Filed under: Exclusive, Movies and TV

Every Monday, The Boot updates fans on where to find your favorite country stars on TV throughout the week. Here’s what’s happening for the week of September 6.

Wednesday, September 8:

The new GAC special ‘Blake Shelton Live: It’s All About Tonight’ airs 9:00 PM ET. The special will re-run throughout the week on GAC. Click here for air dates and times.

Friday, September 10:

Sugarland stops by the ‘Today‘ show airing on NBC.

GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown sits down with Jamey Johnson. Click here for air times.

Martina McBride will participate in an all-star musical collaboration during the ‘Stand Up to Cancer’ multi-network telethon, benefiting cancer research. Led by Stevie Wonder, Martina will perform with Natasha Bedingfield, Queen Latifah, Aaron Neville and Dave Stewart. The charity special will simulcast commercial-free on 17 channels beginning at 8:00 PM ET.

Blake Shelton closes out the evening with his performance on ‘The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson‘ airing on CBS at 11:37 PM ET.

Linda Henry, dance instructor, demonstrated dance steps at the first of the fall line dance lessons sponsored by Hagerstown Country Western Dance Association.

Filed under: Humor, Country News

Every Saturday, The Boot brings you the week’s top tweets so you can see what your favorite stars are chirping about! This week’s funniest Twitter posts come from Martina McBride, Blake Shelton, Danny Gokey and more. And don’t forget to follow The Boot (@thebootdotcom).

Martina McBride (@martinamcbride): “Playing ‘Secret Agents’ with my 5 year old is pretty much as good as it gets …”

Josh Thompson (@TheJoshThompson): “Its a good day to write a song about Animal Crackers.”

Jaron and the Long Road to Love (@JaronATLRTL): “Whatever happened to velcro shoes? Those were so functional and awesome! I’m tired of tying shoes laces.”

Justin Moore(@JustinColeMoore): “In no way could I be more miserable right now. Guess where I am. Ding, ding, ding! A freakin airplane the size of my cowboy boot!”

Filed under: CMA Awards, Country News

Miranda Lambert and her “financy,” as she lovingly refers to Blake Shelton, are preparing to face off in three categories at the CMA Awards ceremony in November. While the two of them are pitted against each other for Musical Event of the Year, Single of the Year and Music Video of the Year, the fact is, Miranda is so over the moon about Blake’s three nods, she hasn’t even been able to fully absorb the fact that she’s the top nominee, with an unprecedented nine nominations!

“I think it’s awesome,” Miranda tells Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper. “He’s been going at it like he’s a new artist, playing shows and working really hard, and he’s been doing this for 10 years. I think he’s one of the best singers in country music, and the fact that he’d never been nominated for Male Vocalist of the Year was getting on my nerves. It’s not just been a huge year for me, it’s been a huge year for both of us. And if you can’t win, wouldn’t you rather lose to someone you love?”

As both of their careers have skyrocketed this past year in a blazing cascade of record-breaking, multi-platinum success, Miranda and Blake have been quietly melting at a slow and measured pace into each other’s arms as a couple in love. There was never any hurry, as far as they were concerned … even after four years of dating, when everyone kept asking them, when is he going to pop the big question?

Filed under: Albums, Country News, Songs

Keith Urban will release his seventh studio album, ‘Get Closer,’ on November 16.

And more good Keith Urban news: The CD’s debut single, ‘Put You in a Song’ — co-written by Keith, Sarah Buxton and Jedd Hughes — will hit airwaves on September 13.

“I’ve always loved songs about the guy in love with the unattainable girl,” says Keith of the new tune. “And the idea that the only chance that this poor guy is ever going to have to get close to the object of his affection is to put her in a song, just struck me. That way he’d be able to take her with him everywhere he goes … day and night.”

Filed under: Exclusive, Interviews, Country News

Gretchen Wilson is hitting the charts with the title track of her latest album, ‘I’ve Got Your Country Right Here,’ so we decided to hit her with some questions from the fans. The Boot solicited our Twitter and Facebook followers for Gretchen questions and thanks to your inquiring minds, we certainly had a lot of fun things to talk to the singer, songwriter, literacy advocate and mother about. We caught up with Gretchen about politics, her daughter, the special moments in her career, getting older, what kind of man she would like to date (“lumberjack man … big dude, hairy, tough! “), as well as the Redneck Woman’s rockin’ new anthem, ‘I’ve Got Your Country Right Here.”

Danny writes, “Would you ever want to run for political office?”

I might want to, [but] I’m not saying I will. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately, because of where I’m headed. Something happens after you have a child. You start thinking about the world. Our parents and our grandparents really suffered and went through a lot of hard stuff so we could be as free as we are now, so that we can live the way we’re living. But I feel that we’re not parenting our country as well as our parents parented this country and we’re leaving a lot of stuff behind. If the political world could get to a more honest place, then I might be able to find a place in it. But if being a politician and running for office means not being myself and hiding my past or watching what I say because of the region of the country I’m in, I don’t know if I’m cut out for it. If we ever get to a place where we can handle some honesty and we’re willing as a country to let people to speak freely without throwing our hands up in the air and saying, “racist” or “politically incorrect” or “you can’t say that here” — when we’re ready to really get down to it and talk, I can probably see myself there.

Filed under: Albums, Country News

Sixteen years ago, songwriter Shawn Camp delivered his second album to his record label. Coming off a pair of Top 40 country hits with ‘Never Felt So Good’ and ‘Confessin’ My Love,’ Shawn’s second disc was poised to be a breakthrough hit.

Only problem was the powers-that-be at Shawn’s label, Warner Reprise in Nashville, felt the album, “didn’t sound like the latest hit,” Shawn says today. “They wanted me to change everything. Told me to take all the fiddles and Dobros off and put electric guitars on. I got crossways and never did it.”

The lost album is finally being issued with the title ‘1994,’ and it’s thanks to Warner Music Nashville President/CEO John Esposito, who happened into an impromptu guitar pull with Shawn during last year’s Leadership Music retreat, an invitation-only gathering of industry professionals. After digging through the Warner vaults and getting his first listen to the music, Esposito said, “This stuff is magic. There’s this sly, underlying sexiness to Shawn’s songwriting that I dig. I was trained to sign people who are magnificent and then to allow them show their magnificence. It shouldn’t be about trying to change what they do.”