Taylor Swift and The Civil Wars Join Forces; Dolly: The Musical; New Music Videos

• Our posting schedule this week will be a little spotty, but we’ll be back with guns fully blazing on January 2.

• Taylor Swift and The Civil Wars have teamed up to record a song from the  upcoming Hunger Games soundtrack. “Safe & Sound” was co-written by Swift, the duo and T-Bone Burnett. You can listen to the new track here.

• Grammy nominated Americana artist Linda Chorney had her album, Emotional Jukebox, nominated for a Grammy despite not selling a single album so far according to Sound Scan, the official industry tabulator of album sales. More than a few people are upset about it.

• Fiddler and vocalist Tammy Rogers detailed out what the future holds for The SteelDrivers after the second founding member’s departure. Brent Truitt will be filling in for Mike Henderson, and Chris Stapleton has written a couple of songs for the band.

• Doyle Lawson announced the lineup of performers for his 32nd Annual Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Bluegrass Festival which will be held in Denton, NC.

• Our own CM Wilcox has a different “chaos theory” take on the whole year-end best-of lists popping up over at Country California.

• Billboard released their Top 50 bluegrass albums of 2011 based on sales. Alison Krauss and Union Station came in at number one.

• Josh Thompson has new music.

• Country Music Is Love listed their top 11 albums of the year. David Nail, Ronnie Dunn, Frankie Ballard and Chris Young are among the artists selected.

• The Band Perry will be performing the national anthem at the Cotton Bowl on January 6^th.

• Chet Flippo wrote a column about the history and importance of the timeless Christmas classic “Pretty Paper.” 

• Gretchen Peters performed her song “On a Bus to St. Cloud” for Music Fog.

• The boys of Rascal Flatts are going to be hosting a year-end Grand Ole Opry-themed radio special for a bunch of radio stations to close out the year.

• Vinny Manniello, Bruce Springsteen’s very first drummer, passed away.

• Former The 9513 writer and My Kind of Country columnist Paul W. Dennis listed his top ten country music reissues of the past year.

• A new television series titled Bluegrass Road is heading to a TV near you soon.

• Peter Cooper highlighted his favorite country music moments in 2011 for The Tennessean.

• The Mindy McCready custody cluster still won’t go away.

• The Vancouver Sun outlined some new Canadian country and folk artists to keep an eye out for in 2012.

• Dolly Parton is turning her life story into a Broadway musical.

• Julie Roberts posted a preview of her upcoming music video for “Whiskey and You.”

• Ira Dean, formerly of Trick Pony, has an album coming soon.

• New music videos and live performances:

Glen Campbell – “Ghost on the Canvas” (live on Conan)

Glen Campbell — “A Better Place” (live on Conan)

Hali Hicks – “Last Night of Spring”

Donna Ulisse and the Poor Mountain Boys – “Walk This Mountain Down”

Benn Gunn – “Laughter and Beers”

Travis Collins – “Fired Today”

Kellie Pickler – “Unlock That Honky Tonk”