and just kind of live in that moment, or just get past it, I’m gonna at least try to do the best I can, you know? I think that’s probably like a cliché, trite kind of sounding answer, but I really mean that. I think everyone does. I don’t think anyone’s goin’ down there to do that just to do it. I think everyone’s got a heart. Country music’s really full of great people.”

  Kellie Pickler talks about the state of Alabama and the April tornado devastation. (:26)
“I love Alabama, and I’ve spent a lot of time in lower Alabama, in Troy and whatnot, and we’ve done shows through there. And man, when I saw the pictures and the footage on television and online, I can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up and see everything you’ve ever worked for your entire life is just scattered through the trees. It’s absolutely unreal.”

  Kellie Pickler is proud of country music and proud to be a part of the BAMA RISING benefit. (:29)
“One of the greatest things about country music is the fact that we always, somehow or another, we always end up comin’ together. And the people of country music — not just the artists, but the fans — come together, too. And we just gotta…we gotta take care of each other; we gotta look out for one another. And I’m really excited about the show. I think it’ll be really, really great, and it always makes you feel good, too, because when you do things like that, I feel like God’s gonna bless it.”