Dierks Covers Pink Floyd; Drew Kennedy to Release Album with Companion Novel; New Music Videos

• People Magazine has a brand new country music edition on newsstands featuring Lady Antebellum. To celebrate the new edition, they’re giving away a free download featuring some big hitters including: Ronnie Dunn, Vince Gill, Billy Currington, Jake Owen, Terri Clark, Matraca Berg, JT Hodges, Bradley Gaskin, and Sonia Leigh.

• Drew Kennedy has a cool and ambitious new project coming out on 11/1. A new album and a companion book will be coming out on that date.  From his press release: “Dan Murphy is a fictional songwriter. He heads out for a three-week tour of the west. You see the world through his eyes, hear it with his ears, experience it by way of his touch, taste, and feel. He picks up little bits of inspiration on his journey, and after every five or six chapters in the book you get to see what the songwriter has made of these inspirational nuggets through his craft in the form of the lyrics of a song. There are ten songs in this book. They are the same ten songs on the record.”

• Fundraising efforts are under way to reconstruct the Bradley’s Barn music studio at Fiddlers Grove Historical Village at the fairgrounds in Lebanon, TN. The goal is to create a concert venue similar to the Loveless Barn in Nashville and house a local hall of fame to honor other Wilson County musicians. The original barn was named after Owen Bradley, who recorded Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison and Ernest Tubb in the Barn.

• 1950’s and 60’s Grand Ole Opry host Tommy Cutrer is the next individual to be honored with a marker along the Mississippi Country Music Trail.

• USA Today has the worst suggestion ever: Guns N Roses lead man Axl Rose should go country.

• My Kind of Country gives the new and utterly delightful Joey + Rory single “Headache” a well-deserved “A” grade.

• Little Jimmy Dickens shared his usual good list of jokes at George Jones’ 80^th birthday party at the Grand Ole Opry.

• The Province has a great feature on recent CCMA winner Dean Brody that shares his rise from his extensive facial reconstruction after a skiing accident and living in his in-laws’ garage to the top of the Canadian country music world.

• Jimmy Wayne, working with VH1’s Save the Music program, brought a Nashville school over $30,000 worth of new music equipment.

• The long-running news show 60 Minutes will be doing a feature on Taylor Swift soon.

• Blake Shelton signed a new deal to stay on the Warner Brothers label.

• Guitarist and keyboardist Coy Bowles of the Zac Brown Band will be releasing his debut solo album called Love Takes Flight on Zac’s Southern Ground Records on 10/4. Click here to listen to “My Heart’s on Fire.”

• There are a couple of new free downloads available through NoiseTrade.com. Soulful Louisiana crooner Marc Broussard has a brand new digital album available called The Atlantic Recordings and new country upstarts Eden’s Edge have a couple of new songs available as well.

• The full schedule of The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival has been released; this year’s event will be in honor of Hazel Dickens.

• Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, a revered harmonica player in the field of blues and roots music, has passed away. He played with Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters and was part of the backing band for John Lee Hooker in the classic movie Blues Brothers.

• The JaneDear Girls have unleashed their next single on the world.

• DellaMae has added a new guitarist to the band.

• Dierks Bentley will be performing Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” on 9/29 as part of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’s week-long tribute to the legendary rock band.

• Roger McGuinn of The Byrds is enjoying his non-major label life.

• The Band Perry is doing a Christmas song with Justin Bieber.

• 15 album tracks that should be radio singles according to Roughstock.

• If nothing else, Peter Cooper wins the award for one of the best song titles ever with “Grandma’s Batman Tattoo.”

• The Boot is streaming LeAnn Rimes’ cover of Vince Gill’s “When I Call Your Name” from her upcoming Lady and Gentlemen album. Gill has co-produced the project.

• Tracy Lawrence received an honorary degree from Texarkana College.

• If you’re wanting the full scoop on Tim McGraw and the termination of (at least some of) his band, The Dancehall Doctors, the… uh… National Enquirerhas the latest.

• Disney television star Demi Lovato may be planning a country music album.

• Lady Antebellum is corny.

• Anything that strikes your fancy in any of these new music videos (and couple of live performances) this week?

Burns and Poe – “I Need A Job”

Blake Wise - “Can’t Live Without”

Jason Sturgeon - “The Cover”

Jason Aldean - “Tattoos on This Town”

Eric Sarmiento - “These Little Winters”

Veronica Ballestrini – “Temporary Fix”

Jenny and Ashley – “Indescribable”

Bryce Pallister – “Down Dusty Roads”

Jessica Rae – “I Could Get Used To This”

Steel Magnolia - “Bulletproof”

Kip Moore - “There’s Something About A Truck”

Rodney Atkins – “Take A Back Road”

Steve Forde – “Wasted/Revenge”

Tamara Stewart - “Butterfly”

Carter & Carter – “Dance in the Rain”

Kyle Park – “Make or Break Me”

Tyler Ward & Rachel Lampa – Adele’s “Someone Like You”

Beccy Cole – “Shiny Things”

Kenny Chesney & Taylor Swift – “Big Star”

Tori Darke – “Everything Love Is”