DAVE'S DIARY - 23/2/09 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 12 - SERIES 11
SUPERSTARS SHINE ON NU COUNTRY TV
Expatriate
Australasian superstar Keith Urban and spouse Nicole Kidman dug deep when
they donated $500,00 to the Victorian bushfire appeal.
So it's fitting Urban and fellow chart-topper Brad Paisley headline the
grand finale of Series #11 of Nu Country TV.
The duo performs the video of their latest hit Start A Band this Saturday
- February 28 - at 8 p m on C 31.
Also performing a video of a #1 hit is Tennessee troubadour Kenny Chesney
with the late Bob Marley's band The Wailers.
Fellow superstars Brooks & Dunn return on a duet with famed singing
actress and TV host Reba McEntire.
Queensland singer Glenn Albrecht expands on Reba's rodeo theme with Bucking
Hell Rodeo Down Under.
And Arkansas-born Joe Nichols, one of many stars of CMC Rocks The Snowy
festival, reprises his song Another Side Of You.
We close out the show with Kinglake bushfire survivors Carter & Carter
and true love song Slow Dancing At Midnight.
The duo is a headliner of Sunday's Wandong Country Music bushfire benefit
festival, also featuring former stockman James Blundell, Jayne Denham
and many more.
CLICK HERE for the full line-up
in Tonkgirl's gig guide.
URBAN COWBOYS AND AXEMEN START A BAND
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Urban
is riding high on the U.S. charts now with 18th Top 5 single Sweet
Thing from his seventh studio album Defying Gravity, released
on March 31. But this week Urban, 41, shares the spotlight with dual Grammy winner Brad Paisley on their hit Start A Band from Paisley's fifth album Play. It was the ninth consecutive #1 hit for West Virginia born Paisley who wants to tour here late this year. Brad and Keith, who won wide acclaim for his Bo Diddley tribute on the Grammys, swap licks in their energetic exhibition. The spotlight is squarely on the Titans of the telecaster with no cameos by frequent guests William Shatner or octogenarians Andy Griffith and Little Jimmy Dickens. |
Urban begins
a 58-date U.S. tour in May that is likely to bring him and Paisley down
under.
Paisley shared his Grammy for instrumental Cluster Pluck with James
Burton, Red Volkaert, Albert Lee, Vince Gill, Brent Mason, John Jorgensen
and Steve Wariner.
Brad, just 33, has been nominated for six gongs and Keith two on the 44th
Academy Of Country Music Awards in autumn.
Meanwhile the unauthorised biography Fortunate Son: The Unlikely Rise
of Keith Urban - has escaped into local bookshops.
The Jeff Apter book tells of the improbable rise of Keith - born Keith
Lionel Urbahn in Whangarei New Zealand in 1967 - but raised in Caboolture,
Queensland.
Apparently, there are references to the vitriol after managerial, recording
and support staff changes.
We can't comment - our review copy must have been lost in the mail.
CLICK HERE
for a Keith Urban DVD review from The Diary.
CLICK HERE
for a Brad Paisley CD review from The Diary on December 15, 2008.
KENNY CHESNEY - THE $90 MILLION MAN
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Tennessee
titan Kenny Chesney won wide acclaim for his role on the recent Grammys
with the late Bob Marley's former band The Wailers. The Wailers, who played a Yarra Bank blues festival in Melbourne, appear in a video for Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven from Chesney's 11th album Lucky Old Sun. Chesney, who topped charts last week on his collaboration with Mac McAnally on Down The Road, earned a cool $90,823,990 in 2008. He ranks sixth behind Madonna, first with $242.2 million, Bon Jovi $157.2 million and Bruce Springsteen with $156.3 million. Rascal Flatts are eighth with $63,522,160 and Taylor Swift is 16 with $45,588,730. Chesney takes over the chart top from Dierks Bentley, who had a number one with the title track of his new CD, Feel That Fire. "I am really happy about having a number one with my very good friend and frankly, one of my songwriting heroes," said Chesney. |
"The idea that you can do this in the studio with a couple of guitars and a great lyric, that people want to hear that? That it's still ok to make records like this? That says a lot about what people really want and respond to."
Chesney shared
some earnings with Heaven writers Marty Dodson and singer Jim Collins
who also wrote five other Kenny hits including The Good Stuff and
She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy.
Collins and Dodson wrote Heaven for Texan rancher and superstar
George Strait - he passed it on to Chesney.
The tractor was not the reason Chesney, 41, did a revealing interview
with Playboy to denounce gay rumours after divorce from Cold Mountain
actress Rene Zellweger.
Speculation was partly due to wording on the actress' annulment papers
that cited "fraud" as a reason for their split.
"What guy who loves girls wouldn't be angry about that? I didn't
sign up for that," said Chesney who claims to have jangled more than
100 country belles.
"I'm pretty confident in the fact that I love girls. I've got a long
line of girls who could testify that I'm not gay. There were years when
I had a better summer than A-Rod. My first five years on the road were
intense, because I was the guy in college who never got laid until I started
playing guitar."
As for the demise of Chesney's relationship with Zellweger, he says paparazzi
are partly to blame.
"I panicked, there's no doubt about it," he says of his reaction
to the overwhelming media attention that came with his marriage.
"I did the only thing I knew to do - I ran. I pushed her away. I
didn't have any clue as to what true marriage meant. I was so used to
committing to one thing - music - and then I had to totally commit to
a second thing, marriage. I didn't know how to commit to both of them."
Chesney is also selling his lavish $5.7 million home in Key West, Florida,
after local newspapers reported its address before he had a chance to
move in.
Probably a good idea as singing satirist Rev Billy C Wirtz scored wide
exposure on Nu Country FM for his song Nathan Lee.
The song was the tale of a Florida florist - a Jim Nabors fan and Good
Samaritan in a lost highway tryst - who joins a nest of Gomer Pyle style
bachelors in Key West "who haven't found the right girl yet."
CLICK HERE for a
Kenny Chesney feature from the Diary on December 15, 2008.
REBA RIDES WITH BROOKS & DUNN
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Singing
actress and TV host Reba McEntire joins superstar duo Brooks &
Dunn in a duet on their video for latest hit Cowgirls Don't Cry. Reba, now 54, has toured here twice - once with Texan Kenny Rogers - and signed with new label Valory for her latest album. But this duet is on Sony-BMG - long time home of Brooks & Dunn who made their debut Australian tour last year. It's the latest single from their 10th album Cowboy Town. They debuted the song live at the 42nd Annual CMA Awards in November. "I had just spent time writing the song on Reba's Duets record, Does the Wind Still Blow in Oklahoma, and when he sat down with Cowgirls Don't Cry co-writer Terry McBride," Dunn said. |
"I was thinking of Reba when I wrote it and how she grew up" around cowboys and the rodeo lifestyle."
Kix Brooks
revealed in an interview last week with Nu Country that the daughters
of Dunn and McBride appear in the video filmed near his Brentwood quarter
horse stud and winery.
The duo return in May with Arizona born chart-topper Dierks Bentley who
is #3 on the Billboard Top 20 chart behind Bruce Springsteen and The Fray
with fifth album, Feel That Fire.
Phoenix born Dierks, 33, bumped fellow Australian tourist Taylor Swift
from chart tops with his new album - that's despite Swift's second disc
Fearless selling three million units in three months.
Dierks and Brooks & Dunn perform Rod Laver Arena on May 4 with Leopold
born Golden Guitarist Adam Harvey.
CLICK HERE for our membership
page to learn how you can win tickets to the gala concert.
CLICK HERE for a
Brooks & Dunn live review from The Diary on March 5, 2008
JOE NICHOLS - ANOTHER SIDE
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Arkansas
born singer Joe Nichols returns to Nu Country with a video for his
vintage hit Another Side Of You from his seventh album Real
Things. Nichols joins Deana Carter, Taylor Swift, Old Crow Medicine Show, Corb Lund and other major artists performing at the CMC Rocks The Snowy festival at Thredbo on March 6 and 7. The singer, who stands 6 ft 6 inches, also tours Queensland and NSW on the Size Matters tour with Carter, Steve Forde and the diminutive diva Jasmine Rae. Nichols, 32, was born and bred in Rogers - the small town where the first Wal-Mart store opened. |
He was raised
on the music of his late grandfather and truck driving bassist father
Mike who died at 46 in 2002 of a pulmonary fibrosis.
Joe performed in a tribute concert on February 9 for prolific songwriter
Dennis Linde who died in 2006 of the same disease.
Linde, writer of Presley hit Burning Love, also wrote Goodbye
Earle for Dixie Chicks, Calling Baton Rouge for Garth Brooks,
Janie Baker's Love Slave, John Deere Green and Queen
of My Double Wide Trailer.
Joe released his self-titled 1996 debut disc on indie Atlanta label Intersound
with finances from friends in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
He moved to Nashville in 1997 and worked as a bar tender, sold steaks
door to door, installed cable TV and toiled as a furniture removalist.
Nichols break was 1999 when he met A-session guitarist Brent Mason who
produced his 2002 disc Man With A Memory.
It ignited the hit The Impossible that earned him three Grammy
nominations.
Joe scored his first #1 hit Brokenheartsville and won the 2003
CMA Horizon before releasing his acclaimed album Revelations.
He wed his childhood sweetheart Heather Singleton in famed Georgian city
Savannah on September 9, 2007.
Joe didn't sing hits Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off, Let's Get
Drunk & Fight or She Only Smokes When She Drinks at the
lavish reception.
Joe scored a flood of hits with honky tonk drinking songs but life began
to imitate art so he checked himself into a substance abuse rehab centre
a month after the wedding.
"I married a woman who's not going to take anything, no slips,"
Nichols said of his wife whom he met when he was 18.
"She's very accountable, and she holds me very accountable. And things
needed to be corrected. This seemed like the surefire way to do that.
Just go into rehab and kick it, you know, and come out a new man."
CLICK HERE for a Joe Nichols
story from The Diary on March 10, 2005.
GLEN ALBRECHT
 |
Queenslander
Glen Albrecht debuts on Nu Country with the video clip for his song
Bucking Hell Rodeo Downunder. The video was filmed at the Mud Bulls and Music festival at Jimna in Queensland in 2008. Glen wrote the song with author and photographer Jenny Dyer who released a lavish 165 page 2007 glossy book Rodeo Downunder. Glen, who played in the famed Webb Brothers band, and twin brother Brett have been in groups since they were 13. The twins, Glen's partner Vicki and Darryl Searle are the focus of Ricochet - a band popular on the rodeo circuit. |
The Albrecht
patriarch worked as a contract dozer driver and Glen followed the heavy
machinery trade by working as a truck driver throughout the vast expanses
of outback Queensland.
Glen punctuates contract cattle mustering with concerts in locales diverse
as Quilpe, Alpha, Tambo, Birdsville, Blackall and Barcaldine.
Multi-media writing partner Dyer, an equestrian and daughter of a dairy
farmer, wrote the lyrics for their collaboration.
She hails from tiny town Widgee - original home of the Gympie Muster,
created by the Webb Brothers.
Dyer's book, replete with more than 200 graphic action rodeo photos,
Further info - www.rodeodownunder.com
DAVID AND MERELYN CARTER - SLOW DANCING
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Merelyn
and David Carter are well qualified as country altruists - and it's
not just their support of the festival bush fire appeals. They also lecture at the Camerata and Australian College of Country Music and have taken younger artists on tour with them. The Carters have also provided board and lodging for peers at their Kinglake farm and former home at Lilydale. It was their Lilydale digs that was the locale for fellow Golden Guitarist Felicity's Nu Country TV hosting role and her interview with Darren Coggan. |
The picturesque
and rustic homestead was the perfect backdrop for latter day ABC 2 and
then Nu Country TV producer and videographer Sofie Bli's filming.
But it was Duncan Tombs who filmed the graphic video for their single
Slow Dancing at Midnight that closes out this week's show.
Tombs filmed the duo performing against the backdrop of high country in
Kinglake and the Yarra Valley.
The song is fifth single from Carter & Carter's fourth album Leap
Before You Look.
"I think Leap Before You Look really reflects on how we try
to live our lives," David Carter revealed.
"We follow our hearts, and sometimes that definitely requires some
leaping."
Merelyn, mother of two daughters and co-writer of the 12 songs on the
album, agrees with her collaborator.
A lot of times you just have to take a jump into the unknown," Merelyn
says.
"In 2006 it all seemed to come together; it was the creative year
we had been waiting for.
Leap Before You Look is the expression of that."
The singer, in her 40's, also celebrated the marriage of one of her daughters
before the release of Leap Before You Look.
"I am a little self conscious about having a child getting married,"
Carter said at the time.
"I still feel 21 myself! I was so very young myself when I had the
girls; definitely a child bride.
Then, after the divorce, the girls and I spent almost five years with
just the three of us, and it was an amazing time of bonding and forming
a very special type of relationship."
Carter & Carter has released a concert DVD - Unchained - that
features their video clips, interviews and career highlights.
They date back well before their single Candle Light And Kisses
won a Gold Guitar in 2003.
Further info - www.carter-carter.com
WIN BROOKS & DUNN CONCERT TICKETS AND CDS
We have more
exciting news.
The promoters of the Brooks & Dunn, Dierks Bentley and Adam Harvey
concert at Rod Laver Arena on May 4 have donated a pair of tickets to
Nu Country.
We'll give these treasured tickets from Michael Chugg Entertainment and
Rob Potts Entertainment Edge to the first viewer to take out a $50 Nu
Country TV membership.
Please email us at music@nucountry.com.au
with your pledge - we'll send the winner the tickets on receipt of
a cheque or money order for $50.
Important note - please email us first and don't send your membership
until you have been confirmed as the winner.
Sony-BMG has also donated copies of the limited souvenir edition of Brooks
& Dunn 10th album Cowboy Town.
Viewers wishing to either renew membership or become members can win that
CD by pledging a solo membership for $22 to cover postage.
Once again please email us first as we only have limited copies.
WIN TAYLOR SWIFT BILLBOARD CONCERT TICKETS
We have great
news in the aftermath of the horrific Victorian bushfires.
The promoters of the Taylor Swift concert at Billboard on March 10 have
donated a pair of tickets to Nu Country TV.
We'll give these treasured tickets to the first viewer who takes out a
$50 Nu Country TV membership.
Please email us at music@nucountry.com.au
with your pledge - we'll send the winner the tickets on receipt of a cheque
or money order for $50.
Important note - please email us first and don't send your membership
until you have been confirmed as the winner.
Swift, who has sold more than six million CDS in less than four years,
also performs an under 18 concert at Billboard in the Melbourne CBD on
Monday March 9.
Universal Music has donated copies of her huge selling second album Fearless
to Nu Country TV.
Congratulations to renewing Nu Country member HELEN POCILUJKO of Coburg
for winning our tickets for the CMC Rocks The Snowy Festival at Thredbo
on March 6 and 7.
Helen took out a Nu Country TV family membership.
Swift, Deana Carter, Joe Nichols, Old Crow Medicine Show and Canadian
Corb Lund head the international artists at the festival.
And The Waifs, Audreys, Sunny Cowgirls, Steve Forde, Jasmine Rae, Pete
Murray, Ash Grunwald, Jonah's Road, John Williamson, Morgan Evans, Ian
Moss and Jake Nickolai are among the national acts.
WIN
NEW CDS BY BEING A NU COUNTRY MEMBER
TAYLOR SWIFT, JASMINE RAE & STEVE FORDE
Nu Country
TV celebrates its 11th series with a brace of prizes to celebrate the
CMC Rocks The Snowy festival and the national tours by superstars Brooks
& Dunn, Dierks Bentley and Taylor Swift.
We have the following CDS for viewers who email our web page and pledge
their $22 membership at music@nucountry.com.au
Taylor Swift - huge selling second album Fearless.
Jasmine Rae - debut CD Look It Up by the Telstra Road To Tamworth
winner and touring partner of Brooks & Dunn and Bentley.
Steve Forde - fifth album Guns & Guitars by the tour mate of
Brooks & Dunn and chart topper Gary Allan.
KACEY JONES CD, DVD, POSTER AND TEE SHIRT PRIZES
Internationally
renowned country comedienne, singer-songwriter and producer Kacey Jones
has given us a box of autographed merchandise for viewers and members
who renew their membership.
A highlight is her acclaimed tribute disc Kacey Jones Sings Mickey
Newbury that is scheduled for Australian release in July.
We have autographed collectors' copies of the CD for viewers who want
to become members of Nu Country TV.
She also autographed tee shirts and posters for Nu Country members.
For your $22 membership and postage you can take your pick of Kacey memorabilia.
We have limited supplies so please email us at music@nucountry.com.au
first.
WILLIE NELSON EXCLUSIVE BOOK
We also celebrate
Shotgun Willie Nelson's 75th birthday on April 30 with a special giveaway
of his collectors' book.
We have limited stock of Willie Nelson - The Collected Writings Of
A Living Legend - The Facts Of Life And Other Dirty Jokes.
The book, featuring yarns, jokes and Willie Nelson song lyrics, is the
latest addition to out prize treasure trove.
It's available for viewers wanting to become members or current members
wishing to renew their membership.
Please email us at music@nucountry.com.au
for a chance to win a copy of this book with your membership.
MIKE BRADY MUSIC FOR YOUR MEMBERSHIP
Internationally
acclaimed singer-songwriter Mike Brady volunteered to become a VIP guest
host of Nu Country TV during our eighth series.
Brady hosted an episode that also featured an exclusive interview about
recording the album in Nashville with expatriate Australian producer Mark
Moffatt.
Mike has also donated autographed copies of his brand new CD Country
To Country to viewers who become members or current members who renew
their membership.
The generous singer donated his autographed CDS to attract your membership
to ensure our survival.
So for your $22 membership including postage you can win Mike's CD Country
To Country.
We have limited supplies so please email us first at music@nucountry.com.au
so we can allocate your reward.
TANIA KERNAGHAN AUTOGRAPHED CDS
Tania
Kernaghan has offered autographed copies of her fourth album Higher
Ground to viewers who either become new members or renew their membership.
The album was produced in Santa Monica, Franklin, Nashville and the Gold
Coast with Daniel Kresco.
Tania recorded 11 songs written by younger sister Fiona and producer Kresco
on the acclaimed disc.
If you wish to be rewarded for your membership with Tania's new CD please
email us at music@nucountry.com.au.
We also have other CDS in our library as rewards for your valued membership
- we rely on membership for our survival.