CMT Blog: Charity

Dierks Bentley's latest album, Up on the Ridge, has quickly become a favorite among country fans. His music video for "Up on The Ridge" is also one of the most popular on CMT.com. Through his "Posted" page at CMT.com, Bentley took the time to answer fans' Twitter questions. Take a look.

@areyes03: Any new songs you're writing? I've been trying not to ... trying to just focus on and enjoy Up on the Ridge. But, I've had some ideas floating around up there for a while and I'm starting to think about getting back into it.

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Aug. 20, 2010

Hey Y'all -

We've been in Dallas and Tulsa, Okla., recently and the shows have been awesome. We rolled into Dallas on Wednesday morning and hit the ground running. Ran over and did some radio visits and met with some folks. The show that night at The Granada was awesome -- thanks everybody for coming out! Here are some pictures of the night. Had a good time hanging out with Meghan & Josh (from Steel Magnolia) in Tulsa. Josh even got up and joined us for "Long Haired Country Boy." -- Rodney

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Jimmy Wayne's been saying all along that when teenagers get too old for the foster care system, they are out of luck. And on their own, usually with nothing. I believed him that there was a problem, but after his 1700-mile and seven-month walk from Nashville to Phoenix, it's easier to see the magnitude of it. His whole Meet Me Halfway effort was so inspiring to me. A former homeless teen himself, Wayne walked to create awareness about the little-known fact that so many teens out there have no homes. It's also inspiring to see how many of those foster kids came out to welcome him back to Nashville.

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Officially, it's going to be called Kid Rock Salutes the Troops Presented by Jim Beam: Patriot Day 2010. But unofficially, it will just be a great day to see a Kid Rock concert at Hilton Field in Fort Jackson, S.C., especially for our nation's service members and their families who will get in for free. Tickets for nonmilitary folks go on sale on Wednesday (Aug. 4). This is not the first time Beam and Rock have joined forces to do good things. At Kid Rock's Chicago concert last Saturday (July 31), he joined the Jim Beam folks to donate $100,000 to Operation Homefront to give emergency assistance to U.S. troops, their families, and wounded veterans. And last year, he donated 50 cents from every ticket to select shows on his Rock ‘N Rebels tour to Operation Homefront.

I've been looking forward to this past week for a long time now. The minute I found out that I would be playing the Grammy Block Party for the L.A. Chapter, I couldn't wait for the day to arrive. But first, it was off to N.C. to do a show on the Redneck Yacht Party Boat. I played for about two hours and it was a lot of fun. I mean country music, beer, and a lake -- how could it not be? Then I was off to Rhode Island where I did another acoustic show at Six Flags. (BTW ... while I'm writing this blog entry, I'm sitting at a restaurant in L.A. by myself stuffing my face with bread and maple butter ... I can hear myself getting fatter! Just a side note.) Apparently, I rode what was voted the best roller coaster on the planet. I will say ... it was awesome! Used to be called "Superman," but now it's Bizarro. Got up the next morning at 5 a.m. to co-host a radio show ... thank you Jessica at Cat Country, which was a lot of fun btw! Love you, I mean it! ;)

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Nicole Kidman is in Haiti right now, doing good things for women's rights with the United Nations Development Fund for Women. She's been at this for about five years, so she's no stranger to putting her celebrity to good use. But right behind her is husband Keith Urban, who she says is more than a better half. "Keith has done benefit concerts for us. He's been so supportive. I'm always like, 'Hey, I think I might be able to get hold of a musician.' He's so lovely," Kidman told USA Today. The only bad part of the work? Being away from their daughter Sunday Rose, 2. "I've spent two nights away from her in two years. I'm just so into her. I'm crazy about her," she says, adding that she and Urban are committed to teaching Sunday to have a very strong social conscience.

Photo credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

When you start your set with a song about dirty motel sex, people notice. So that's what Jaron and the Long Road to Love did Wednesday night (July 21) at Chicago's House of Blues. He also spent some time on old stuff from his Evan and Jaron pop days ("Crazy for This Girl") and a Tears for Fears cover ("Everybody Wants to Rule the World"). But the majority of his show was just Jaron on guitar, piano and vocals. Doing the song he's now become famous for, "Pray for You," and a few other new ones like "That's Beautiful to Me" and "Meantime Girl" from his debut country album. And in between songs, there was the charm that sets him apart from the artists who take the stage and just go through the motions. As he introduced "That's Beautiful to Me," he told the crowd, "When you first start going out with someone, everything is so cute. But after a while, it's all so annoying. But if you stick around, it gets cute again."

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When the floods in May wreaked their havoc on Nashville, they also did so to all kinds of instruments. But while the musicians deemed those guitars and fiddles and mandolins and banjos unplayable, one group deemed them potential works of art. ReTune Nashville has been collecting "ruined" instruments and bringing them back to life as art. So when Toby Keith's guitarist Rich Eckhardt and bassist Chuck Goff donated instruments, those will now become palettes for an artist who will create something worthy of hanging on the wall of a Keith fan. For example, famed clothier Manuel is already working with Raul Malo's guitar (see left).

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On Sunday (July 18), I raced through an intriguing new novel, Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin. Written in simple, straightforward language, the story is narrated by 15-year-old Charley Thompson who relocates to Portland, Ore., when his father takes a forklift job there. Meanwhile, Charley is left alone long enough to wander the neighborhood, where he stumbles upon a racetrack and lands a summer job working for a horse racer. One of his duties is to care for a quarter horse named Lean on Pete. There isn't much of a music element to the story, aside from the fact that one of the characters turns on a country station in his truck, but as the story unraveled, I couldn't help but compare Charley's trek to Jimmy Wayne's walk to Phoenix to raise awareness of homeless teens. And I realized how much I was rooting for this kid, which is probably why I read all 277 pages in a day. I can't remember the last time I did that.

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When not behind his guitar, Lucas Hoge can be spotted on Last Chance Highway, a new show on Animal Planet that follows the rescue of stray and abandoned dogs that overwhelm the South to their final delivery to families in the North. Hoge, who volunteered for the show after finding a listing online, joins cast member Kyle Peterson every week to transport more than 150 homeless dogs to new families.

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