Whoo-Hoo! It's Wednesday!

News From Around The Country
Jimmy Wayne has been named National Celebrity Spokesperson for FosterClub, a national foster care network for young people. May is National Foster Care Month, and Jimmy has been feverishly making people aware of the cause by walking from Nashville to Phoenix for his Meet Me Halfway Campaign. Teen homelessness is a problem that hits close to home for Jimmy as someone who was once homeless himself as a young man and taken in by a foster family.

Sheryl Crow has a new album coming out this summer. 100 Miles From Memphis is scheduled to be released on July 20th. She will be touring to support the project and is scheduled to be a part of this year’s Lilith Fair.

Former Dixie Chicks, Martie Maguire and Emily Robinson, have been making the rounds on TV as the a new duo, The Courtyard Hounds. Their first CD was released last week, and they showed up on the late night talk show circuit a couple of times to promote it. If you missed them, you can try to catch today’s episode of the Ellen Degeneres Show or tonight’s Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Slow Start To A Big CRS Week

If the news starts out slowly this week, it won't stay that way for long. It's CRS Week in Nashville. (The acronym stands for Country Radio Seminar; although given enough parties by the end of the week, many attendees may argue that it stands for "can't remember stuff.") Radio professionals from around the country will be gathering in Nashville for the annual lovefest between artists and the medium that plays their music. Forthcoming news should be abundent. Bookmark this page. Your humble scribe will be reporting from Nashville this week.

Meanwhile, back at home, The Country Station is giving away Zac Brown Band tickets this week. The show is March 4th at the Pan Am Center. Where is your recipe for fried chicken?

News From Around The Country
Alan Jackson’s new video for “It’s Just That Way” premiere’s today. Alan solicited ideas for the video from top directors, but in the end, he used the idea presented by his oldest daughter, Mattie. Alan’s new album, Freight Train, will be out March 30th. ..... As of last Friday, the charitable bids for Taylor Swift's guitar have reached $8000. That figure will surely be higher by the time the auction ends this Friday. Proceeds of the online auction will benefit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. ..... Emily Robison and Martie Maguire have been talking about their upcoming album, Court Yard Hounds. The two sisters from the Dixie Chicks aren’t sure how fans are going to react, but Emily feels that even if they have just 10 percent of the people who reacted to them before, or only new fans, the two can still make something from that. You can pre-order the duos debut album on their official website and immediately download four songs off the purchased album

And finally, here’s are some fun facts about “Beer on the Table” singer, Josh Thompson. Like many artists, Josh played sports when he was younger. He was a competitive gymnast. Doctors advised his parents to start him in the sport because of he was so hyper active. Josh says, “I was in it for about ten years. I won our state championship twice and then it just got to be too much. I was at that age where I wanted to go fishing and hang out with girls and it was six days a week, four hours a night.” Now Josh is traveling the country for his Jagermeister Country tour. But unlike most country stars who hit the road in a big tour bus equipped with all the comforts of home, Josh travels in his trusty 18 passenger van. Josh has been piling his band and crew into what he affectionately calls his “Van-a-White” for three years now. A passenger van is not that unusual for home-based acts trying to make a living. But for a signed artist with a hit on the radio and a debut album coming out tomorrow, it’s refreshingly humble.

Gotta Love National Holidays

Taking a moment to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, do you remember how the third Monday in January came to be a federal holiday? Do you remember where you were when this “new holiday” went into effect? Looking back, it was Michigan Congressman John Conyers who started it all by first introducing legislation for a commemorative holiday back in 1968, just four days after King was assassinated. A bit too reactionary, the bill didn’t come to its first vote in the U.S. House of Representatives until 1979. It fell five votes short of the number needed for passage. The two main arguments against the bill were that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive, and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to longstanding tradition (King had never held public office). Plus the proposed date, on King’s birthdate of January 15th, was considered too close to previous holidays. So with the bill going nowhere with the government, The King Center stepped up to garner support from the general public. In 1980, Stevie Wonder released the single "Happy Birthday" to popularize the campaign and hosted the Rally for Peace Press Conference in 1981. Subsequently, six-million signatures endorsing the holiday were collected on the largest petition in US History. That petition was sent to Congress, and after much political wrangling, the new holiday was set up on the third Monday in January to align with other Monday federal holidays. On November 2, 1983, then U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law, thereby creating a federal holiday to honor the man who came to prominence with a dream for civil rights. The holiday was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986. Although, many states put up continued resistance by changing its name or combining it with other holidays. It wasn’t until the year 2000, when South Carolina was the last state to come onboard, that all 50 states recognized Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

In the wake of the devastating 7.0 earthquake that occurred last week in Haiti, George Clooney and MTV Networks have teamed up to hold an international telethon to raise money to support Oxfam America, Partners in Heath, the Red Cross, UNICEF and the Yele Haiti Foundation. The broadcast will air on MTV, VH1, CMT, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, THE CW, and HBO this Friday, January 22nd. George Clooney will host on the west coast, Wyclef Jean will host the New York City event, and Anderson Cooper will appear from Haiti. The impressive list of musicians, actors and actresses who will take part in the benefit will be announced in the coming days.

The sister Chicks are back. Emily Robison and Martie Maguire of the Dixie Chicks are said to have recorded an album under the name Court Yard Hounds, a literary reference with a nod to The City of Thieves. Recorded largely at Martie’s home studio in Austin, Texas, the album is scheduled for May and will feature Emily on lead vocals for the first time, with an appearance from the Wallflowers’ Jakob Dylan. Dixie Chicks’ lead singer Natalie Maines will not appear on the album, but Emily and Martie insist that the group has not formally parted ways.