Friday, March 25, 2011

Chris Young, Kenny Chesney, Luke Bryan Talk Number 1 Parties

There's only one No. 1 song each week, but Nashville's seen more than its share of parties this week honoring chart-topping songs. A houseful of Luke Bryan's relatives came to town for Monday's bash (3/21) honoring "Someone Else Calling You Baby." "They have been in town since Thursday (3/17)," Bryan explained at the invite-only event. "It's been fun. It's been a zoo. Beau [Bryan's son] and my little nephew have been beating the fool out of one another all week, but other than that, all's well."

A week into the "Goin' Coastal" tour, Kenny Chesney flew to Nashville to thank songwriters JT Harding and Shane McAnally during Wednesday's (3/23) celebration honoring "Somewhere With You." "I hope you guys get to see what it's like when 50,000 people hear the intro of this song," Chesney told the songwriters. "Just to see the groundswell is a pretty amazing thing ... you created it."

Chris Young celebrated the history-making chart-topper "Voices," which was the first re-released hit to go No. 1 since Randy Travis' "On The Other Hand" in 1986. "I bought [Travis'] whole anthology collection as a kid and was listening to all his records," Young told media Monday (3/21). "It's pretty cool to be in the record books next to someone who's really a huge musical influence."

(courtesy of country aircheck)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Alan Jackson: Down Under

Alan Jackson felt right at home in the land Down Under during his sold-out, six-date run that closed Saturday (3/12) in Brisbane. "I've flown over parts of the country that looked like Texas, Tennessee and the Northwest," Jackson says, comparing Melbourne to the Lone Star State and areas near Sydney to California wine country. He's obviously taken a shine to the continent and its people, and the feeling seems to be mutual.

"I've always heard great things about it, and everybody was right – it's a beautiful country and the people are really nice. The fans really love the kind of music I make." According to his camp, Aussie fans' love of Jackson's music showed on the overall Australian chart, on which his 34 Number Ones jumped 25 spots to No. 7 during his tour. AJ picks his tour back up stateside Friday (3/18) at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, where he'll be inducted into the Star Trail Of Fame for attracting more than one million fans to the event since his 1992 debut.

Information via Country Aircheck (3/14)