Ronnie Dunn: I like Kelly Clarkson…..I’m singing on her Christmas record :)

Maybe the vocal powerhouse got the idea after guesting on Blake Shelton‘s “Cheers… it’s Christmas” record last year. Fans should be able to expect Kelly’s still-untitled Christmas album out this Holiday season. Do you think she should go country or stay pop? Who do you want to see on the album? Let us know!

Related posts:

1. Ronnie Dunn defends Kelly Clarkson’s Country Cred
2. Ronnie Dunn Fills In For Kix Brooks
3. Ronnie Dunn’s Solo Album Sells 45,000

The show will air this Sunday, February 10th at 8 p.m. EST. on CBS.

But before the Grammys kick off, we want to hear from you! We’ll be rolling out polls for the country music categories the rest of the week.

First up… Best Country Solo Performance!

Vote and let us know who you would like to take the trophy home.

Related posts:

1. POLL: ACM Awards – Entertainer Of The Year
2. POLL: ACM Awards – Female Vocalist Of The Year
3. POLL: ACM Awards – Vocal Group Of The Year

See what country artists had to say about voting day and make sure you get out to the polls before its too late!

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Ronnie said:

“Mark E Lemothe writes: ” Friends with Kelly Clarkson yet?”

Kelly is a friend and one of the BEST singers I’ve ever been in a room with. Went to Tahiti with her. Texas girl, down home…as real as they come. I think her heart’s in Country Music. She can sing like an angel.”

Check out Kelly’s performance of her country single “Don’t Rush” below with Vince Gill and let us know what you think – do you want to see her go completely country?

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1. Ronnie Dunn’s Hot Performance Sets Franklin On Fire
2. Ronnie Dunn To Become A Grandfather
3. Trace Adkins & Ronnie Dunn Singing At World Series

Artists leading all nominees this year are Luke Bryan with seven, and Lady Antebellum tying for second with Zac Brown Band with six nominations each. Eric Church and Taylor Swift both have five nominations each. Check out the full list of nominees below and let us know who you’ll be voting for. Fans can vote at theacas.com for their favorite artists, and make sure to tune in December 10th to see who wins!

Performers and presenters will be announced shortly, so stay tuned for that announcement too!

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Ronnie was inspired to change up the lyrics to the song after watching a bull riding event on television. Ronnie explains:

“Bull riding is arguably the most intense and electric event in rodeo. The folks at PBR came along and turned up the volume in a way. That’s what I wanted to do with ‘Let The Cowboy Rock.’ It just felt like a perfect match.”

The changes to the song included references and slang used for rodeos, and he took the liberty of, in his own words, “making a few terms up.” He called on the help of his friend, and co-producer, Jeff Balding, because he wanted to take the song to a new place sonically. A few days later the song became what it is now, and became the official theme song of PBR.

Check out a preview of Ronnie’s new remixed video:

The new music video was directed by Thien Phan and integrates footage directly from PBR events. It will be played for millions of fans at each PBR event across the United States.

“Let The Cowboy Rock (PBR Remix),” complete with rewritten lyrics by Dunn, will be available for download soon.  The original lyrics to the song, as heard on Dunn’s self-titled solo debut as well as the 2012 Cracker Barrel exclusive version read: “Let the cowboy rock / Let the good times roll / this is where the hurt stops / Where the whiskey flows.”

See the new lyrics for the remixed version of “Let The Cowboy Rock” below: 

Related posts:

1. Ronnie Dunn Cancels Capital Hoedown Appearance
2. Ronnie Dunn Releases Exclusive Cracker Barrel CD
3. VIDEO: Ronnie Dunn Will Let The Cowboy Rock

When we first started this country music blog, we started out as a site for fans by fans. We listen to what our fans and readers are wanting to hear from us, what features they’d want to see, and even which artists they’d love to see interviewed. The first music festival Jessica and I ever covered together was Capital Hoedown last year, which featured acts like Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, and Miranda Lambert among many talented acts. We were the first ones reporting the Carrie-Miranda live duet/mash-up of “Before He Cheats” with “Gunpowder & Lead” at the festival which helped propel us into being one of Canada’s leading resources for all things country music. Since that August weekend, Capital Hoedown has always been one of the highlights of our brand and we always put an extra shout-out to the festival when discussing artists this year.

This year’s line-up for Capital Hoedown was to be even bigger: with promises of Taylor Swift, Reba McEntire, Ronnie Dunn, Sheryl Crow and Brad Paisley. When I was at the line-up announcement I was more than excited over the line-up organizers had made. We interviewed Concert International CEO, and Capital Hoedown organizer, Denis Benoit back in December before the Christmas rush and he promised in the interview that tickets would be sold-out by Christmas so fans needed to get them asap for this fantastic line-up, saying that they were selling “extremely well.” Tickets weren’t sold-out, and were still on-sale throughout this year. Read our interview with Denis right here on Keepin’ it Country.

Being a fan-first site, we read every Tweet, Facebook message, wall post, and e-mail sent in to us by readers. When we started to get a few mentions and messages from fans asking us what was going on with the Capital Hoedown as some artists had removed the date from their website’s tour pages, we reached out to our friends in those artist teams to inquire about the missing dates. Once we started to receive confirmations that those artists were out, with the okay to post the news, we did so. What happened next is a sea of press interviews, camera time, and paper mentions for our site with Canadian, and American, media and radio stations as we were the first ones to even realize that something was up. We received a “seize and desist” (sic – not ‘cease’) from Denis quickly after our confirmation from artist teams that they were pulling out with promises of “serious legal action” against our site for posting the information. Nothing else ever came from that e-mail as everything we’ve posted has been factual and 100% confirmed, and after speaking with American and Canadian attorneys, we were perfectly fine to post the information.

Read more below:

We were asked to be on CBC, CBC Radio One, CTV, The Ottawa Sun, and many other media sources because of this news and how we were the only ones with confirmation that artists were out. Capital Hoedown organizers were still saying all artists were on-board and were still selling tickets for every artist even a week after we broke the news on Keepin’ it Country. We stepped away from most of the bad press going around about the Festival as we only got involved to help fans figure out what was going on, and to defend the fans; but kept our media friends in the loop on everything we knew about the Hoedown. While we were in Nashville while most of the news was breaking back in Canada’s Capital city, we still updated fans on what we knew on CBC through phone interviews from Music Row.

Hoedown founder, Denis Benoit, had promised the Ottawa press several times that he would have a statement (often delivering late), but Friday’s interview sessions were abruptly canceled, reports the Ottawa Sun, as he was an no-show. We have not been given any press releases, statements, or interview possibilities from the Hoedown since the original posting of artist cancellations on our site – but we did get official statements from Ottawa City Hall on payments not being made and the status of the Festival from their viewpoint. Looks like we were the first ones “blacklisted” from the Hoedown by Denis… who also did so to major newspaper Ottawa Citizen. We invited Capital Hoedown and Concert International for an interview with us to clarify statements made in the December 9th interview, or to fill-in fans on the status of the festival and refunds with a fan-first brand. We have still not received a response.

Capital Hoedown organizers have announced today that the festival is officially cancelled, reports the Ottawa Sun. However, ticket purchasers are to bring up the issues of refunds with their credit card companies and not with Concert International, whom had already had ticket holders fill out refund forms in order to apply for refunds. We’re hoping fans do get their refunds back from the Festival. If you’ve received yours, or haven’t and are worried about it, please let us know and we will keep you anonymous. As always, we are here for the fans and reach out to us and we’ll see what we can do for you!

With love,

Lydia & Keepin’ it Country Staff

Related posts:

1. Ronnie Dunn Cancels Capital Hoedown Appearance
2. Capital Hoedown Still On
3. Meet Sheryl Crow at the Capital Hoedown!

Read what Ronnie posted on his Facebook page below and make sure to send a congratulations his way!

Wow…I’m blown away !

Dear Ronnie,

Congratulations! On behalf of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Foundation (NaSHOF) Board of Directors, it’s a pleasure for me to notify you that you have been nominated for induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the highest honor that our songwriting community bestows.

Our Nominating Committee, comprised of Hall of Fame members and Music Row historians, met recently to discuss and consider worthy candidates whose first significant works achieved commercial success and/or artistic recognition at least 20 years ago and who have “positively impacted and been closely associated with the Nashville Songwriting Community and deemed to be outstanding and significant.” The final slate of nominees was recommended to, and approved by, the Foundation board.

Very soon, your name will appear on the 2012 ballot along with the names of 11 of your esteemed colleagues. (See below) Three inductees (2 songwriters; 1 songwriter/artist) will be determined by votes cast from Hall of Fame members and Professional Songwriter members of the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), as well as the boards of NaSHOF and NSAI.

We wish you the best in the voting,

On behalf of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Foundation Board of Directors and the Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, let me again extend to you our heartfelt congratulations. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Warmest Regards,

Category 1 – Songwriters

Tony Arata
Robert Byrne (1954-2005)
Beth Nielsen Chapman
John Jarrard (1953-2001)
Tony Martin
Gretchen Peters
Victoria Shaw
Kim Williams
Category 2 – Songwriter/Artists

Kix Brooks
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Ronnie Dunn
Larry Gatlin

Related posts:

1. Ronnie Dunn Taking Over Sirius/XM
2. Ronnie Dunn Fills In For Kix Brooks
3. Ronnie Dunn’s Hot Performance Sets Franklin On Fire

Auction lots close throughout the day on Thursday, June 21, so interested buyers need to make a bid quickly to claim items from Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, Billy Currington, Ronnie Dunn, Hunter Hays, Dolly Parton, Darius Rucker, Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and many more!

Visit www.musiciansoncall.org/auction to make your bid today!

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However, although not confirmed, they may just have to do that without the performance of Taylor Swift after the Ottawa date was removed from her official website. Although the Hoedown site still lists Swift as appearing, it also lists several other artists that have backed out, including Brad Paisley, Reba McEntire, Ronnie Dunn, The Band Perry and Terri Clark.

Yesterday, Hoedown founder Denis Benoit stated that changes to the artist lineup will be announced shortly. In addition, he was quoted saying, “We can assure everyone that there will be favourable additions to the line-up that fans will be pleased with.”

The statement also made clear that the show will now take place at an undisclosed venue that will be announced soon, but Benoit assures it is a large private site only minutes away from the original location. Last week, the City of Ottawa cancelled its agreement with Hoedown to host the event at Walter Baker Park due to a payment that was never made to the City.

Ticketholders who are no longer interested will be able to receive refunds starting June 19th.

Stay tuned as we will let fans know the new venue and changes to the lineup as they are made available to us.

Related posts:

1. Capital Hoedown Still On
2. Meet Sheryl Crow at the Capital Hoedown!
3. 20,000 Reasons To Love Capital Hoedown