Faux-Chella: My Perfect Country Music Festival

April 15, 2016April 21, 2016 countryheartbeat Uncategorized Brett Eldredge, Chase Rice, Coachella, Cole Swindell, Country Music, Dierks Bentley, Faux-Chella, Festival Season, Florida Georgia Line, Frankie Ballard, Jake Owen, Kelsea Ballerini, Kip Moore, Luke Bryan, Old Dominion, Sam Hunt, Thomas Rhett

Country Heartbeat Day1 Fixed

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.

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ACM Week Recap – Day 2 – Guitar Pull

April 12, 2016 countryheartbeat ACM Awards, Making It Happen 95.5 The Bull, Charles Kelley, Country Music, Guitar Pull, Hunter Hayes, Justin Moore, Kelsea Ballerini, Kip Moore, Las Vegas

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!

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late last night, I got a call that my second single Dibs was the number one song on country radio. I was surrounded with many of my favorite people in the world. These moments are so precious and cherished, and ones that I'll hold in my heart forever. Sending giant hugs to everyone who has played this song on the radio, turned it up on the radio, sang it sassily to the person they like, downloaded it, and supported it. We just made history together. Gonna go cry now.

A post shared by Kelsea Ballerini (@kelseaballerini) on Feb 21, 2016 at 8:18am PST

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NASH FM Guitar Pull at 3rd & Lindsley

March 25, 2016March 25, 2016 cutiekeebler Contributors, Nashville Life Brooke Eden, Chuck Wicks, Clare Dunn, David Nail, Guitar Pull, Kane Brown, Kip Moore, Music City, Nash FM 103.3, Nashville

News F Nash 2 merged

Well sorry it’s been a while, I’ve been out gathering information and going to events trying to figure out which way this post should go. I can attend events and brief y’all on what happened or I can give you a heads up about what’s about to happen in Nashville. Let me know what you’d like to see in the comment section below!

guitar pull 1

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For All Those Underappreciated Supporting Musicians Out There!

February 16, 2016February 16, 2016 countryheartbeat Open Letters Black Mike, Chase Rice, Cole Swindell, Florida Georgia Line, Frankie Ballard, Kent Slucher, Kip Moore, Luke Bryan, Manny Medina, Michael Carter, Sam Hunt, Tom Beaupre, Tyler Chiarelli

I’ve always felt that the band members never get as much credit as the artists themselves. They can go out in public without being recognized (for the most part), and they rarely get to attend awards shows or join the main singers on stage when they win. Half of the time, they don’t even get to record their instruments on the record (there are of course exceptions to this rule!). After following certain bands for several years, I’ve noticed a lot of changes. It seems like just after I’ve finally located all of the band members on twitter and/or instagram, next show I go to, they’ve already been replaced! I guess the supporting musicians aren’t as set in stone as the singers, but I still feel like they play a very important role. I highly respect artists like Kip Moore who make it a point to include his band members in all that he does, and publicly recognizes “The Slow Hearts” as part of his success. We need more artists like him that truly believe in their band, and who know that it’s the support of the guys behind them on stage that make the live shows an amazing experience.

TO ALL OF THE BAND MEMBERS: Thanks for all that you do! Your efforts and kick ass performances do not go unnoticed by the true fans!

I think I will start with Kip Moore & The Slow Hearts, because I have so much friggin’ respect for those guys! Besides, who else’s band has their own name? With the exception of a change in drummer, Kip has stuck with his original crew that he started off with.

IMG_9021a — Manny Medina, my favorite Scorpio & Kip’s amazing bass player!

Adam and the Kip Chicks — Adam Browder and some loyal #kipchicks!

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Nashville Happenings

February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 cutiekeebler Contributors, Country Chatter, Nashville Life Chris Cavanaugh, Country Music, Kelsea Ballerini, Kip Moore, Nashville, NHL

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

Country Heartbeat’s Anniversary Giveaway!

September 30, 2015October 26, 2015 countryheartbeat Uncategorized Achievement, CMA Awards, Country Music, Facebook, giveaway, Kip Moore, Wild Ones

Today when I logged into my WordPress account, I was notified of the above “achievement”. Two years ago today, I began the first steps of my journey into the country music industry. Seeing how far I’ve come and where I’m at today, THIS CALLS FOR A CELEBRATION!

In honor of opening my account two years ago, I would like to provide a download code for a FREE COPY of Kip Moore’s highly anticipated sophomore album, Wild Ones, that was released on August 21st! Since I purchased a pair of tickets to one of his upcoming tour stops, I was given 2 codes, and would like to share one with you guys, my loyal followers and readers!

Here’s what you’ve got to do if you would like to be entered into the contest!

First, FOLLOW my blog with either your WordPress account or by email address. (Right hand column under the photo there should be two buttons, one for following if you have an account and one for following via email.)

Second, LIKE our Facebook page.

Third, leave a comment on this post letting me know why you would love to win! Please leave your first name and last initial so that I can check the new likes on facebook to make sure that you match up! 🙂

ALL ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 4TH, 2015. WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN AND NOTIFIED AROUND 11/5/15-11/6/15.

Please feel free to share this post with your friends! 🙂

New Music Monday!

September 28, 2015November 23, 2015 countryheartbeat Music Monday, Songwriting Secrets Country Music, Country Radio, Kip Moore, Lyrics

September 28th, 2015

These songs have been on repeat for me lately, and I would like to introduce you guys to some of my favorite songs that aren’t on the radio… yet!

Kip Moore, “Running For You”

“If the light starts fading / Baby don’t move / Just say my name, stay right there / I’ll come running for you.”

If you haven’t gotten Kip’s sophomore album, Wild Ones, yet… you are seriously missing out on some quality music. This album is so raw and full of so much passion that nearly every song gives me goosebumps. I’ve been a fan of Kip since 2011, before most people had any idea of who he was. Albeit the entire CD is on point, the song that I have to play twice every time that the album cycles through is track #12, Running For You. Written with Blair Daly and Troy Verges, Kip explains, “The melody came to me I was with Troy Verges and Blair Daly, and I said, ‘I got this thing.’ We just kinda wrote a song about when you really care about somebody, you wanna see ’em shine and you wanna see ’em go grab what they’re after.” Kip… I hope one day some man sings (or plays) me this song when I pack up and head to Nashville after my own dreams…

Old Dominion, “Snapback”

“Those stars need to be wished on / Your skin needs to be kissed on”

I was literally hooked on this song from the first verse… it’s not your ordinary “Top 40” country song… and that freshness and new sound is what is going to take it to the top. No doubt this song from their upcoming Meat and Candy album is going to reach #1. The upbeat and fun tempo and killer lyrics drew me in right away! My favorite line from the song? “We got the beat, let’s drop it.”… just the way Matt sings it! This song makes me SMILE SO BIG! I just love a song that makes me break out in a huge grin! Snapback was written by Matthew Ramsey, Trevor Rosen and Brad Tursi, who are actually 3 of the 5 members of the band.

Kelsea Ballerini, “Secondhand Smoke”

“Am I the product of a problem that I couldn’t change?/Got his eyes, got her hair, so do I get their mistakes?”

This is the most powerful song on Kelsea’s debut album, The First Time. I have been passionate about this song since I first got the CD in June. Secondhand Smoke is a deeply personal song for Kelsea, as it tells the story of her parents divorce. You can hear the raw emotion in every verse. She penned this tune with Josh Kerr and Jordyn Shellhart and they actually came up with the title for the song before the lyrics were written! “Immediately, I thought it could be a story of being in a household that’s broken and that’s all you know, but you decide that you’re not going to feel like that,” Kelsea tells Rolling Stone. Kelsea hopes she can be a voice of comfort for kids who are going through a similar divorce situation like she did as a preteen.

New Music Monday!

February 9, 2015 countryheartbeat Music Monday, Songwriting Secrets Chart Toppers, Chase Bryant, Country Music, Kip Moore, Love & Theft, New Songs, Old Dominion, Sam Hunt

Songs you should be listening to (and downloading!) right now:

Kip Moore, “I’m to Blame”

We’ve been waiting for his new album for over a year now… his new single hit radio on February 2nd. Request it! It’s raw and honest and sexy… bet you won’t be able to get the hook out of your head! Kip is one of my all time favorite artists and this song is so true to him and his personality.

Love & Theft, “Whiskey on my Breath”

Love & Theft is back with some amazing heart-felt and soul-filled harmonies. This song is GOLD. I have so much love for these two, and this is one of my favorite songs they’ve written so far! This song better get the praise and recognition that it deserves!

Sam Hunt, “Take Your Time”

I could not be more obsessed with Sam Hunt. His acoustic mix tape (Behind the Pines) and debut album (Montavello) are consistently on repeat in my car. This is his newest radio single and is currently at #5 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

Old Dominion, “Break up With Him”

It’s been a number 1 hit on Sirus XM’s station, The Highway, but hasn’t dropped to radio yet. It’s a fan favorite at their live shows and when I saw them live, it’s the song that convinced me to buy their EP! Give it a listen!

Chase Bryant, “Take it on Back”

Country newcomer Chase Bryant is quickly making a name for himself. He is now on my “Artists I Want to See in Concert” list! Lyrically, this song is like 90% of all the other bro-country songs out there, but it’s catchy and is destined to be a radio hit.