Fan voting in the ACM Entertainer of the Year and New Artist of the Year categories is now underway at VoteACM.com, but that isn’t the only way the fans can get involved in this year’s ACM Awards.  The show takes place Sunday, April 7 live on CBS, and fans can get their tweets on the air during the broadcast by using the official ACM Awards hashtag, #ACMs.  An ACM Awards app is also available to iPhone and Android users.

In another fun social media twist, the ACM Awards have made up flat cutouts of this year’s co-hosts Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan, and they’re now available for printing at ACMSocialSplash.com.  The ACM is looking for fans to take “Flat Blake” and “Flat Luke” with them to the grocery store, to work or anywhere else.  Just take your photo with either of the cutouts and use #FlatBluke when posting the image to Instagram and Twitter.  Details on how fans can win prizes posting those photos will be announced soon.

Brad Paisley is also recruiting fans attending his performance at the ACM Fan Jam to become part of the light show during his performance.  The Brad Paisley Lightshow app allows users phones’ to display colors in sync with the music during the performance.

The 48th Annual ACM Awards broadcast live from Las Vegas Sunday, April 7 at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

 

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The Band Perry‘s new album, Pioneer, comes out Tuesday, but that’s not the only sweet treat the group is offering their fans. The Perry siblings have also collaborated with Nashville bakery Gigi’s Cupcakes on a new cupcake, called The Very Perry Chocolate Cherry. The cherry flavor is a nod to a line in the song on Pioneer titled “I’m a Keeper,” in which the girl in the song wants to change her name to Cherry.

The Band Perry’s Kimberly Perry tells The Tennessean, “I’ve always wanted Cherry to be my name. That girl in The Outsiders, Cherry Valance, she’s always been one of my favorite heroines in literature. So the cupcake was named after the song and we got to taste test.”

After tasting a few options, The Band Perry and Gigi’s owner, Gina Butler, decided on a white cupcake sweetened and colored with maraschino cherry juice and filled with chopped cherries. Mounds of chocolate frosting and a cherry top it all off. The cupcake will be available on Fridays and Saturdays at Gigi’s Cupcakes starting soon.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

 

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Brad Paisley lifted the title of his new album, Wheelhouse, from a line in his latest #1 hit, “Southern Comfort Zone,” which is all about getting out of your wheelhouse, or your comfort zone.  As he continued working on the new project, Brad became taken with that concept.

“I started thinking about that as a thing that encompassed what I was trying to do,” Brad explains, “which was the comfort zone being the strike zone — the area where you’re at your most effective.  And our goal with this album was to challenge what is that and to figure out if I can operate outside of that.  ‘Cause I would have never been comfortable doing some of these things early on.”

Brad is referring to the experimentation with new sounds and recording methods he used while making the album. As he continued working on the project and explored the world outside of his proverbial wheelhouse, he decided that particular word would be a great album title.

Says Brad, “”I love that term, ‘wheelhouse,’ and I don’t think there’s been any albums called Wheelhouse.  That feels like, you know, it should have been an REO Speedwagon album or a Van Halen album.  You know, the new album from Van Halen, Wheelhouse!”

Wheelhouse also includes Brad’s latest single, “Beat This Summer,” as well as collaborations with everyone from Dierks Bentley and Hunter Hayes to rapper/actor LL Cool J and Eric Idle of Monty Python fame.  The project hits stores April 9.

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Craig Campbell will release his sophomore album, Never Regret, on May 7. The project features “Outta My Head,” which is easily the sexiest single Craig has sent to radio yet. Craig first revealed the album cover and release date on his Facebook page Wednesday.

In other Craig news, he’s launching a Celebrity Cornhole Challenge to benefit the TJ Martell Foundation’s colon cancer research efforts. Craig’s father passed away from colon cancer at age 36.  Craig says, “This tournament will benefit colon cancer awareness and research, which I am very passionate about.”

The Cornhole Challenge is set for June 4 at the Public Square in downtown Nashville. Gloriana, Greg Bates, Jerrod Niemann and Love and Theft are among the stars already confirmed to participate.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

 

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Darius Rucker is climbing the country charts fast with his latest single, “Wagon Wheel,” a cover of the Old Crow Medicine show song that has become a honky tonk and frat house anthem in the past few years.  Darius’s version is selling about 75,000 downloads a week, and he’s getting an awesome reaction to the song in concert.

Darius tells ABC News Radio, “It’s really great to watch the people who are fresh out of college who know it just really freak out and have a great time and try to rush to the stage as fast as they can pushing through people.”

As popular as “Wagon Wheel” has become, Darius’s version is introducing it to a lot of people for the first time.

“The people that don’t know it just realize it’s such a great country tune,” Darius says of his concert crowds. “It’s so pure and so real.  It’s awesome to watch people, by the end of it, everybody’s singing it.  It’s that catchy.  It’s that kind of tune.”

Though he’s happy to hear “Wagon Wheel” on country radio, Darius loves just about everything else getting played these days as well.

He says, “I listen to so much country radio, and it’s so rare that I turn the channel ’cause there’s so much good stuff coming on.”

Darius is a big fan of Hunter Hayes‘ music, and Lady Antebellum‘s latest hit struck a big chord with him too.

Darius says of “Downtown,” ” I can’t get enough of it.  You know, I don’t buy things on iTunes, and after about the fifth time of hearing that, I said, ‘I gotta buy that song!'”

Darius Rucker’s fans will be picking up copies of his third country album, True Believers, when it lands in stores May 21.

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Brantley Gilbert was so inspired by his recent USO tour he wrote and released a demo of his song “One Hell of an Amen” on his Facebook page Thursday.  The finished track of the song will appear on Brantley’s upcoming album, and he describes it as “very dear to my heart.”

Brantley says to his fans, “For all the support y’all have given me, and being a part of this amazing movement we’re in together, I wanted y’all to hear this first.”

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Get well wishes go out to Charlie Daniels, who had a pacemaker installed at Nashville area hospital Thursday. Charlie was diagnosed with a mild case of pneumonia and admitted to the hospital for a series of tests Monday. Those tests revealed that 76-year-old Charlie needed the pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat.  He expects to leave the hospital Friday and spend the next two weeks recovering at home.

Charlie says in a statement,  “I am feeling so much better and looking forward to spending Easter with my family.”

Charlie has been forced to postpone two shows in New Jersey and Ohio as a result of the surgery.  For a full list of upcoming dates, go to CharlieDaniels.com.

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Jason Aldean is at the top of his game right now selling out stadiums and arenas on his Night Train tour. Though he took a small acting role in the film Sweetwater this year, fans don’t have to worry about Jason straying too far from the concert stage.

He says, “At the end of the day, I’m a musician. That’s what I am, and I don’t really want to be anything other than that.”

That means Jason isn’t going to judge or participate in a reality show any time soon either. He’s seen what being a coach on The Voice has done for his pal Blake Shelton‘s career, but that kind of gig just isn’t for him.

“I never say never on things,” Jason explains. “I think you’ve got to take certain situations as they come. You know, so it’s hard to say. That show that Blake’s on, I’m sure nobody knew that that thing was gonna explode the way it did.”

The kind of time it takes to be on a reality show isn’t worth it for Jason.

He says, “I would be miserable if I wasn’t out on the road playing my shows. If I had to sit in a building and I had to focus more on doing a show like that versus going out and playing my shows live. I just, I wouldn’t be happy doing that.”

Jason’s live concerts are one of the many reasons he’s up for ACM Entertainer of the Year, and fan voting in that category is now underway at VoteACM.com. Jason will perform on the 48th Annual ACM Awards Sunday, April 7 on CBS.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

 

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Blake Shelton doesn’t worry that his wife Miranda Lambert will believe tabloid rumors that he’s cheating on her. The couple has an open book policy in their marriage, literally: either one of them can go through and read the other’s texts and e-mails at any time.

“That’s the kind of trust we have,” Blake tells People Country. “There are no secrets. Go dig through my drawers or my phone or my computer if you feel like you need to. I have nothing to hide. And it’s been a really good thing because I don’t want her to ever have any doubt.”

As for talk of Blake and Miranda having a baby, Blake says that still a ways off, though he admits, “I do think if and when it happens, I’ll be pretty happy about it.”

For more insight into Blake’s life, pick up the new issue of People Country, out Friday.

 

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