Season 19 of The Voice will return to NBC on Oct. 19.
Blake Shelton—who has served as a coach on every season—will be joined by girlfriend Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend in the red chairs when the show returns this fall.
Kane Brown will serve as an advisor on Team Blake during Season 19. Kane has performed as a special guest during the previous two seasons of The Voice.
“I’m back on @NBCTheVoice this season!…But this time, I’m advising #TeamBlake for the battle rounds,” said Kane via Twitter. “Check back for dates and times! @BlakeShelton #TheVoice”
Advisors typically assist the contestants with song arrangement and stage presence, among other variables, during the battle rounds. Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend selected Julia Michaels, Leon Bridges and Miguel, respectively, as their advisors.
Tune in to NBC on Oct. 19 to catch all of the action.
Gabby Barrett’s “I Hope” is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart (streaming, sales and airplay-based) for the 11th week, which is the second-longest run by a solo female artist in the history of the chart. Only Maren Morris’ “The Bones” enjoyed a longer reign with 19 weeks atop the chart.
Penned by Gabby, Zachary Kale and Jon Nite, “I Hope” is featured on Gabby’s 2020 debut album, Goldmine. “I Hope” topped the Billboard Country Airplay chart in April.
The longest run on the Hot Country Songs chart is Bebe Rexha’s “Meant to Be,” featuring Florida Georgia Line, which spent 50 weeks at No. 1 in 2017-2018.
“I Hope” is nominated for Single of the Year at the upcoming CMA Awards. Gabby is also nominated for New Artist of the Year.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Garth Brooks will soon add another award to his crowded trophy case: Billboard Icon Award.
Garth will be presented with the award at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards, which will air live from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Oct. 14 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.
Garth will join an esteemed group of eight additional artists who have been presented the Billboard Icon Award: Cher, Neil Diamond, Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey.
During his Inside Studio G series on Facebook on Oct. 5, Garth confirmed he will be performing at the show.
“Next Wednesday, we’re receiving the Icon Award, and thing is—only because of Covid rules—[they’re] only allowing so many bandmembers to go,” said Garth. “If you’ll notice, for anybody that’s been with us since the beginning, it will be the same guys that started this whole ship together . . . To think that there’s five of the original seven of us on that stage is really cool.”
Additional performers include Luke Combs, Alicia Keys, Bad Bunny, Post Malone, Doja Cat, Kane Brown, Swae Lee and Khalid.
Kelly Clarkson will host the show for the third time.
This year’s awards are based on the chart period of March 23, 2019, through March 14, 2020 (set for the originally scheduled April 29, 2020 show, which was postponed due to the pandemic). The original eligibility period will remain intact to recognize and honor the chart-topping artists and musical successes achieved and to maintain consistent tracking periods for future shows.
Garth’s Billboard accomplishments include nine No. 1 albums on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, 17 No. 1 albums on the Top Country Albums chart, 19 No. 1 singles and more. Garth is the first and only artist in history to achieve eight diamond-certified albums with sales of more than 10 million units each. Garth is also the best-selling solo artist in U.S. history, certified by the RIAA with more than 156 million album sales.
Lee Brice’s “One of Them Girls” is No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart for the second consecutive week. The tune is Lee’s eighth No. 1 single.
“One of Them Girls” follows Lee’s previous No. 1 single, “Rumors,” which topped the charts in July 2019, and his collaboration with Carly Pearce, “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” which peaked at No. 1 earlier this year.
Lee was inspired to write “One of Them Girls” on Father’s Day in 2019 after a moment of reflection with his family. He penned the song the following morning with Ashley Gorley, Dallas Davidson and Ben Johnson.
“This song was embraced by both fans and radio from the get-go . . . it has flown,” says Lee. “We felt there was something special about it on the night we wrote it and to see how it has resonated is such a blessing and humbling. We are over the moon!”
“One of Them Girls” is the lead single to Lee’s upcoming sixth studio album, Hey World, which drops on Nov. 20.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Following its largest margin of victory in an SEC contest since 2016, Tennessee football climbed to No. 12 and No. 14 in the Amway Coaches and Associated Press polls, respectively, on Sunday.
In addition, CBS announced it will carry the Volunteers’ Oct. 10 showdown with No. 3 Georgia in Athens. Kickoff is slated for 3:30 p.m. ET / 2:30 p.m. CT with Brad Nessler, Gary Danielson and Jamie Erdahl on the call.
Tennessee (2-0) has won an SEC-best and Power-5 best eight consecutive games dating back to Oct. 26 last season. The Vols’ Top 15 ranking is their first since Oct. 15, 2016.
Sophomore Eric Gray rushed for 105 yards and scored two touchdowns as UT dominated Missouri, 35-12, on Saturday in Neyland Stadium. Senior Ty Chandler added 90 yards on the ground and one touchdown. Chandler leads all SEC players in average rush yards per game with 88.0 through Week 2.
Next Saturday’s contest represents the first time both Tennessee and Georgia are ranked in the top 15 at the time of the meeting since Oct. 7, 2006, when the then-No. 13 Vols bested the then-No. 10 Bulldogs, 51-33, in Sanford Stadium.
Sam Hunt will try to score his eighth No. 1 single with the release of “Breaking Up Was Easy in the ’90s.”
Penned by Sam, Chris LaCorte, Zach Crowell, Josh Osborne and Ernest K. Smith, “Breaking Up Was Easy in the ’90s” will impact country radio on Oct. 12. The tune is featured on Sam’s No. 1 sophomore album, Southside, which was released in April 2020.
The new breakup song has Sam yearning for the days before smartphones and social media, as he croons the chorus: “I’m sick of sitting at the house / Dying on my phone / Wishin’ I was somewhere I could be alone / Try to let you go but somethin’ always reminds me / I bet breaking up was easy in the ’90s.”
Listen to “Breaking Up Was Easy in the ’90s” below.
Vols HC Jeremy Pruitt / Credit: 99.1 The Sports Animal
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt previewed the upcoming top-15 matchup against No. 3/3 Georgia on Saturday, Oct. 10 in Athens, Ga. with media members during his weekly press conference on Monday. The No. 14/12 Vols head into Week 3 on an eight-game win streak, which dates back to the 2019 season. UT’s 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff with the 2-0 Bulldogs will be broadcast on CBS.
Full Video Transcript Opening statement…
“Looking back at last week’s game, I felt like offensively there was some improvement there. Again, we didn’t have a turnover and we need to continue to protect the football. One thing I’d like to see: I felt like there were too many times there were too many orange jerseys watching the play finish. We got to do a better job of being technical up front. We’ve got to be able to sustain and finish blocks. Defensively, disappointed in the lack of turnovers. Obviously, we had a couple of opportunities there and didn’t finish on the ball. Didn’t think we played particularly well in the backend of our defense. We’ve got to improve there. Still too many mistakes, too many mental errors. We’ve got to be able to clean that up. Special teams wise we missed a field goal, we kicked a kickoff out of bounds and there wasn’t much opportunity other than that in the punt return game. We have to continue to improve there.
“When you look at Georgia this week, I think it’s one of the better teams that I’ve seen in college football over the last couple of years. I think these guys have a lot of team speed. They’re big. They’re physical at the line of scrimmage and out on the perimeter they’ve got good running backs. Good skill players that get the guys the ball and give you multiple looks. On the defensive side, create a lot of negative plays. Special teams, because of their athleticism, they’ve got good returners. They’ve got good speed and they’re physical on the coverage team, so they don’t have a weakness. It’ll be a tremendous challenge for us, but it’s something we’re looking forward to.”
On the UT defense…
“We’ve been very inconsistent, particularly in the backend. If you put stress on your backend, you have to be able to eliminate big plays and I felt like from a technical standpoint we need really to improve there. We need to improve with our eyes. I felt like having our eyes in the wrong spot got us in trouble in several plays on Saturday and that’s just goes back to eye discipline – we have to be looking at the right stuff. We need to get more turnovers.”
On the health status of OL Jahmir Johnson and DL Elijah Simmons…
“Both of those guys will be available this week.”
On Cade Mays facing Georgia…
“I know Cade’s really happy he’s getting a chance to play. He’s very thankful for that. He went against most of these guys every single day. When you’re a competitor on both sides of the ball, it won’t be no different for the kids from Georgia. They’re used to going against Cade; Cade’s used to going against them. So, they’ll be real familiar with each other.”
On what about this Tennessee team gives him the most confidence…
“They’re willingness to work. They’re very coachable. They understand that we’re not playing at the level that we feel like we’re capable of playing. They understand that we’ve got to go to work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to improve. There are lots of things from a technical aspect that we need to really improve on. We need to improve on our effort and finishing.”
On getting some guys back in the secondary and how physical Tennessee’s football team is…
“We should be gaining some guys back, but listen, as we all know with the testing three days a week, it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen. So, we continue to work a lot of different guys. If we would’ve played today, Bryce (Thompson) probably would’ve been able to play the entire time, so he should be ready to go.
“From a physicality standpoint, we need to improve in a lot of areas – that (the secondary) would be one of them. When we talk about sustaining and finishing, I just didn’t see us finishing blockers, finishing runners. On the perimeter, it’s not to the level we want to be at.”
On what challenges Georgia will present on Saturday…
“I’ve said before, Georgia’s got a really good football team. They’re very well coached. They’ve got good players. They’re going to be there Saturday, so we need to focus on the things that we can control, which is us. We’ve got lots of things that we need to work on. We started working on them last night and we’ll continue through the rest of the week.”
On what he thought of Wanya Morris’ performance against Missouri and what he respects about Richard LeCounte of Georgia…
“Wanya played better this week than he did last week, and he should. He didn’t have near enough practices to be ready to play at a high level the first week. He got three more this past week and he’ll get three more this week. We need him to continue to improve. Richard’s a guy that’s played a lot of ball there at Georgia. He makes plays in the back end. He’s really good and has good eyes. He breaks on the ball well and is a good tackler. He’s a good football player.”
On the jumbo package that the Vols ran in Saturday’s win…
“I felt like the way Missouri plays defense, it probably gave us the best opportunity to ensure that we would have a chance to block everybody in the box. They really put a lot of guys up there and it gave us the best opportunity Saturday. We’ll pick and choose how we use it as the season goes on.”
On what Georgia QB Stetson Bennett brings to the table…
“He obviously is a smart young man. You can see him getting in and out of plays. He moves wide receivers if they’ve got somebody that they can’t block on the perimeter. He gets them in position. He gets the ball out of his hand and doesn’t take sacks. He plays with confidence and I’ve got a lot of respect for him by the way he’s played in the two games that he’s come in. You can see that his teammates have confidence in him also.”
On how he has felt about the play from Jaylen McCollough and Theo Jackson…
“I think all of these guys have got to play at a higher level. I believe the more they practice, they’ll improve. We’ve got to do that. Our competition is going to continue to improve every week and we’ve got to raise our level of play in the backend.”
On if some of the issues in the backend are due to Bryce Thompson being banged up…
“There’s probably a lot of reasons. I’d say the first one probably starts with us, as coaches. We’ve got to do a better job of coaching them up. Players need to have better discipline and (be) looking at the right stuff. We’ve got to be more fundamentally sound in the techniques we use. Most of the guys we have that are playing, they’ve played a lot of ball for us. It’s not like it’s their first time. So, we’ve got to create the right habits every day in practice, so it shows up on gameday.”
On what he saw from the running backs and offensive line on Saturday…
“I feel like we were committed to running the football. That gave us an opportunity to do that. I also feel like we left a lot of yards out there. We ran one particular play 10 times in the game and we only blocked it correctly four times. We’ve got to eliminate those mistakes to give us a chance to have more success.”
On if he believes in needing a signature win to establish a program and if the team is looking at the upcoming matchup with Georgia as just another game on the schedule…
“We really don’t control the schedule. We play whoever the next team is on our schedule. Our team has continued to improve over the last couple of years and we’ve got to continue to do that. We’re nowhere (near) where we want to be. We understand the teams that are in this league and the teams that have had success. When you watch week in and week out, the teams that consistently play the right way, whether it’s securing the football or taking the football away, not making mental mistakes and really playing with an edge, with toughness and effort and all of the intangibles, the teams that can do that over and over and over and sustain, they’re the ones that have success in this league.”
On taking cues from Georgia’s defense and implementing that at UT…
“It starts with having good players. They have good players. They’re multiple with their schemes. They do a really nice job playing man-to-man. They deny the ball. They mix in a lot of different looks. You have to protect the quarterback. You have to be able to establish a run game a little bit to take pressure off the quarterback. You have to be able to throw and catch the football. There’s going be tight windows. There always is against teams that play good defense in this league. I’ve said it many times that the defensive backs place limitations on the defense. They’ve got good defensive backs and they place a lot of pressure on them.”
On who’s idea it was to implement the jumbo package and what they call it…
“Well, Jim (Chaney) has been doing this for a long time, so obviously it’s his idea. What we call it I have no idea. The name that we use might be 12 heavy.”
On the defensive line’s play over the last two weeks…
“We need to be more consistent up front. We need to play harder. We need to sustain for a longer period of time. I think we need to be tied in together with the linebackers and the outside linebackers. Our football team has a long way to go. We have to continue to work hard a improve. Knowing the players on our team and the people on our staff, we’re going to work hard to do that.”
On the offensive line’s improvement…
“There’s not one position on our team that doesn’t need to improve. We have to work hard to do that, particularly the offensive line. They understand that they need to work harder. They need to practice better. They need to finish better in practice. The way you practice is the way you play. It’s our entire team. We have to work hard this week at practice to create the right habits so we can sustain and do it for long periods of time.”
On Jarrett Guarantano’s and the receivers’ performances on Saturday…
“I didn’t feel like we got away from man coverage on Saturday. We need to improve at the wide receiver position. We need to play faster. We need to create some separation at the top of routes. We need to make sure we line up properly to make sure we get success. There were probably two plays in the game that I wish we would have thrown the ball away. Those could have possibly been turnovers, and we can’t have those plays.”
On the receivers needing to be better against man coverage against Georgia…
“I believe it’s a challenge for them. They will get man coverage not only this week, but every week in this league. It’s the way this league is. The windows are very small and there’s very little zone coverage. There are tight windows. You have to be able to separate and you have to be able to make contested catches.”
Carrie Underwood’s first Christmas album, My Gift, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart this week. The new album marks Carrie’s eighth No. 1 on the chart.
The holiday offering, which features a combination of beloved traditional favorites and original material that celebrate Carrie’s faith and the spiritual nature of Christmas, moved 42,767 equivalent units, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The album also debuted at No. 8 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart.
My Gift was produced by Greg Wells and mixed by Serban Ghenea. The album features a world-class orchestra led by conductor David Campbell. My Gift will also be released on vinyl on Oct. 30.
![Sam Hunt Drops New Single, “Breaking Up Was Easy in the ’90s” [Listen]](https://cdn.socast.io/6616/sites/602/2020/10/05155852/Sam-Hunt.jpg#aqua_resizer_image_not_local)
