DAVE'S DIARY - 23/2/09 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 12 - SERIES 11

SUPERSTARS SHINE ON NU COUNTRY TV

Expatriate Australasian superstar Keith Urban and spouse Nicole Kidman dug deep when they donated $500,00 to the Victorian bushfire appeal.

So it's fitting Urban and fellow chart-topper Brad Paisley headline the grand finale of Series #11 of Nu Country TV.

The duo performs the video of their latest hit Start A Band this Saturday - February 28 - at 8 p m on C 31.

Also performing a video of a #1 hit is Tennessee troubadour Kenny Chesney with the late Bob Marley's band The Wailers.

Fellow superstars Brooks & Dunn return on a duet with famed singing actress and TV host Reba McEntire.

Queensland singer Glenn Albrecht expands on Reba's rodeo theme with Bucking Hell Rodeo Down Under.

And Arkansas-born Joe Nichols, one of many stars of CMC Rocks The Snowy festival, reprises his song Another Side Of You.

We close out the show with Kinglake bushfire survivors Carter & Carter and true love song Slow Dancing At Midnight.

The duo is a headliner of Sunday's Wandong Country Music bushfire benefit festival, also featuring former stockman James Blundell, Jayne Denham and many more.

CLICK HERE for the full line-up in Tonkgirl's gig guide.

URBAN COWBOYS AND AXEMEN START A BAND

Urban is riding high on the U.S. charts now with 18th Top 5 single Sweet Thing from his seventh studio album Defying Gravity, released on March 31.

But this week Urban, 41, shares the spotlight with dual Grammy winner Brad Paisley on their hit Start A Band from Paisley's fifth album Play.

It was the ninth consecutive #1 hit for West Virginia born Paisley who wants to tour here late this year.

Brad and Keith, who won wide acclaim for his Bo Diddley tribute on the Grammys, swap licks in their energetic exhibition.

The spotlight is squarely on the Titans of the telecaster with no cameos by frequent guests William Shatner or octogenarians Andy Griffith and Little Jimmy Dickens.

Urban begins a 58-date U.S. tour in May that is likely to bring him and Paisley down under.

Paisley shared his Grammy for instrumental Cluster Pluck with James Burton, Red Volkaert, Albert Lee, Vince Gill, Brent Mason, John Jorgensen and Steve Wariner.

Brad, just 33, has been nominated for six gongs and Keith two on the 44th Academy Of Country Music Awards in autumn.

Meanwhile the unauthorised biography Fortunate Son: The Unlikely Rise of Keith Urban - has escaped into local bookshops.

The Jeff Apter book tells of the improbable rise of Keith - born Keith Lionel Urbahn in Whangarei New Zealand in 1967 - but raised in Caboolture, Queensland.

Apparently, there are references to the vitriol after managerial, recording and support staff changes.

We can't comment - our review copy must have been lost in the mail.

CLICK HERE for a Keith Urban DVD review from The Diary.
CLICK HERE for a Brad Paisley CD review from The Diary on December 15, 2008.

KENNY CHESNEY - THE $90 MILLION MAN

Tennessee titan Kenny Chesney won wide acclaim for his role on the recent Grammys with the late Bob Marley's former band The Wailers.

The Wailers, who played a Yarra Bank blues festival in Melbourne, appear in a video for Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven from Chesney's 11th album Lucky Old Sun.

Chesney, who topped charts last week on his collaboration with Mac McAnally on Down The Road, earned a cool $90,823,990 in 2008.

He ranks sixth behind Madonna, first with $242.2 million, Bon Jovi $157.2 million and Bruce Springsteen with $156.3 million.

Rascal Flatts are eighth with $63,522,160 and Taylor Swift is 16 with $45,588,730.

Chesney takes over the chart top from Dierks Bentley, who had a number one with the title track of his new CD, Feel That Fire.

"I am really happy about having a number one with my very good friend and frankly, one of my songwriting heroes," said Chesney.

"The idea that you can do this in the studio with a couple of guitars and a great lyric, that people want to hear that? That it's still ok to make records like this? That says a lot about what people really want and respond to."

Chesney shared some earnings with Heaven writers Marty Dodson and singer Jim Collins who also wrote five other Kenny hits including The Good Stuff and She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy.

Collins and Dodson wrote Heaven for Texan rancher and superstar George Strait - he passed it on to Chesney.

The tractor was not the reason Chesney, 41, did a revealing interview with Playboy to denounce gay rumours after divorce from Cold Mountain actress Rene Zellweger.

Speculation was partly due to wording on the actress' annulment papers that cited "fraud" as a reason for their split.

"What guy who loves girls wouldn't be angry about that? I didn't sign up for that," said Chesney who claims to have jangled more than 100 country belles.

"I'm pretty confident in the fact that I love girls. I've got a long line of girls who could testify that I'm not gay. There were years when I had a better summer than A-Rod. My first five years on the road were intense, because I was the guy in college who never got laid until I started playing guitar."

As for the demise of Chesney's relationship with Zellweger, he says paparazzi are partly to blame.

"I panicked, there's no doubt about it," he says of his reaction to the overwhelming media attention that came with his marriage.

"I did the only thing I knew to do - I ran. I pushed her away. I didn't have any clue as to what true marriage meant. I was so used to committing to one thing - music - and then I had to totally commit to a second thing, marriage. I didn't know how to commit to both of them."

Chesney is also selling his lavish $5.7 million home in Key West, Florida, after local newspapers reported its address before he had a chance to move in.

Probably a good idea as singing satirist Rev Billy C Wirtz scored wide exposure on Nu Country FM for his song Nathan Lee.

The song was the tale of a Florida florist - a Jim Nabors fan and Good Samaritan in a lost highway tryst - who joins a nest of Gomer Pyle style bachelors in Key West "who haven't found the right girl yet."

CLICK HERE for a Kenny Chesney feature from the Diary on December 15, 2008.

REBA RIDES WITH BROOKS & DUNN

Singing actress and TV host Reba McEntire joins superstar duo Brooks & Dunn in a duet on their video for latest hit Cowgirls Don't Cry.

Reba, now 54, has toured here twice - once with Texan Kenny Rogers - and signed with new label Valory for her latest album.

But this duet is on Sony-BMG - long time home of Brooks & Dunn who made their debut Australian tour last year.

It's the latest single from their 10th album Cowboy Town.

They debuted the song live at the 42nd Annual CMA Awards in November.

"I had just spent time writing the song on Reba's Duets record, Does the Wind Still Blow in Oklahoma, and when he sat down with Cowgirls Don't Cry co-writer Terry McBride," Dunn said.

"I was thinking of Reba when I wrote it and how she grew up" around cowboys and the rodeo lifestyle."

Kix Brooks revealed in an interview last week with Nu Country that the daughters of Dunn and McBride appear in the video filmed near his Brentwood quarter horse stud and winery.

The duo return in May with Arizona born chart-topper Dierks Bentley who is #3 on the Billboard Top 20 chart behind Bruce Springsteen and The Fray with fifth album, Feel That Fire.

Phoenix born Dierks, 33, bumped fellow Australian tourist Taylor Swift from chart tops with his new album - that's despite Swift's second disc Fearless selling three million units in three months.

Dierks and Brooks & Dunn perform Rod Laver Arena on May 4 with Leopold born Golden Guitarist Adam Harvey.

CLICK HERE for our membership page to learn how you can win tickets to the gala concert.
CLICK HERE for a Brooks & Dunn live review from The Diary on March 5, 2008

JOE NICHOLS - ANOTHER SIDE

Arkansas born singer Joe Nichols returns to Nu Country with a video for his vintage hit Another Side Of You from his seventh album Real Things.

Nichols joins Deana Carter, Taylor Swift, Old Crow Medicine Show, Corb Lund and other major artists performing at the CMC Rocks The Snowy festival at Thredbo on March 6 and 7.

The singer, who stands 6 ft 6 inches, also tours Queensland and NSW on the Size Matters tour with Carter, Steve Forde and the diminutive diva Jasmine Rae.

Nichols, 32, was born and bred in Rogers - the small town where the first Wal-Mart store opened.

He was raised on the music of his late grandfather and truck driving bassist father Mike who died at 46 in 2002 of a pulmonary fibrosis.

Joe performed in a tribute concert on February 9 for prolific songwriter Dennis Linde who died in 2006 of the same disease.

Linde, writer of Presley hit Burning Love, also wrote Goodbye Earle for Dixie Chicks, Calling Baton Rouge for Garth Brooks, Janie Baker's Love Slave, John Deere Green and Queen of My Double Wide Trailer.

Joe released his self-titled 1996 debut disc on indie Atlanta label Intersound with finances from friends in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

He moved to Nashville in 1997 and worked as a bar tender, sold steaks door to door, installed cable TV and toiled as a furniture removalist.

Nichols break was 1999 when he met A-session guitarist Brent Mason who produced his 2002 disc Man With A Memory.

It ignited the hit The Impossible that earned him three Grammy nominations.

Joe scored his first #1 hit Brokenheartsville and won the 2003 CMA Horizon before releasing his acclaimed album Revelations.

He wed his childhood sweetheart Heather Singleton in famed Georgian city Savannah on September 9, 2007.

Joe didn't sing hits Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off, Let's Get Drunk & Fight or She Only Smokes When She Drinks at the lavish reception.

Joe scored a flood of hits with honky tonk drinking songs but life began to imitate art so he checked himself into a substance abuse rehab centre a month after the wedding.

"I married a woman who's not going to take anything, no slips," Nichols said of his wife whom he met when he was 18.

"She's very accountable, and she holds me very accountable. And things needed to be corrected. This seemed like the surefire way to do that. Just go into rehab and kick it, you know, and come out a new man."

CLICK HERE for a Joe Nichols story from The Diary on March 10, 2005.

GLEN ALBRECHT

Queenslander Glen Albrecht debuts on Nu Country with the video clip for his song Bucking Hell Rodeo Downunder.

The video was filmed at the Mud Bulls and Music festival at Jimna in Queensland in 2008.

Glen wrote the song with author and photographer Jenny Dyer who released a lavish 165 page 2007 glossy book Rodeo Downunder.

Glen, who played in the famed Webb Brothers band, and twin brother Brett have been in groups since they were 13.

The twins, Glen's partner Vicki and Darryl Searle are the focus of Ricochet - a band popular on the rodeo circuit.

The Albrecht patriarch worked as a contract dozer driver and Glen followed the heavy machinery trade by working as a truck driver throughout the vast expanses of outback Queensland.

Glen punctuates contract cattle mustering with concerts in locales diverse as Quilpe, Alpha, Tambo, Birdsville, Blackall and Barcaldine.

Multi-media writing partner Dyer, an equestrian and daughter of a dairy farmer, wrote the lyrics for their collaboration.

She hails from tiny town Widgee - original home of the Gympie Muster, created by the Webb Brothers.

Dyer's book, replete with more than 200 graphic action rodeo photos,

Further info - www.rodeodownunder.com


DAVID AND MERELYN CARTER - SLOW DANCING

Merelyn and David Carter are well qualified as country altruists - and it's not just their support of the festival bush fire appeals.

They also lecture at the Camerata and Australian College of Country Music and have taken younger artists on tour with them.

The Carters have also provided board and lodging for peers at their Kinglake farm and former home at Lilydale.

It was their Lilydale digs that was the locale for fellow Golden Guitarist Felicity's Nu Country TV hosting role and her interview with Darren Coggan.

The picturesque and rustic homestead was the perfect backdrop for latter day ABC 2 and then Nu Country TV producer and videographer Sofie Bli's filming.

But it was Duncan Tombs who filmed the graphic video for their single Slow Dancing at Midnight that closes out this week's show.

Tombs filmed the duo performing against the backdrop of high country in Kinglake and the Yarra Valley.

The song is fifth single from Carter & Carter's fourth album Leap Before You Look.

"I think Leap Before You Look really reflects on how we try to live our lives," David Carter revealed.

"We follow our hearts, and sometimes that definitely requires some leaping."

Merelyn, mother of two daughters and co-writer of the 12 songs on the album, agrees with her collaborator.

A lot of times you just have to take a jump into the unknown," Merelyn says.

"In 2006 it all seemed to come together; it was the creative year we had been waiting for.

Leap Before You Look is the expression of that."

The singer, in her 40's, also celebrated the marriage of one of her daughters before the release of Leap Before You Look.

"I am a little self conscious about having a child getting married," Carter said at the time.

"I still feel 21 myself! I was so very young myself when I had the girls; definitely a child bride.

Then, after the divorce, the girls and I spent almost five years with just the three of us, and it was an amazing time of bonding and forming a very special type of relationship."

Carter & Carter has released a concert DVD - Unchained - that features their video clips, interviews and career highlights.

They date back well before their single Candle Light And Kisses won a Gold Guitar in 2003.

Further info - www.carter-carter.com


WIN BROOKS & DUNN CONCERT TICKETS AND CDS

We have more exciting news.

The promoters of the Brooks & Dunn, Dierks Bentley and Adam Harvey concert at Rod Laver Arena on May 4 have donated a pair of tickets to Nu Country.

We'll give these treasured tickets from Michael Chugg Entertainment and Rob Potts Entertainment Edge to the first viewer to take out a $50 Nu Country TV membership.

Please email us at music@nucountry.com.au with your pledge - we'll send the winner the tickets on receipt of a cheque or money order for $50.

Important note - please email us first and don't send your membership until you have been confirmed as the winner.

Sony-BMG has also donated copies of the limited souvenir edition of Brooks & Dunn 10th album Cowboy Town.

Viewers wishing to either renew membership or become members can win that CD by pledging a solo membership for $22 to cover postage.

Once again please email us first as we only have limited copies.

WIN TAYLOR SWIFT BILLBOARD CONCERT TICKETS

We have great news in the aftermath of the horrific Victorian bushfires.

The promoters of the Taylor Swift concert at Billboard on March 10 have donated a pair of tickets to Nu Country TV.

We'll give these treasured tickets to the first viewer who takes out a $50 Nu Country TV membership.

Please email us at music@nucountry.com.au with your pledge - we'll send the winner the tickets on receipt of a cheque or money order for $50.

Important note - please email us first and don't send your membership until you have been confirmed as the winner.

Swift, who has sold more than six million CDS in less than four years, also performs an under 18 concert at Billboard in the Melbourne CBD on Monday March 9.

Universal Music has donated copies of her huge selling second album Fearless to Nu Country TV.

Congratulations to renewing Nu Country member HELEN POCILUJKO of Coburg for winning our tickets for the CMC Rocks The Snowy Festival at Thredbo on March 6 and 7.

Helen took out a Nu Country TV family membership.

Swift, Deana Carter, Joe Nichols, Old Crow Medicine Show and Canadian Corb Lund head the international artists at the festival.

And The Waifs, Audreys, Sunny Cowgirls, Steve Forde, Jasmine Rae, Pete Murray, Ash Grunwald, Jonah's Road, John Williamson, Morgan Evans, Ian Moss and Jake Nickolai are among the national acts.

WIN NEW CDS BY BEING A NU COUNTRY MEMBER
TAYLOR SWIFT, JASMINE RAE & STEVE FORDE

Nu Country TV celebrates its 11th series with a brace of prizes to celebrate the CMC Rocks The Snowy festival and the national tours by superstars Brooks & Dunn, Dierks Bentley and Taylor Swift.

We have the following CDS for viewers who email our web page and pledge their $22 membership at music@nucountry.com.au

Taylor Swift - huge selling second album Fearless.

Jasmine Rae - debut CD Look It Up by the Telstra Road To Tamworth winner and touring partner of Brooks & Dunn and Bentley.

Steve Forde - fifth album Guns & Guitars by the tour mate of Brooks & Dunn and chart topper Gary Allan.

KACEY JONES CD, DVD, POSTER AND TEE SHIRT PRIZES

Internationally renowned country comedienne, singer-songwriter and producer Kacey Jones has given us a box of autographed merchandise for viewers and members who renew their membership.

A highlight is her acclaimed tribute disc Kacey Jones Sings Mickey Newbury that is scheduled for Australian release in July.

We have autographed collectors' copies of the CD for viewers who want to become members of Nu Country TV.

She also autographed tee shirts and posters for Nu Country members.

For your $22 membership and postage you can take your pick of Kacey memorabilia. We have limited supplies so please email us at music@nucountry.com.au first.


WILLIE NELSON EXCLUSIVE BOOK

We also celebrate Shotgun Willie Nelson's 75th birthday on April 30 with a special giveaway of his collectors' book.

We have limited stock of Willie Nelson - The Collected Writings Of A Living Legend - The Facts Of Life And Other Dirty Jokes.

The book, featuring yarns, jokes and Willie Nelson song lyrics, is the latest addition to out prize treasure trove.

It's available for viewers wanting to become members or current members wishing to renew their membership.

Please email us at music@nucountry.com.au for a chance to win a copy of this book with your membership.

MIKE BRADY MUSIC FOR YOUR MEMBERSHIP

Internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Mike Brady volunteered to become a VIP guest host of Nu Country TV during our eighth series.

Brady hosted an episode that also featured an exclusive interview about recording the album in Nashville with expatriate Australian producer Mark Moffatt.

Mike has also donated autographed copies of his brand new CD Country To Country to viewers who become members or current members who renew their membership.

The generous singer donated his autographed CDS to attract your membership to ensure our survival.

So for your $22 membership including postage you can win Mike's CD Country To Country.

We have limited supplies so please email us first at music@nucountry.com.au so we can allocate your reward.

TANIA KERNAGHAN AUTOGRAPHED CDS

Tania Kernaghan has offered autographed copies of her fourth album Higher Ground to viewers who either become new members or renew their membership.

The album was produced in Santa Monica, Franklin, Nashville and the Gold Coast with Daniel Kresco.

Tania recorded 11 songs written by younger sister Fiona and producer Kresco on the acclaimed disc.

If you wish to be rewarded for your membership with Tania's new CD please email us at music@nucountry.com.au.

We also have other CDS in our library as rewards for your valued membership - we rely on membership for our survival.

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