Do you follow us on instagram?! You should! If not, here’s a peek of Country Heartbeat‘s 9 most liked photos of 2016! I can’t wait to see what concerts and experiences 2017 brings!
Kelsea Ballerini
Sprinkling Pixie Dust & Making History
I am SO beyond proud of this wonderful, beautiful, humble, kind, bright and shining STAR! I’ve listened to her debut album so many times that it should be a crime. I’ve wholeheartedly supported her since day 1… and now she is the FIRST debut female artist in country music history to have her first 3 singles go #1! Can’t wait to see how far her next single, “Yeah Boy” goes! I’m willing to bet it will be another #1 for her career.
Love you. Mean it.
Kelsea Ballerini Celebrates Her 23rd Birthday!
Kelsea Ballerini woke up on Saturday morning to a decorated bus in early celebration of her 23rd birthday and she squealed with excitement. Later that night, her bandmates popped a bottle of champagne, lit her candles on birthday cupcakes, and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her after their show in Bristow, Virgina.
This weekend also marked another reason for a huge celebration… her 3rd single off her debut album, “Peter Pan” HIT NUMBER ONE! All it takes is faith, trust, and a little pixie dust! Congrats, girl!
The day has just begun, and I’m sure Kelsea has something pretty big planned for today, her special day! She deserves every wonderful and amazing thing that has happened to her so far and all the success that is still to come! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELS! ❤
Faux-Chella: My Perfect Country Music Festival
With Coachella just around the corner, TickPick and I have teamed up to present with Country Heartbeat readers my ideal country music festival! I have so many favorites that they had to divide the festival between two days! If you’ve been following this blog for a while now, it’s pretty obvious who my favorite country artists are. Whenever someone asks who my favorite artist is, I ask them if I can give them a top-5 or top-10 list instead, because it’s entirely way too hard to narrow down. I then proceed to list the above 10 artists, and a few others… depending on whose show I may have seen recently and re-fell in love with.
ACM Week – Day 3 – Women Of Country
Friday 4/1/16
Total girl confession first off; I totally loved my outfit for Friday and wanted to have a mini photo shoot by the pool where we were staying with Jencita’s family. So we did.
First on our agenda for Friday was a meet and greet with Thomas Rhett at the BMLG Music Has Value pop-up store at the MGM Grand at 1:30pm. One hundred people received wristbands to meet Thomas by purchasing some Music Has Value merchandise from the shop and then there was an “if he has time” line. Since I didn’t have a physical copy of his recent album Tangled Up (I know, shame on me!), I purchased that for him to sign. One thing I learned that day? I probably shouldn’t wear white/ivory. My shirt had a lipstick stain on it within 5 minutes of arriving at MGM. So typical of me!
Party For a Cause festival gates opened at 3pm on Friday, so Jencita and I drove down to the other end of the strip, to the new MGM Grand Festival Grounds, across from the SLS Hotel. Part of my goal during this years ACM week was to keep my radio station and all of it’s listeners, WPOR 101.9, informed with an inside look!
ACM Week Recap – Day 2 – Guitar Pull
Thursday 3/31/16
As soon as I learned two of my ultimate favorites, Kip Moore and Kelsea Ballerini, would be at the 95.5 The Bull’s 8th Annual Guitar Pull, I made it a goal to attend! As most of you all know, this was a “budget trip”, so funds were limited. Per usual, I reached out to 95.5 for a chance to win some tickets, but heard nothing back. As fate would have it, my friend Chris had a pair of tickets and became ill, and he graciously donated them to me! So appreciative beyond words for this opportunity to see these artists acoustically in a laid back setting.
Up first on stage was Hunter Hayes and Kelsea Ballerini! Kelsea started off by telling the crowd that her and Hunter are “real-life friends” and that he was actually with her when she found out that Dibs had reached number 1! (It appears that Cody Alan (her “favorite human”) was there too!
ACM Awards Spotlight: New Female Vocalist of the Year Nominees
The ACM Awards are right around the corner and there is a new category this year- ‘New Female Vocalist Of The Year.’ My passion for the ACM Awards runs deep, and I’ve been lucky enough to get the opportunity to team up with Variety Beat for some pre-ACM coverage! You can check out the article that we wrote below! There’s even a poll at the bottom, so please vote for your favorite!
Source: ACM Awards Spotlight: New Female Vocalist of the Year Nominees
Nashville Happenings
Hello Country Heartbeat readers! This week has been packed with events from the NHL® All-Star weekend where Dierks Bentley, Eli Young Band and Kelsea Ballerini preformed on a packed street in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame on Sunday. The Sunday show was the last of the daily concerts that were being preformed in downtown Nashville starting on Thursday. Other great musicians such as Big and Rich, Lo Cash, Lee Brice, Chris Young, Clare Bowen, Charles Esten and Russell Dickerson were part of the IntelliCentrics Honda NHL® All-Star Festivities Outdoor Concert Series presented by Bridgestone.
Unfortunately I was not able to attend these shows because I was up in Cincinnati, Ohio at the Kip Moore Wild Ones Tour concert at Bogarts. Kip Moore and The Slow Hearts put on a great show as always, full of energy playing some classic Kip songs and new songs off the long awaited Wild Ones Album.
To end the weekend, on Tuesday I attended a benefit for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation at the High Watt on Cannery Row, hosted by Chris Cavanaugh and sponsored by Galena Garlic Company. Chris has been throwing this benefit for the past three years. Though Chris was the main performer, there were guest/friends who also performed. Chris invited some fellow songwriters who have written hits for many artists. Matt Rogers (“We Went” for Randy Houser), Jody Stevens ( “Lemme See Ya Girl” for Cole Swindell and “Home Alone Tonight” for Luke Bryan), Doug Johnson (“Love Like Crazy” for Lee Brice and “3 Wooden Crosses” for Randy Travis), and Scott Stepakoff (“Looking At Stars” and “Underage” on the new Kelsea Ballerini album) also came out to help raise money. Chris Cavanaugh is a touring Nashville based musician from Missouri; he just released his new EP Footprints on My Windshield, which is available now on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon MP3 and Spotify. The benefit ended up raising over $3,000 for the CCFA even with the horrible weather and tornado warnings. Congrats to Chris for a successful night!
I’ll be posting in the next day events going on in Nashville for the week that people might want to attend…
~CK
6 Reasons Why Kelsea Ballerini Could Be Your New Best Friend
So I got an email today letting me know that the “Summer Forever Tour” was officially on sale, and that is what prompted this post. (For those of you who don’t know, Kelsea recently announced she’d be joining Billy Currington on his tour that kicks off February 19th in Texas.)
The subject line of the email reads, “Tickets & Friendships Available Now!” Honestly, is there ANYONE that doesn’t want to be legit friends with Kelsea? She’s the most adorable, sweetest, hilarious, authentic, 22 year old girl who just happens to have had the craziest year of her life rising to fame and manages to stay humble and genuine just the same.
How many other artists do you know openly admits that they want to have real friendships with their fans? (See Kelsea talk about that in the video below!)
Here are 6 reasons why every girl wants to be Kelsea’s BFF
“MADE” It Happen!
This blog has taken a backseat in my life for a few very good reasons that I have been wanting to share with you guys for a couple of months now! I’ve honestly been so crazy busy that I haven’t gotten the chance!
At the end of March I interviewed for a position on the Street Team at my favorite country radio station, WPOR 101.9. Out of over 150 applicants, I managed to score one the coveted spots on the small Street Team representing WPOR and all of it’s sister stations. I worked a couple of events in April, but May was the big month for me when I realized that all of my hard work and dreams were turning into reality. (You can check out the Throwback Thursday post “Tour Bus Hang with Lee Brice” for more on that day!)
Country Heartbeat 