Marty Stuart to Celebrate 20 Years with the Opry; Shania Begins Vegas Run; New Music Videos

• Carrie Underwood will star as Maria von Trapp in an upcoming live NBC broadcast of The Sound of Music. The show will air in late 2013.

• Actor Wilford Brimley joined Riders in the Sky for an Opry performance.

• Marty Stuart will celebrate 20 years of Opry membership on Saturday: Stuart will be celebrated during a one-hour segment on each of the night’s two shows with performances by his wife and fellow Opry member Connie Smith, Charley Pride, Old Crow Medicine Show, and songwriter Brandy Clark.

• MusicRadar sat down with Troy Tomlinson, President and CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville, to talk about the state of publishing in country music. In discussing why the physical CD has not declined in country as much as other genres, Tomlinson says, “For country, the biggest single reason is that more than 50 percent, between 50 and 60 percent, of all physical country music was sold at Wal-Mart. That was at the peak of sales in America. Country consumers in the late ’90s and early 2000s were at Wal-Mart every week of the year. That’s where they buy a lot of their household items, and it’s where they’re used to purchasing music.” 

• Wade Hayes has been declared cancer-free.

• Taylor Swift performed “Begin Again” on Ellen.

• CBS will air television special A Home for the Holidays with Rascal Flatts on December 19.

• Justin Moore raised $20,000 for Jersey Shore relief efforts.

• ASCAP uploaded a video of former SteelDrivers lead singer Chris Stapleton and his wife, Morgane, singing an old Bob McDill classic, “Amanda,” at the ASCAP Country Music Awards.

• The new Hi-Def Bluegrass Compilation features Red Allen singing a duet with himself. I think you read that correctly.

• Nashville mayor Karl Dean thinks it is important that his town be known for music, not just country music.

• Visalia’s classic country station KJUG AM bit the dust.

• Aaron Lewis sat down for a Yahoo! Ram Country interview about his new album.

• Michael Hoinski of Cowboys & Indians magazine analyzed the widening boundaries of country music: “What is country music? Is it a twang to the instruments and a drawl to the voice? Does it have to do with what you wear, whom you associate with, and where you call home? Is it traditional country, real country, commercial country? Good luck finding an answer.”

• Glen Campbell seems to be healthy enough to consider adding additional dates to his farewell tour.

• Shania Twain began her Las Vegas residency.

• Jana Kramer was hospitalized for dehydration.

• Jewly Hight interviewed Ray Stevens about his new box set.

• The Kindle version of Dr. Kent Gustavson’s Doc Watson biography, Blind But Now I See, is free on Amazon until 12/4.

• Music videos from the past week or so:

Love and Theft – “Runnin’ Out of Air”

Toby Keith – “Hope on the Rocks”

The Sunny Cowgirls – “Green and Gold”

Tay Barton – “Country Boy for Christmas”

Matt Enik – “A Natural”

Phil Vassar – “Santa’s Gone Hollywood”

McAlister Kemp – “A Good Idea”

Joanna Smith – “We Can’t Be Friends”

Jeremy Steding – “Let the Boys Drink Whiskey”

Ben Ransom – “Truck Stop Honey”

Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Homegrown”

Marc Broussard – “Lonely Night in Georgia” (Hurricane Sandy Relief performance)

Stephen Colbert & Dolly Parton – “Love is Like a Butterfly”

Eli Young Band – “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”

Hayes Carll and Corb Lund – “Bible on the Dash”