Thursday Briefing

Joe Nichols has partnered with TheHopeLine in creating a website designed to help people who are struggling with addictions (www.anoldfriendofmine.com). The partnership came about when Dave Anderson, TheHopeLine's director of rescue, saw Joe's music video for "An Old Friend Of Mine." Both the song and video depict the battle with substance abuse, and the song is the closing track on Joe’s upcoming CD release, Old Things New. TheHopeLine will make a HopeCoach available to moderate the chat room on Thursdays from 7pm to 9pm Eastern for an entire month, beginning this week. The goal is to help individuals find help and hope in a moment of need. Having struggled with addiction issues himself, Joe says it was a song he could relate to. Old Things New will be in stores on October 27th.

News From Around The Country
Another Little Big Baby is on the way. This time it’s the married couple within Little Big Town who are expanding the family. Karen Fairchild has announced that she is pregnant with her first baby with husband, Jimi Westbrook. The new baby will be the third for the group, since Kimberly and Phillip each have one child with their respective spouses. …. LeAnn Rimes has announced that she is in the recording studio working on a new project slated for release next spring. She’s been writing all of the songs for the project and confesses that they are definitely about her life, which includes her very public, recent affair and pending divorce. Leann says it’s great therapy.

Old Music Is New Again

A second volume of Hank Williams' rare performances from the Mother's Best Radio Show will be released on November 3rd by Time Life. Unreleased Recordings, the three-disc set features dialogue and banter from the show, as well three full shows in their entirety. The collection also offers Williams' earliest public performance of “Cold, Cold Heart.” …. January 8th would have been Elvis Presley’s 75th birthday and to mark the occasion, Legacy Recordings is releasing a 100-song box set. The four-disc package, Elvis 75: Good Rockin’ Tonight, promises to be a career-spanning retrospective of The King’s work. It opens with 1953’s “My Happiness” and ends with the hit 2002 remix of “A Little Less Conversation.” The set also includes an 80-page booklet and will be on shelves on December 8th. A single-disc version of the album will come out on January 5th.