BIG FROG 104'S HOT NEWZ FROM NASHVILLE

September 28, 2010 » Circle, The Date: Tonight's the night. Five months after floodwaters forced the Grand Ole Opry out of its North Nashville home, Trace Adkins, Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, the Charlie Daniels Band, Martina McBride, Montgomery Gentry, Brad Paisley and Keith Urban are among those keeping the circle unbroken with tonight's Opry performances (9/28). "It's a great night if you could get this lineup together at any given place at any given time," Paisley says. "But the fact that it's the first time back from this disaster, that it symbolizes the rebirth of this place, that the circle of wood is back out there and that they worked so hard to refurbish this, I wasn't going to miss [it] ... Someone would have gotten a cancellation [if I had] something else going on." GAC will broadcast the two-hour concert special Country Comes Home: An Opry Live Celebration live at 9pm ET, and it will be webcast on opry.com, ustream.com/opry, GACTV.com and on participating artists' sites. Fans are also being offered a chance to win their own piece of Opry history, as 25 commemorative copies of the program are available here. » Hear We Are: Hear another side of the Big Dog Daddy when Toby Keith releases live tracks from his "Incognito Bandito" show on the Bullets In The Gun Deluxe Edition Oct. 5. Recorded during the sort-of-secret June concert at a Manhattan nightclub, Johnny Paycheck's "11 Months And 29 Days," Waylon Jennings' "I've Been A Long Time Leaving (But I'll Be A Long Time Gone)," Roger Miller's "Chug-A-Lug" and Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" are included. And the recordings are about as impromptu as it gets. "This is a band that rehearsed in Nashville, then met me at the Fillmore in New York," Keith says. "They set up, we ran through them quick as we could in a little soundcheck, then we got up in front of the world and said, 'Here we are.'" » Didn't Blink: Keeping busy with two movie releases and recording Tuesday's (9/28) Hemingway's Whiskey, Kenny Chesney still found himself going through touring withdrawal during his year off from the road. "I missed certain things," Chesney says. "I missed the first note of every night. I missed the energy that's exchanged between the crowd and me ... [But] I've been working a lot. Making films has allowed me to feed myself creatively in ways other than making music." Chesney is already organizing a 2011 tour and hitting the media rounds with multiple TV appearances planned this week. See a complete TV schedule and read more about Whiskey below. » Loretta For The Lynn: Fans, friends, music execs and artists convened at Loretta Lynn's Hurricane Mills, TN complex as the international icon celebrated 50 years in music Friday (9/24). Lynn and her sister Crystal Gayle spoke to the media prior to a tented soirée on the grounds of her museum. John Carter Cash, Marty Stuart, Ray Price and Terri Clark were in attendance, and recording artist/painter Ronnie McDowell revealed his family-commissioned painting titled "Reflections Of A Coal Miner's Daughter." Inside the museum and amidst the accumulated memorabilia and awards of her career, Lynn noted that she never loses sight of her humble beginnings. "I look at these awards like they're somebody else's," she said. "That way you can stay grounded. All I do is just close my eyes and I know where I'm from. I go back to that little one-room cabin where I lived 'til I was 11 years old." Asked about an upcoming Grammy tribute at Nashville's Ryman, she said, "I've been hearing this. My daughter told me I was going to get an award or something. Garth Brooks called me last week. I said, 'Garth, there's a lot of things going on that I don't know about and they ain't telling me.' He said, 'Oh my God, I'm going to hang up.' I found out he's giving me the award. He was on the phone long enough to give that away." » Sneak Speak: Taylor Swift is rolling out tracks from Oct. 25's Speak Now through iTunes' countdown program beginning next Tuesday (10/5) with the title track. Subsequent pre-release downloads are "Back To December" (10/12) and "Mean" (10/19). Comcast On Demand and XfinityTv.com will also preview 30 seconds of the songs in the same order each Monday beginning next week (10/4). "Story Of Us" will be available Oct. 22 through Comcast and XfinityTv.com previews, along with accompanying Swift interviews. Details here. In other Swift news, the Hendersonville Star News reports her former high school has named its newly renovated auditorium in her name. Also around the web, MTV reports that asking Swift on a date is on the bucket list of the guys behind the reality series The Buried Life. » Sunday Morning Cutting Down: Looks like Keith Urban's daughter Sunday is being groomed for the family business — music business, that is. The two-year-old showed great enthusiasm for the process during a recent recording session. "I thought the minute she hears her voice through her headphones she's going to be freaked out by it," Keith says, noting his daugher's first two cuts were the ABCs and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." "But she giggled the minute she heard it and then just launched into song at two-years-and-two-months of age. I recorded them and they sound beautiful because it's in a professional studio. I know they're the same tune but a different lyric, but that doesn't matter." No word on when Sunday will be releasing her solo debut. » Camera Ready: Whether in front or or behind the lens, Reba is by no means camera-shy. One of her favorite hobbies is documenting family trips with not one, but three cameras. "My niece Calamity, two of her buddies, Kelly Clarkson, myself and [husband] Narvel went to Yosemite," she says, "I had so much film and footage, and I put it together on my [computer] [and] put a little dialogue and music underneath it, and put it on a disc and gave it to everybody." When she's not being playing shutterbug, Reba is gearing up to release All The Women I Am Nov. 9. » Life Note: Best wishes to Gloriana's Cheyenne Kimball on her engagement to songwriter Casey Twist. "The night he [popped the question], I had to go to bus call, so he literally did it an hour before I got on the bus," Kimball told us before an industry event Thursday (9/23). "So I went to tell [bandmate] Rachel [Reinert], and I was like, 'Rachel, Casey asked me a question. The question! He asked me the question!' She grabbed my hand, and I said, 'I don't have the ring yet.' He asked me without the ring because he was too excited. It was really sweet." Twist took his future bride ring shopping the next weekend. Also, best wishes to Love And Theft's Brian Bandas, who married girlfriend Kelly Barons Sunday (9/26). Ladies, that means it's two down, one to go — Stephen Barker Liles is the only LNT member still on the market. »Hit List Which celeb ditches his usual shirtless look for a gorilla suit in Jamey Johnson's "Playing The Part" music video? If you guessed Matthew McConaughey, you're right! The celebrity blog Celebuzz spotted McConaughey monkeying around on set with Johnson. Read the full article here. Martina McBride gets into the "Danger Zone" during a tour of a military airbase. Watch the footage here. Katie Armiger is going viral for Oct. 5's Confessions Of A Nice Girl album release party. She'll perform songs from collection during the Wednesday (9/29) event, which will be simulcast on katiearmiger.com and GACTV.com at 6pm CT. Armiger also graces the Oct./Nov. cover of Justine Magazine, which hits newsstands Friday (10/1). Darryl Worley and 10,000 other attendees helped raise $200,000 for the Darryl Worley Foundation at the Ninth Annual Tennessee River Run over the weekend. Proceeds will benefit several regional and national charities including the Darryl Worley Cancer Treatment Center in Savannah, TN, which is opening later this year ahead of schedule. Birthdays The late Gene Autry (9/29) Jerry Lee Lewis (9/29) Marty Stuart (9/30) Eddie Montgomery (Montgomery Gentry) (9/30) On TV Tuesday (9/28): Kenny Chesney, Good Morning America (ABC); Various Artists, Country Comes Home: An Opry Live Celebration (GAC). Wednesday (9/29): Zac Brown Band, Ellen DeGeneres Show (syndicated); Blake Shelton, Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson (CBS). Thursday (9/30): Lady Antebellum, My Music Mix (GAC). Friday (10/1): Kenny Chesney, Tonight Show With Jay Leno (NBC). In Stores Tuesday (9/28) Shawn Camp 1994 After seeing Camp perform at a guitar pull last year, Warner Music Nashville label head John Esposito opened the Reprise vaults and discovered Camp's shelved 16-year-old sophomore album. "This is an unchanged snapshot of that moment," Camp says. "At least it's getting out there for the folks to hear. It's kind of a shock, but I'm awfully thrilled." Bill Monroe, Patty Loveless and Jerry Douglas appear. The release coincides with the reissue of Camp's self-titled debut album, which has been out of print since the mid-'90s. Buy here. Kenny Chesney Hemingway's Whiskey Chesney took a major tour sabbatical in 2010 to record this release, featuring lead single "The Boys Of Fall." Named after the Guy Clark song and disc closer, the 11-track collection boasts George Jones on "Small Y'all" and rocker Grace Potter on "You And Tequila." Chesney co-wrote "Reality" with Brett James. Chesney co-produced. The Deluxe CD/DVD edition includes a Chesney conversation about each track, as well as additional songs "Ain't Ever Going Back Again" and "I Didn't Get Here Alone." Purchase the standard version here and the Deluxe CD/DVD set here. Montgomery Gentry Hits And More: Life Beside A Gravel Road The duo's eight-track collection intersperses three new songs among five of their hits. New cut "While You're Still Young" leads the compilation, which also features "Lucky Man," "Some People Change," "One In Every Crowd," "Roll With Me" and "What Do You Think About That." Buy here.   » See You, See Me: Taylor Swift, guest Lionel Richie, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson and Vince Gill (l-r) grab a quick photo op during Thursday's All For The Hall guitar pull in Los Angeles. Proceeds benefited the Country Music Hall Of Fame & Museum. » Orange Of A Different Color: Kenny Chesney trades in his signature University Of Tennessee orange for the Celina (TX) High School orange, as he surprised a packed pep rally for the Bobcats Friday (9/24). Chesney showed the crowd a clip from the football documentary Boys Of Fall, in which the CHS football team makes a cameo. Read the full article here. © 2010 LH Publications, LLC