New Big & Rich album will ‘rock America’s boots off ’
Platinum for Miranda Lambert The radio singles “Tin Man,” “Vice,” and “We Should Be Friends” were strong tracks from the 24-song double-disc album, released in 2016. It was Lambert’s lengthiest release to date.
The album arrived at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums Chart with 122,000 albums sold and No. 3 on the Billboard Top 200 all genre chart with 133,000 total sales. It took 33 weeks for The Weight of These Wings to reach platinum status. (Every album Lambert has released since her 2005 debut Kerosene has gone platinum).
Produced by Frank Liddell, Glenn Worf and Eric Masse, The Weight of These Wings also received multiple Grammy and Academy of Country Music nominations, including a win in the ACM’S Album of the Year category back in April.
Lambert, a Texas native, is also the reigning ACM Female Vocalist of the Year and people realized why when she performed a heart-wrenching solo acoustic version of “Tin Man” at the 2017 ACM Awards that fans and critics fell in love with.
Lambert is currently on tour through October with dates across the US, including her native Texas. She’s also performing 13 international dates in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Canada. Since her debut, she has been very impressive with all her projects. Jenny Gill (Vince’s daughter) pregnant with second child “Well it’s official…baby #2 arriving January 2018! #herewegoagain,” Jenny Gill writes on her social pages, along with a photo showing off her baby bump.
Jenny Gill, the daughter of Vince Gill and Janis Oliver (Sweethearts of The Rodeo) married childhood friend Josh Van Valkenburg in a ceremony at her father and stepmom Amy Grant’s home in 2010.
The new baby will be the couple’s second child after the birth of their son Wyatt Gill Van Valkenburg in 2014. Gill released her debut six-song EP, The House Sessions, in February, which includes special guest appearances from Sheryl Crow, Willie Weeks, Jack Pearson, and Jon Randall. She also wrote five of the six songs on the EP. According to Gill, The House Sessions is meant to establish her own sound and avoid some comparison of her work because of her family name. Currently, Gill is not on tour, she is rather focusing on her pregnancy and family life. Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd
engaged Ryan Hurd asked Maren Morris to marry him, and she simply said, “Yes.” We got the news via her Instagram account. One shared photo on Morris’ account shows the “My Church” singer sitting on her future husband’s lap, with her hand on his knee and the glimmering engagement ring on her finger.
The couple celebrated their one-year dating anniversary in December 2016, and as both are busy with their respective rising country music careers, Hurd says he can’t imagine going through life with anyone else.
“It’s another thing to be supportive and know why this is difficult and what it means to make an album and put your whole self into it. We have really difficult calendars and if one of us wasn’t supportive, it would be really easy to give up on that,” the “Love in a Bar” singer shares of Morris.
The song was written with her in mind. “This is a hard thing to do and it’s not glamorous. Every time I want to quit, she tells me how close I am. She does my career with me and I do mine with her. In chasing my career, I feel like it’s part hers.”
Morris, who received multi-nomination at the 2017 Grammy Awards, is on Sam Hunt’s tour this summer, but will run her own headlining tour, named for her acclaimed Hero album, this fall, starting in October.
There’s a lot of stuff going on now on the country music scene so I am trying to keep you informed. Enjoy the weekend.