An talented group of artists from across different genres will take part in NBC’s Elvis All-Star Tribute, which will air on Feb. 17.
The two-hour musical showcase will pay homage to Elvis’ 1968 Comeback Special, which recently celebrated its 50-year anniversary.
Hosted by Blake Shelton, the special will feature a number of country artists, including Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, Darius Rucker, Little Big Town, Pistol Annies, Dierks Bentley and Carrie Underwood. Additional artists include Shawn Mendes, Post Malone, Alessia Cara, John Legend and more.
The day before the historic running of the 103rd Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 26, Zac Brown Band will headline the annual Legends Day concert on Saturday, May 25, on Turn 4 of the infield stage at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Additional acts will be announced soon. In the past, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Chris Janson, Dustin Lynch and more have performed during the show.
Tickets are on sale now, ranging from $35 (general admission) to $250 (VIP).
All concert tickets include admission to the concert and all Legends Day activities, including autograph sessions with current and past Indianapolis 500 drivers.
Check out the 103rd running of the Indy 500 on May 26.
Jimmie Allen will ship new single “Make Me Want To” to country radio on Jan. 28.
Penned by Jimmie, Paul Sikes and Jennifer Denmar, “Make Me Want To” will be the second single from Jimmie’s 2018 debut album, Mercury Lane, following debut single, “Best Shot,” which topped the Billboard Country Airplay chart for three weeks in 2018.
Jimmie joined Darius Rucker as the only African-American country artists to hit No. 1 with their debut singles. Darius, who became a household name in the early 1990s as the frontman of Hootie & the Blowfish, accomplished the feat in 2008 with “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,” which remained No. 1 for two weeks.
Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival unleashed its 100-plus-artist lineup for 2019, and it includes a number of country-centric performers, including Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves, John Prine, Ruston Kelly and more. For the second year in a row, Bonnaroo will feature the Grand Ole Opry stage, with special guests to be announced in the coming weeks.
The 2019 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival will take place June 13–16 at Great Stage Park, the 700-acre farm and event space located just 60 miles south of Nashville in Manchester, Tenn. And, if you were wondering, Nashville’s CMA Fest is scheduled for June 6–9, 2019, so Tennessee’s two biggest festivals don’t coincide this year.
In addition to headliners Phish, Childish Gambino, Post Malone, Odesza and the Lumineers, the four-day festival will feature performances from:
THURSDAY, JUNE 13
Grand Ole Opry Featuring Special Guests
Saba
Space Jesus b2b Eprom b2b Shlump
12th Planet
Sunsquabi
All Them Witches
Magic City Hippies
The Nude Party
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
The Comet Is Coming
Jack Harlow
Eprom
Caroline Rose
Donna Missal
Peach Pit
Hekler
Dorfex Bos
FRIDAY, JUNE 14
Phish (Late Evening Set)
Childish Gambino
Solange
The Avett Brothers
Brockhampton
GRiZ
RL Grime
Beach House
GRiZ SuperJam
NGHTMRE
Gojira
Courtney Barnett
Girl Talk
AJR
Catfish And The Bottlemen
K.Flay
Anoushka Shankar
Nahko & Medicine For The People
Liquid Stranger
Deafheaven
Parquet Courts
Rival Sons
Ibeyi
Jade Cicada
Las Cafeteras
Cherry Glazerr
The Teskey Brothers
Medasin
Tyla Yaweh
Ducky
Monsieur Periné
Mersiv
Crooked Colours
SATURDAY, JUNE 15
Post Malone
Odesza
Hozier
Kacey Musgraves
The National
The Lonely Island
ZHU
Juice WRLD
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead
Gucci Mane
John Prine
Jim James (Full Band)
Maren Morris
Gramatik
Shovels & Rope
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Quinn XCII
Clairo
Bishop Briggs
Hippo Campus
Space Jesus
Tokimonsta
Chelsea Cutler
The Record Company
SNBRN
Ruston Kelly
Whipped Cream
Rubblebucket
Little Simz
Memba
Deva Mahal
DJ Mel
SUNDAY, JUNE 16
Phish (2 Sets)
The Lumineers
Cardi B
Brandi Carlile
Illenium
Walk The Moon
Mac DeMarco
King Princess
Lil Dicky
G Jones
Trampled By Turtles
The Wood Brothers
Hobo Johnson & The Lovemakers
Princess (Featuring Maya Rudolph & Gretchen Lieberum)
The Soul Rebels
The Lemon Twigs
Two Feet
AC Slater
CID
Dombresky
Bombino
Faye Webster
Ripe
Kikagaku Moyo
Igloohost
Dan + Shay’s “Speechless” is No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart for the fourth consecutive week.
Penned by Dan Smyers, Shay Mooney, Jordan Reynolds and Laura Veltz, the song was inspired by Dan’s marriage to Abby Law (May 2017) and Shay’s marriage to Hannah Billingsley (October 2017). The video for “Speechless” features footage from both Dan and Shay’s weddings.
“Thank you to country radio, our fans, our team, our co-writers, our wives and everyone who made it possible for us to celebrate our first four week No. 1,” said Dan + Shay, in part, via Instagram. “What an incredible way to end 2018 and an even better way to start 2019. Everyday we’re living out the movie that we dreamed up our whole lives, and that’s all because of you.”
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Winners of its last eight games, No. 3 Tennessee hits the road for the second game of the SEC slate to take on the Missouri Tigers at Mizzou Arena on Tuesday night.
The game will tip at 7 p.m. ET and will be televised on ESPN2 and can also be viewed online through WatchESPN. Fans can listen live on their local Vol Network affiliate to hear Bob Kesling and Bert Bertelkamp describing the action.
Tennessee (12-1, 1-0 SEC) is coming off one of its best performances ever in conference play, beating Georgia in a lopsided 96-50 game at home. It was tied for the second largest margin of victory ever by the Vols against an SEC opponent. Jordan Bowden (20), Admiral Schofield (18) and Grant Williams (18) combined to outscore the Bulldogs by themselves, while Kyle Alexander recorded his second double-double of the season with 12 points and a career-high 14 rebounds.
Missouri (9-3, 0-0 SEC) was one of four league teams to not open the conference slate Saturday. The Tigers enter Tuesday’s matchup riding a six-game winning streak after going undefeated during the month of December. MU boasts one of the best defenses in the SEC, ranking second with 63.2 points allowed per game. While Mizzou doesn’t score a lot of points, the Tigers are very dangerous from beyond the arc, where they shoot a 39-percent clip to lead the conference.
After Tuesday’s showdown, Tennessee will face another challenging road test by taking on the Florida Gators in Gainesville. That game will take place Saturday night at 6 p.m. ET and will be televised on ESPN.
THE SERIES
• Tennessee trails the all-time series with Missouri, 6-7, dating to 1961.
• The Tigers have a 5-1 edge when the series is played in Columbia.
• The Volunteers have never been ranked higher than No. 21 for a clash with Missouri.
A WIN WOULD…
• Extend Tennessee’s win streak to nine games.
• Give the Vols a four-game win streak in true road games, dating to last season.
• Give Tennessee 17 wins away from home since the start of last season.
• Move Rick Barnes into a tie for 24th on the all-time Division I coaching wins list. Barnes has 673 career victories. Ralph Miller (Wichita State, Iowa, Oregon State) stands alone in 24th with 674 triumphs.
STORYLINES
• Missouri last played on Dec. 29 and will have had nine days off.
• Cuonzo Martin was Tennessee’s head coach for three seasons from 2011-14.
• Tennessee leads the country in assists per game (21.3 apg) and assist/turnover ratio (1.9).
• Over their last five games, the Vols are averaging 92.0 points while shooting .560 as a team.
• Tennessee is off to its best 13-game start since also starting the season 12-1 in 2007-08.
• With an average attendance of 17,499, Tennessee ranks fourth nationally.
• The Vols haven’t trailed since the 10:40 mark of the first half against Wake Forest. That’s a streak of 110 minutes and 40 seconds of game action.
• Tennessee’s 53 first-half points against Georgia Saturday were more than UGA managed the entire game (50).
LAYUPS
• Grant Williams leads the SEC in scoring (19.9 ppg), ranks second in field-goal percentage (.597), fourth in rebounding (8.3 rpg) and eighth in assists (4.1 apg). He also owns the team’s best plus-minus (per 40) rating at +25.36.
• Admiral Schofield is the SEC’s third-leading scorer (18.2 ppg), and his .455 3-point percentage ranks second in the league.
• Kyle Alexander is shooting .826 from the field over the last three games (19 of 23).
• Jordan Bowden is coming off a season-best, 20-point effort in Saturday’s dismantling of UGA.
• Junior guard Lamonté Turner, last season’s SEC Co-Sixth Man of the Year, returned from a nagging left shoulder injury to play 15 minutes vs. Georgia Saturday. In just his fourth appearance of the season, Turner totaled six points and two assists.
LAST MEETING VS. MISSOURI
• The 21st-ranked Tennessee Volunteers never found a rhythm offensively on Jan. 17, 2018, in Mizzou Arena, falling to Missouri, 59-55.
• After back-to-back threes by the Tigers, the Vols faced a 10-point deficit with 6:43 remaining. UT would fight back to make it a one-point game with 1:33 left in the game.
• After a stop on defense, Tennessee had a chance to take the lead, but a turnover in the paint with less than a minute to play gave the Tigers the ball back to run the clock down. The Volunteers were forced to foul with 14.4 seconds left. Mizzou guard Jordan Geist knocked down both free throws to make it a 3-point game.
• On the ensuing trip down the floor, Mizzou fouled James Daniel III with 4.4 seconds left, and he converted on just one of the attempts. Tennessee was forced to foul after the second attempt, and Missouri forward Kevin Puryear drained both attempts to seal the game.
• The Vols were led by Grant Williams, who finished with 15 points, five boards and a pair of steals in 35 minutes of action. Kyle Alexander posted 12 points on 6-of-6 shooting to go along with four rebounds and three blocks. Admiral Schofield chipped 11 points as well to round out UT’s double-digit scorers on the night.
• Missouri was locked in to begin the second half, going on a 7-0 run over the first four and a half minutes of play to take a 34-27 lead. The Vols responded with a 9-2 run of their own to tie things up at 36-36.
• Tennessee struggled early on in the game, never finding a consistent flow on offense. The Vols shot 34 percent from the field in the first half compared to Mizzou’s 45 percent.
MARTIN LED VOLS FOR THREE YEARS
• Second-year Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin was the head coach at Tennessee for three seasons from 2011-14.
• Martin led the Vols to a 63-41 (32-20 SEC) record and a memorable 2014 NCAA Tournament run that began in the First Four and ended in the Sweet Sixteen (one possession away from the program’s second all-time Elite Eight appearance).
• On April 15, 2014, it was announced that Martin had accepted the head coaching job at Cal, where he spent three seasons before transitioning to Mizzou.
MEMORABLE VOL PERFORMANCES AGAINST MISSOURI
• Knoxville native Rob Jones totaled 14 points, 11 rebounds, one assist and a team-high three blocks against the Tigers Dec. 10, 1984, in Columbia, but it wasn’t enough, as Missouri posted a 70-61 victory. Five Tigers scored in double figures in the win.
• Mizzou had no answer for the great Bernard King, as the legendary Vols forward recorded a double-double with 32 points and 18 rebounds in a 99-77 Tennessee triumph at the Big Sun Invitational on Dec. 21, 1974 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
• Two-time first-team All-SEC honoree Mike Edwards tallied a team-high 19 points against Missouri during a 67-57 loss to the 12th-ranked Tigers in the 1972 Vol Classic title game in Knoxville on Dec. 16, 1972.
• In the first-ever meeting in this series, 6-10 Tennessee center Orb Bowling led the Vols in scoring (12) and rebounding (8), but Missouri managed an 86-61 win on Dec. 20, 1961, in Knoxville.
ROAD WARRIORS
• Dating to the start of last season, Tennessee has won 16 games away from home.
• That includes victories this year over Louisville and Gonzaga (both at neutral sites) and at Memphis.
BALANCED SCORING EACH HALF
• Tennessee’s scoring output has been balanced in each half this season.
• The Vols score 43.3 points in the first half of games (563 total points).
• Tennessee’s second-half scoring average stands at 42.1 points (547 total points).
UNDER BARNES, VOLS ARE 31-9 AS A RANKED TEAM
• Tennessee has played 40 games as a ranked team (AP poll) under head coach Rick Barnes, and the Vols are 31-9 (.775) in those contests.
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Tennessee defensive back Bryce Thompson was named to the Football Writers Association of America Freshman All-America Team on Monday following his standout first collegiate season.
Thompson was the nation’s No. 1-rated true freshman cornerback by PFF College at the end of the regular season and totaled 34 tackles, 4.0 TFLs, three interceptions, seven PBUs and 10 passes defended.
He collected All-SEC Freshman Team honors last month and his three interceptions ranked third in the SEC.
Thompson started 10 games and grabbed SEC Freshman of the Week honors after tallying two TFLs and an interception in his first-career start – a win over ETSU in Week 2.
He was named to the PFF College SEC Defensive Team of the Week three different times.
The FWAA Freshman All-America Team is the most prestigious of the freshman All-America honors. A 13-person panel of nationally-prominent college football experts representing each of the FBS conferences along with independents selected the team.
Thompson is the 10th Vol to collected FWAA Freshman All-America honors, which began in 2001. He gives Tennessee back-to-back FWAA All-Americans following offensive lineman Trey Smith’s selection in 2017.
The Irmo, S.C., native is the first Tennessee defensive back selected to the team since Eric Berry in 2007.
Thompson joins redshirt freshman punter Joe Doyle as UT’s freshman All-America honorees for 2018. Doyle, who led the SEC in total punting yards, was named to the USA Today Freshman All-America team in December.
Tennessee FWAA Freshman All-Americans (All-Time, 2001 – present)
2018 Bryce Thompson, CB
2017 Trey Smith, G
2014 Derek Barnett, DE
2011 A.J. Johnson, LB
2010 James Stone, C
2009 Aaron Douglas, OL
2007 Eric Berry, DB
2004 Roshaun Fellows, CB
2003 James Wilhoit, PK
2001 Kelley Washington, WR
2018 FWAA Freshman All-America Team Offense
QB Trevor Lawrence, Clemson
QB Adrian Martinez, Nebraska
RB Jermar Jefferson, Oregon State
RB Anthony McFarland, Maryland
WR Rondale Moore, Purdue
WR Jayden Reed, Western Michigan
WR Jaylen Waddle, Alabama
OL Trace Clopton, Southern Miss
OL Keegan Cryder, Wyoming
OL James Empy, BYU
OL Creed Humphrey, Oklahoma
OL Cade Mays, Georgia
OL Isaiah Wilson, Georgia
Defense
DL Jordan Davis, Georgia
DL Jamal Hines, Toledo
DL Juwuan Jones, WKU
DL Austin Lewis, Liberty
LB Zaven Collins, Tulsa
LB Carlton Martial, Troy
LB Merlin Robertson, Arizona State
LB Mike Rose, Iowa State
DB Paulson Adebo, Stanford
DB Andrea Cisco, Syracuse
DB Adrian Frye, Texas Tech
DB Caden Sterns, Texas
DB Patrick Surtain II, Alabama DB Bryce Thompson, Tennessee
Specialists
P Clayton Howell, Appalachian State
K Andre Szmyt, Syracuse
KR K.J. Hamler, Penn State
PR Marcus Hayes, New Mexico
AP Pooka Williams Jr., Kansas
Head Coach
Josh Heupel, UCF
2018 FWAA Freshman All-America Committee
Shaun Alexander
Mark Anderson (MW)
Mark Blaudschun (ACC)
Scott Dochertman (Big Ten)
Andrew Greif (Pac-12)
Blair Kerkhoff (Big 12)
Doug Smock (Conference USA)
Ron Higgins (SEC)
John Wagner (MAC)
Mark Giannotto (American Athletic)
Steve Richardson
Mike Griffith (Chair/Independents)
Tommy Hicks (Sun Belt)
Carrie Underwood has a lot to look forward to this year as she awaits the birth of her second child in the next month or so. The impending bundle of joy will join big brother Isaiah, 3, and daddy Mike Fisher in the growing household.
2019 will also be busy for Carrie on a professional front. In addition to helming her Calia activewear line, the country music star will embark on her headlining Cry Pretty Tour 360 in May. Carrie will play 55 arenas across the U.S. and Canada, including stops in Las Vegas, Toronto, Denver, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York City, Boston, Atlanta and more.
As Carrie told Kix Brooks of American Country Countdown, she cherishes her role as a “country music singer, boss and mom.”
“There’s a lot happening, but that is what we take on as women, and I cherish every role I get to be in—the country music singer, you know, the boss, the whatever, the mom,” says Carrie. “Those are all good things, and I feel like moms everywhere just know. They juggle. I juggle. We’re all doing the same things, just in different ways. Um, we’ve all got jobs to do, and we’ve got babies to take care of and it all happens at once, and you figure it out.”
Carrie’s new single, “Love Wins” is currently Top 20 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. The single follows Top 10 lead single, “Cry Pretty,” from her 2018 album of the same name.
Newlyweds Scotty McCreery and wife Gabi added a new puppy to their family.
Scotty revealed the news via Instagram with a pic of Gabi holding the new pup named Moose. According to Scotty, Moose is a seven-week-old yellow Labrador retriever from breeder Little Creek Labs is nearby Clayton, N.C.
While Moose is “officially” Gabi’s dog, Scotty assures us he loves Moose very much, saying, in part, “Gabi has always wanted to name her puppy ‘Moose,'” and she finally got her wish. Moose even has his own Instagram account: @MooseMcCreery.
Scotty and Gabi married in June 2018. The couple met in kindergarten in Garner, N.C., and grew up together in the close-knit community. They began dating six years ago during their senior year at Garner High School. Gabi has appeared in several of Scotty’s music videos, including “The Trouble with Girls,” “Feelin’ It” and “Five More Minutes.”
Singer/songwriter Steve Moakler and wife Gracie welcomed their first child—a son named Jackson (Jack) Thomas Moakler—on Jan. 5.
Both Steve and Gracie shared posts on Instagram announcing the special occasion with a pic of baby Jack. According to Gracie’s post, Jack was born around 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 5 after almost 24 hour of labor.
Steve stated: “Dear World, I’d like to introduce you to our son, Jackson Thomas Moakler. His buddies call him Jack…Words cannot describe how blown away we are to be his parents!! He and his momma are happy and healthy, and his Dad is over the moon. Praising the Lord. 🙌🏼❤️🌙👶🏻.”
Gracie added: “Everyone, meet the newest member of the Moakler family! Jackson Thomas “Jack” joined us this afternoon around 2:30. Almost 24 hours of labor to birth these 9 lbs of chunky love. We are obsessed and overjoyed!!! ✨.”
Steve, who has penned songs for Dierks Bentley (“Riser”), Ashley Monroe (“If Love Was Fair”), Jake Owen (“Surefire Feeling”) and more, released his new album, Born Ready, in 2018.
THURSDAY, JUNE 13
