Toby Keith to Undergo Surgery

Toby Keith is set to go under the knife this week, but that will not keep him away from the stage and the limelight for long.

Keith will have his galbladder removed after being in pain for some time.

According to a report from Got Country, Toby Keith has rescheduled his Aug. 2 performance at Fort McCoy for Aug. 30. However, he will be back on the stage Friday (Aug. 3) in Detroit Lakes, Minn., to continue his Live in Overdrive Tour.

Here is wishing Mr. Toby Keith a fast and healthy recovery.

Glen Campbell cancels international concert dates

Glen Campbell has ended up canceling his tour in Australia and New Zealand next month for health reasons. He was to be joined by Kenny Rogers. The Country Music Hall of Famer is battling Alzheimer’s disease and according to his spokeswoman, the singer was not up for “the very long flight that it would require.”

The tour dates were scheduled to be Glen’s last international stop on his Goodbye Tour. Kenny Rogers will continue with the tour as planned which kicks off on August 10 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Australian country artist will fill in as special guests.

Glen, best known for his hits like “Gentle On My Mind,” ‘’Wichita Lineman,” and “Rhinestone Cowboy,” received the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this year. He also made his final appearance at CMA Music Festival. Glen has shows scheduled cross the U.S. through October.

Best of wishes go out to the singer and his family during the battle of this awful disease.

Jay DeMarcus, of Rascal Flatts, welcomes his second child

Rascal Flatts member Jay DeMarcus and his wife, Allison, are celebrating the birth of their second child. Dylan Jay DeMarcus was born yesterday afternoon (July 20) in Nashville, and weighed 7lb. 11oz. Both the little one and mom are said to be “doing well in a local hospital.”

Jay was in Detroit when wife, Allison went into labor, but he hopped a flight from the Motor City to Music City and arrived just in time to watch his new son be born. Without even ditching his hospital scrubs, he then hightailed it back to Michigan to perform with Rascal Flatts.

Dylan is the couple’s second child, and back in December 2010, the pair welcomed daughter Madeline Leigh. Big congratulations go out to Jay and Allison DeMarcus!

Miranda Lambert cancels concert dates

It is hard to believe that the tough country girl could get sick but especially bad enough to have to cancel a show.

Miranda's publicist told the Boot that "Due to overextending her voice, Miranda Lambert has been placed on vocal rest. She is under the care of her doctor and hopes to return to the road next weekend."

Thoughts and prayers go out to the East Texas country singer and her husband, Blake Shelton, as she tries to rest and get well again.

Top 100 greatest country songs

This is the top 100 greatest country songs according to Taste of Country. I must admit I was surprised by a few of the songs on this list but I was more surprised by the songs that were not on the list. When you read this see what you think and let me know.

100. Achy Breaky Heart – Billy Ray Cyrus
99. Big Green Tractor – Jason Aldean
98.  How Do I Live – Trisha Yearwood
97. Take This Job And Shove It – Johnny Paycheck
96. That’s What I Love About Sunday – Craig Morgan
95. Elvira – Oak Ridge Boys
94. If You’re Going Through Hell – Rodney Adkins
93. Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses – Kathy Mattea
92. Brokenheartsville- Joe Nichols
91. Boondocks – Little Big Town
90. Long Black Veil – Lefty Frizzell
89. Before the Next Teardrop Falls – Freddy Fender
88. One More Day – Diamond Rio
87. Riding With Private Malone – David Ball
86. Honky Tonk Badonkadonk – Trace Adkins
85. Easy Loving – Freddie Hart
84. Long Black Train – Josh Turner
83. If I Die Young – The Band Perry
82. She Wouldn’t Be Gone – Blake Shelton
81. Highwayman – The Highwaymen
80. Gettin’ You Home – Chris Young
79. Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On – Mel McDaniel
78. It’s a Great Day to be Alive – Travis Tritt
77. I Swear – John Michael Montgomery
76. Have You Forgotten – Darryl Worley
75. A Better Man – Clint Black
74. El Paso – Marty Robbins
73. Guitars, Cadillacs – Dwight Yoakam
72. Bless the Broken Road – Rascal Flatts
71. Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine – Tom T. Hall
70. You’ll Think of Me – Keith Urban
69. Mama He’s Crazy – The Judds
68. I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song) – Brad Paisley
67. Make The World Go Away – Eddy Arnold
66. swingin – John Anderson
65. Thank God I’m a Country Boy – John Denver
64. Redneck Woman – Gretchen Wilson
63. Act Naturally – Buck Owens
62. Stay – Sugarland
61. Rose Garden – Lynn Anderson
60. Boot Scootin’ Boogie – Brooks & Dunn
59. Let Your Love flow – Bellamy Brothers
58. Delta Dawn – Tanya Tucker
57. Need You Now – Lady Antebellum
56. Flowers on the Wall – The Statler Brothers
55. Drivin’ My Life Away – Eddie Rabbitt
54. Breathe – Faith Hill
53. Fishin’ in the  Dark – Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
52. For the Good Times – Ray Price
51. Harper Valley P.T.A. – Jeannie C. Riley
50. Independence Day – Martina McBride
49. Still – Bill Anderson
48. Don’t Make My Brown Eyes Blue – Crystal Gayle
47. Bop – Dan Seals
46. Wide Open Spaces – Dixie Chicks
45. Could I Have This Dance – Anne Murray
44. Stand by Your Man – Tammy Wynette
43. Help Me Make It Through the Night – Sammi Smith
42. Strawberry Wine – Deana Carter
41. You Never Even Called Me by My Name – David Allan Coe
40. Smoky Mountain Rain  - Ronnie Milsap
39. Chicken Fried – Zac Brown Band
38. King of the Road – Roger Miller
37. When You Say Nothing at All – Keith Whitley
36. Holes in the Floor of Heaven – Steve Wariner
35. Fancy – Reba
34. Amazed – Lonestar
33. Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood
32. I was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool – Barbara Mandrell
31. How Do You Like Me Now?! – Toby Keith
30. Always On My Mind – Willie Nelson
29. Summertime – Kenny Chesney
28. I Believe in You – Don Williams
27. Mountain Music – Alabama
26. Margaritaville – Jimmy Buffett
25. Check Yes or No – George Strait
24. The House That Built Me – Miranda Lambert
23. Okie From Muskogee – Merle Haggard
22. Rhinestone Cowboy – Glen Campbell
21. Forever and Ever, Amen – Randy Travis
20. Any Man of Mine – Shania Twain
19. Heartbreak Hotel – Elvis
18. Hello Darlin’ – Conway Twitty
17. Love Story – Taylor Swift
16. A Country Boy Can Survive – Hank Williams Jr
15. Don’t Take the Girl – Tim McGraw
14. God Bless the USA – Lee Greenwood
13. Go Rest High on That Mountain – Vince Gill
12. Coal Miner’s Daughter – Loretta Lynn
11. Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) – Alan Jackson
10. Good Hearted Woman – Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
9. I Will Always Love You – Dolly Parton
8. I Hope You Dance – Lee Ann Womack
7. Hey Good Lookin – Hank Williams Sr.
6. The Devil Went Down to Georgia  - Charlie Daniels
5. Crazy – Patsy Cline
4. The Dance – Garth Brooks
3. He Stopped Loving Her Today – George Jones
2. Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash
1. The Gambler – Kenny Rogers

I was disappointed that there was no Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue and American Soldier both by Toby Keith. I also felt Jackson and Ring of Fire should have been on here somewhere. 

Country Independence Day Playlist

Happy 4th of July to everyone. This is just a few songs that I know are out there Country wise for patriotism and 4th of July. Please feel free to tell me the ones I missed. And once again Happy 4th of July to everyone!!

1.       God Bless the USA – Lee Greenwood

2.       American Soldier – Toby Keith

3.       Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly- Aaron Tippin

4.       4th of July – Shooter Jennings

5.       Only in America – Brooks And Dunn

6.       Independence Day – Martina McBride

7.       American Child – Phil Vassar

8.       Living in the Promised Land – Willie Nelson

9.       America – Waylon Jennings

10.   Luckenback, Texas – Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson

11.   Homeland – Kenny Rogers

12.   Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue – Toby Keith

13. Mama Don't let your Baby's Grow up to be Cowboys - Willie Nelson

14. Riding with Private Malone- David Ball

15. Travellin' Soldier - Dixie Chicks

Andy Griffith Dead at 86

Andy Griffith, an actor most notably as the small-town sheriff on the long-running TV show that bore his name, died today, Tuesday, July 3, 2012, at his home on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. He was 86 years old.

            His death was confirmed by the Dare County sheriff, Doug Doughtie.

Mr. Griffith was already a star, with rave reviews on Broadway in “No Time for Sergeants” and in Elia Kazan’s film “A Face in the Crowd,” when “The Andy Griffith Show” made its debut in the fall of 1960. And he delighted a later generation of television viewers in the 1980s and ’90s in the title role of the courtroom drama “Matlock.”

But by the late 1960s, the younger viewers networks prized were spurning cornpone, and Mr. Griffith had decided to leave to make movies after the 1966-67 season. CBS made a lucrative offer for him to do one more season, and “The Andy Griffith Show” became the No. 1 series in the 1967-68 season. But Mr. Griffith had decided to move on, and so had the zeitgeist. “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” with its one-liners about drugs and Vietnam, and “The Mod Squad,” about an integrated police force, were grabbing a new generation of viewers.

But the characters in “The Andy Griffith Show” — Barney (Don Knotts), Gomer (Jim Nabors), Opie (Ron Howard), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) and the rest, including Gomer’s cousin Goober Pyle (George Lindsey, who died in May) — remained tantalizingly real to enthusiasts who still gather online and sometimes in person in fan clubs to watch the old reruns.

Beginning with the lead in Elia Kazan’s film “A Face in the Crowd” in 1957, the story of a rough-hewn television personality who becomes a power-crazed megalomaniac, Mr. Griffith brought an authenticity to dark roles.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Mr. Griffith starred in no fewer than six movies with the words “murder” or “kill” in their titles. In 1983, in “Murder in Coweta County,” he played a chillingly wicked man who remains stone cold even as he is being strapped into the electric chair.

Mr. Griffith’s fans may have imagined him as a happy bumpkin, but he enjoyed life in Hollywood and knew his way around a wine list. His career was controlled by personal manager, Richard O. Linke, who forbade Mr. Griffith to solicit advice from anyone else, even his wife.

“If there is ever a question about something, I will do what he wants me to do,” Mr. Griffith said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1970. “Had it not been for him, I would have gone down the toilet.”

Far from the relaxed, gregarious, drawling Andy Taylor, Mr. Griffith was a loner and a worrier. He once hit a door in anger, and for two episodes of the second season of “The Andy Griffith Show” he had a bandaged hand (explained on the show as an injury Sheriff Taylor sustained while apprehending criminals).

But the 35 million viewers of “The Andy Griffith Show” would have been reassured to learn that even at the peak of his popularity, Mr. Griffith drove a Ford station wagon and bought his suits off the rack. He said his favorite honor was having a 10-mile stretch of a North Carolina highway named after him in 2002. (That was before President George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.)

Another honor was having his character place No. 8 on TV Guide’s list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time” in 2004. (Bill Cosby’s Dr. Cliff Huxtable was No. 1.) But one honor that was denied him was an Emmy Award: surprisingly, he was nominated only once, for his role in the TV movie “Murder in Texas,” although Mr. Knotts won five Emmys as Deputy Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Ms. Bavier won one as Andy’s aunt. The show itself was nominated three times but also never won.

Andy Samuel Griffith was born in Mount Airy on June 1, 1926, the only child of Carl Lee and the former Geneva Nann Nunn. His father was a foreman at a furniture factory. Mr. Griffith described his childhood as happy, but said he never forgot the pain he felt when someone called him “white trash.”

After seeing the trombonist Jack Teagarden in the 1941 film “Birth of the Blues,” he bought a trombone from Sears, Roebuck & Company with money he earned sweeping out the high school for $6 a month. He wheedled lessons out of a local pastor, who later recommended him to the University of North Carolina, where he won a music degree and married Barbara Edwards. He moved on from the trombone to singing, and for a while hoped to be an opera singer.

After first aspiring to be a minister, he tried teaching music and phonetics at the high school in Goldsboro, N.C., but left after three frustrating years. “First day, I’d tell the class all I knew,” he told The Saturday Evening Post, “and there was nothin’ left to say for the rest o’ the semester.”

In spare moments Mr. Griffith and his wife put together an act in which he posed as a preacher, telling jokes about things like putting frogs in the baptismal water, and she danced. They played local civic clubs.

In 1953, speaking to a convention of the Standard Life Insurance Company in Greensboro, Mr. Griffith, in his preacher persona, told a comic first-person tale about attending a college football game and trying to figure out what was going on. Some 500 discs of his monologue were pressed under the title “What It Was, Was Football,” and it became a hit on local radio. Mr. Linke, then with Capitol Records, scurried to North Carolina to acquire the rights and to sign Mr. Griffith.

Mr. Linke began guiding Mr. Griffith’s career in television and nightclubs. His break came in 1955, when he was cast in the Broadway play “No Time for Sergeants” as a mountain yokel drafted into the Air Force — a role he had already played on television, on an episode of “Playhouse 90.” The New York Journal-American called him “an engaging and brilliant natural,” and the play was a hit, running for almost two years. He played the same role in the 1958 film version, with what Bosley Crowther of The Times admiringly called “staggering simplicity.”

In Mr. Griffith’s first movie, “A Face in the Crowd” (1957), he played a far more complicated role: a mentally unbalanced vagrant who is discovered playing the guitar in an Arkansas jail and becomes a beloved television star until he is undone by his dark side. Mr. Griffith told The Times Magazine that he was so consumed by the stormy character that it affected even his marriage.

In 1959, Mr. Griffith returned to Broadway in the musical comedy “Destry Rides Again,” in a role that had been played in films by Tom Mix, James Stewart, Joel McCrea and Audie Murphy. Though reviews were mixed, Newsday declared, “There isn’t a more likable personality around than Andy Griffith.”

The pilot of “The Andy Griffith Show” was actually an episode of “The Danny Thomas Show” in February 1960. Danny Williams (Mr. Thomas) is arrested by a sheriff for running through a stop sign while driving through Mayberry.

Sheldon Leonard, producer of Mr. Thomas’s show, intended “The Andy Griffith Show” to fit the image of its star. Mr. Griffith negotiated for 50 percent ownership, which enabled him to be a major player in the show’s development.

A critical element to the show’s success was casting Mr. Knotts as the inept but lovable sidekick. So was the simple but appealing formula: characters would confront a problem, then resolve it by exercising honesty or some other virtue.

When Mr. Knotts left the show in 1965, a year after Mr. Nabors, Mr. Griffith said he became “nervous” about its future. Some principal writers had also left, and critics and viewers perceived the later years of the show as lacking the sparkle of earlier scripts and more lovable stars. Ratings, however, never tottered.

In the 1968-69 season, Mr. Griffith produced a follow-up series, “Mayberry R.F.D.,” with Ken Berry starring as a widowed farmer and many of the regular characters returning. It ran three seasons.Mr. Griffith’s acting career stalled after he left the show. Despite signing a five-year deal with Universal Pictures, he said he was not offered roles he wanted to play. “I thought I was hot stuff and would go right into the movies,” he said in an interview with The Virginian-Pilot in 2008. “It didn’t work out that way.”

He returned to television in the fall of 1970 with “The Headmaster,” but it lasted only until January. It was replaced by “The New Andy Griffith Show,” but that was not a success, either, and was off the air by the summer. Then came a slew of made-for-TV movies.

In 1984, he played a deceptively laid-back prosecutor in the mini-series “Fatal Vision,” impressing NBC enough to make him the star of a TV movie, “Diary of a Perfect Murder,” which served as the pilot for a new series. Mr. Griffith played an unassuming but cagey defense lawyer in that series, “Matlock,” which made its debut in 1986 and went on to have an even longer life than “The Andy Griffith Show,” running until 1992 on NBC and for three more years on ABC.

Mr. Griffith continued to play occasional movie and television parts, and in 1996 recorded a gospel album, “I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns,” that went platinum and even won a Grammy.

In the 2009 movie “Play the Game,” he played an 80-something widowed grandfather who lives in a nursing home and awkwardly jumps back into the singles game. He tries Viagra and experiences oral sex, and says the words “horny” and “erection.”

One thing that had always bothered Mr. Griffith was people’s assumption that in his depiction of Sheriff Taylor he was pretty much playing himself. He said he not only threw himself into creating a textured persona for the small-town lawman, but also helped write almost every episode — though he didn’t receive writing credit.

Jake Owen to be A Father

It’s been an amazing year for Jake Owen, and it just got a lot better. The country singer  announced that his wife Lacey Buchanan Owen is pregnant with their first child. The couple is expecting a little girl to arrive in November.

Owen shared the good news with People magazine Monday afternoon. He married Buchanan after a short engagement during a sunrise ceremony back on May 7.

“The way we saw it, the baby news was a bonus on top of the engagement,” Owen says, adding, “but we didn’t want anyone to think we were getting married because Lacey was pregnant, and we wanted to celebrate our wedding first.”

The singer reveals that the couple found out Lacey was expecting after Jake had already asked her father for permission to propose. “From the day I met her, there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to marry her, and we always knew we wanted a family,” he says. “Not only do I have a beautiful wife I get to spend my life with, I’m getting a baby too!”

Owen continues, “You know with other people’s babies, they’ll say, ‘Do you want to hold the baby?’ And I always am excited to do that, but then you have to give the baby back. Now we get to keep the baby!”

The couple’s first ultrasound was Monday (July 2), meaning Owen had to rush home from a Brothers of the Sun Tour stop in Cincinnati, Ohio to be there. He says his sister believes that the Chinese Birth Calendar can predict baby gender, so they expected to be told to expect a boy. “So when the technician said it was a girl, were were like, ‘Are you sure?’” he recounts.

Just after visiting the doctor’s office, Owen hit Twitter, writing “Greatest day of my life. Point blank. Best ever. Wow.”

Tim McGraw battling with Curb Records

The battle between Tim McGraw and Curb Records still wages on. In the latest turn of events, the court has ruled in favor of Curb Records’ request to postpone  the trial until they have had a chance to review additional evidence surrounding Tim’s signing with Big Machine Records back in May and when the 20 songs for Tim’s Big Machine Records debut album were recorded.

The Court of Appeals will soon hear the appeal of the Nashville trial judge’s earlier ruling, which stated an injunction would not be issued pending the trial to prevent Tim from signing with a new label. The court also ruled that while Tim was not prevented from signing with another label, he may be liable for his failure to perform under his Curb contract. The Court of Appeals will determine whether an injunction should have been issued.

While Tim is now a Big Machine Artist, Curb Records has asked the Courts to find that Tim is still under their contract and the 20 recordings from which he plans to release an album on Big Machine Records belong to Curb, as they were recorded during the term of his Curb Records contract.

Tim and his counsel released a response to Curb Record’s public statements stating that the Court’s only ruling at this time was to postpone the trial at the request of Curb Records. “There was no ruling about anything else, and specifically there was no ruling regarding the substance of either party’s claims in the lawsuit ,” the statement read. “The Court’s ruling did not affect, in any way, Mr. McGraw’s relationship with Big Machine Records.”

“The Court’s Order on the postponement and its prior ruling issued back on December 8, 2011 are now public documents and are available on the web site of the Davidson County Chancery Court Clerk,”  the statement continued. “Mr. McGraw and his counsel believe that the rulings speak for themselves, and that it is not proper for either of the parties to issue a press release regarding these matters.”

Luke Bryan to Perform on GMA

Luke Bryan will perform on Good Morning America’s ‘Summer Concert Series’’ on Friday, July 13. The series takes place in New York City’s Central Park with performances from some of music’s biggest artists. Fans can catch Luke Bryan’s performance between 7-9 a.m. on ABC.


The concert is free and open to the public. Fans who want to catch Luke Bryan’s performance in person are encouraged to arrive at Rumsey Playfield via the 72nd street entrance on Fifth Avenue at 6 a.m.

Emily Robison is expecting again

Emily Robison is expecting her fourth child, a rep for the musician confirmed.

“She’s excited!” the rep tells PEOPLE magazine. She also added that the baby is due in early September.

This will be the Dixie Chicks and Court Yard Hounds singer’s first child with her boyfriend Martin Strayer. Robison, 39, is also mom to  7 year old twins Juliana Tex and Henry Benjamin and son Charles Augustus, 9½, with her ex-husband Charlie Robison.