Don Henley, John Fogerty to Release New Solo Albums; Cyndi Thomson Returns; New Music Videos

• The Eagles’ Don Henley will release a new solo album called Cass County in May. Henley said the album “leans towards country. Some of it’s traditional country, some of it is what you might call alt-country, and I’ve got a lot of interesting guest vocalists and musicians on there with me. I made a lot of the album in Nashville. Some of it was recorded here in Dallas and some of it was recorded in Southern California. I’m pretty pleased with it.” 

• John Fogerty’s Wrote a Song for Everyone will be released May 28 on Vanguard Records. (via press release)

• A decade after walking away from the music business, songstress Cyndi Thomson (“What I Really Meant to Say”) is back with new music.

• In one of the least likely surprises of all time, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood are the top American Idol earners of 2012.

• Justin Moore will head out on his Outlaws Like Me Tour in March. It’ll be his first headlining tour.

• Radio.com posted a video interview with Kix Brooks in which he talks about his current single, “Moonshine Road”: “There was this old roadhouse” near where he grew up, he says with a smile on his face, where “we got in fights, we picked up girls, we drank beer, there was always trouble. You knew something was going to happen when you went down there.”

• Four-time Grammy winner and guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan, was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack.

• Miranda Lambert wants to collaborate with Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift. 

• Jack Ingram filmed a cute little commercial for grocer H-E-B that aired during Super Bowl programming in Texas.

• LeAnn Rimes is evidently “down on the corner, singing for nickels in her second-hand stockings.”

• The Grand Ole Opry released a video interview with Lisa Marie Presley where she talks about what it meant to play the stage that her father played many decades before.

• Check out the track listing for Willie Nelson’s 4/16 release, Let’s Face the Music and Dance.

• Travis Tritt is this month’s featured artist over at My Kind of Country.

• The annual Northern California Bluegrass Awards were held last week. Lifetime Achievement Awards were given to Kim Elking, Laurie Lewis, Kathy Kallick and Beth Weil, while Bean Creek and Snap Jackson & The Knock On Wood Players tied for best band.

• Mountain Dew and Brantley Gilbert have entered into a sponsorship agreement.

• “In the Wake of Sandy Hook, Does Country Music Have a Gun Problem?”

• Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott will mentor singers from Adam Levine’s team on The Voice.

• The Boot posted a feature on Kris Kristofferson. An excerpt: “I always had to wait until something hit me and I could write it,” he says. “But when I would cut an album, to me it represented the time that I spent since the last one. Just the way I was looking at the world.”

• New music videos from the last week or so:

Holly Williams – “Drinkin’”

Matthew Mayfield – “Track You Down”

Whiskey Shivers – “Jealous Heart”

Travis Collins – “Small Town”

Adam Toms – “Rich Man”

Rebekah Northern – “Hey Baby”

Rich O’Toole – “Messin’ Around”

Cody McCarver – “Outlaws and Trains”

Hillary McBride and Blaine Larsen – “Water & Oil”

Louise Day – “Nothingville”

Truth & Salvage Co. – “Hail Hail”