CMT Blog: Jennifer Nettles

If you're a music fan with an interest in health and fitness, the new issue of Self magazine includes Lilith Fair performers like Martina McBride, Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles, Sarah McLachlan, Colbie Caillat and Sheryl Crow in a special section called "Love Your Lilith," with 34 pages of artist interviews and stories. Nettles, by the way, tells Self that she doesn't go crazy about diet and exercise even when she's under such constant media scrutiny. "I love to eat and enjoy a glass of wine as much as the next gal, and I live my life so I don't feel slaved to what it is that I do for a living," she says. I love hearing that. So where can you find this mini-magazine? Go to the Lilipad tent at the shows for a free copy, or get the deluxe one with a 15-track CD and flower seeds at Walmart starting Aug. 3. Partnering with the companies who make tampons and pads makes sense, too. I think the VP of marketing for these brands said it best: "Stayfree, Carefree and o.b. aim to empower women by offering them confidence, comfort and protection in their everyday lives, to help them shine on their own personal stage." So, shine on, Lilith lovers.

When a world-class country singer calls in for a phone interview, you are usually given an allotted time to chat. Five minutes, sometimes 10. But you rarely get to just talk and talk and talk. Yet this recent story from The Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs, Colo., makes it sound like Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles had all the time in the world.

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It sounds like Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles isn't totally crazy about Las Vegas. Particularly the cold casinos full of recycled cigarette smoke AND drunk adults. But she did have one really splendid day that she documented in her blog for "your voyeur within." She calls it "A Not-So-Day-In-The Life," and it outlines what she ate (egg white fritatta and a side of mixed berries for breakfast, fish tacos for lunch and cucumber water at the spa) and what she did (worked out, took a shower, got a wonderful massage, read, dozed, sent e-mails, then took another shower and let her hair air dry in the desert sun). It is like every woman's fantasy day. Although she admits that her disdain for Sin City may make her sound "like a complete and total itch-bay," I appreciate her candor -- and her willingness to not keep everything that happened in Vegas in Vegas.

Another one bites the American Idol dust, and you'll never guess where she wants to go next: Nashville! Janell Wheeler made it to the top 24 contestants on the show, but now that she's been let go, she's free to choose where her career will take her next. And she is choosing country. But not just same-old, same-old country. Wheeler told EW.com she wants to bring something extra to country. "I want to be a dancing country music singer. I'm not going to do Britney Spears, but my vision onstage, I want to bring movement to country and really reinvent the style," she said. "Country is evolving right now, and I just really want to put my mark on it and use all my styles together and make something special for sure." Other than the Faith Hill/Carrie Underwood stomp and the Jennifer Nettles hip swing thing, I've never seen a girl country singer really dance. So consider my interest piqued.

Even if I'd gone to Los Angeles for the Grammys on Sunday (Jan. 31), it actually sounds like Saturday (Jan. 30) was the best day to be there. First up was Grammy rehearsals. Bon Jovi and Jennifer Nettles did their run-through of "Who Says You Can't Go Home," and Carrie Underwood got ready for the Michael Jackson tribute of "The Earth Song" with Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson and Usher. EW.com noted that both Dion and Underwood were wearing their "Talent" credential stickers onstage, in the event that security guards would not recognize those two in their 3-D glasses.

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Oh, the things you can learn when you tune into the Grammy Awards two hours early. The red carpet show on E! is always good for focusing on everything BUT the music. Who are you wearing? Where's your boyfriend/girlfriend tonight? What are your plans after? And so on. But last night's show was pretty educational. (See Grammy red carpet photos.)

Like when Keith Urban took the time to clear the air about his People's Choice award speech where he said of his music, "I don't even care if you download it illegally, give it to your friends, I really don't care." So Ryan Seacrest gave Urban a chance to clear the air. "I didn't mean I wanted people to steal music. It came out wrong and I apologize," he explained. (If I can translate a little, he was just encouraging fans to share their love of music with other people, like the way you'd make someone a mix tape in high school.) He also joked that any big duets with wife Nicole Kidman would stay in the unpredictable world of amateur videos.

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It's always cool to see some love for Nashville at an event that's not country-specific, like Sunday night's (Jan. 31) Grammy Awards -- even better when it's more than a little nod and smile in passing. Nashville and its music actually got quite a bit of camera time as Lady Antebellum, Zac Brown Band, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Nettles all got performances, and two of the biggest all-genre awards ended up going to country artists.

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After an hour and a half of trying to learn to ice skate backwards on Saturday (Jan. 16), Jennifer Nettles finally found the key to success. In the Miley Cyrus song, "Party in the U.S.A." Nettles had only been skating four times before, but thought it was time to learn what she calls one of the more counter-intuitive actions one can try. She even had a teacher telling her things like "push from your toe," "don't lean forward," "bend your knees," "lean back a bit on your skates" and all that. All while trying to do this in hockey skates, which must've been close to impossible because the blades are narrower and shorter than the ones on figure skates. Anyway, eventually Nettles said "something clicked." She tried, like a singer should, to move to the music: "Turning my hips side to side, to the beat. They were playing my song. I felt like I could fly away. Bobbing my head like, yeah. Moving my hips like ... Yeah, backwards skating bitches!!!!" Maybe ice-skating rinks will start playing that hip-grooving "Party in the U.S.A." at all their lessons from now on.

In this special section on Maxim.com, they list who they consider to be the 18 hottest women of country music. And it's pretty much the usual suspects, like Julianne Hough, Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert, Kellie Pickler, Jennifer Nettles, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Sara Evans, Gretchen Wilson and the girls from Little Big Town. But it's the little remarks and photo captions that are worth checking out. From the introduction line ("We know why the devil really went down to Georgia. He was looking for these country divas.") to the comments about sexy newcomer Jessie James ("the smokingest thing to happen to country music since Willie Nelson rolled his first joint") and about Danielle Peck ("grabbed our attention with her pantsless video for "Bad for Me." Which was, ironically, very, very good for us."). This story may not be for the girls who hate men's magazine, but guys who dig country will love this photo gallery.

Photo Credit: Frederick Breedon/Getty Images

Tomorrow at 10 a.m.? Thursday at 10 a.m.? Or Saturday at 10 a.m.? There are so many presales and promotions going on for the CMA Awards tickets that my head is spinning. That's good, though, right? That means there are a lot of opportunities to see this must-see show live in Nashville on Nov. 11. Ticketmaster doesn't give you a whole lot of relevant info. Like tickets prices. Or the necessary super special secret codes to get into these presales. Sometimes it's a fan club thing. But I don't know that I'd recommend joining several fan clubs just to get CMA tickets because, generally, fan clubs don't guarantee that you'll get good seats. You may be sitting next to Jennifer Nettles or George Strait, but then again you may run the risk of sitting where altitude sickness is a very real possibility. It's your choice. But once you decide, please let us know which ticket on-sale date you used and what kind of tickets you scored.

Updated 4:15 p.m. ET, Tuesday (Sept. 15)

The promotional code to be used for access to CMT's CMA Awards Tickets Presale on Sept. 16-18 is CMT2009. The presale expires at 11 p.m. ET on Friday (Sept. 18). Regular ticket sales begin on Saturday (Sept. 19).