I'm not an uber-traditional Catholic. I don't carry a rosary everywhere I go. I still eat meat on Fridays. And when my friend brings home a new Cadillac Escalade, I will definitely covet my neighbor's goods. But then I hear a song like Lee Ann Womack's "There Is a God," and I am so moved, I think maybe I'm more of a believer than I realized.
Trent Willmon's mom, Billie Willmon Jenkin, has published a children's book. And who do you suppose she got to narrate it? She wrote and illustrated The Knock-Kneed Cowboy: A Tale of Being "Just Right" ... Just As We Are back when her boys were little. Trent says the story is just something his mom made up for his brother and him. "Casey is a knock-kneed cowboy who wants to be bow-legged like all his peers. When the book starts out, you think it's just for elementary-school kids. But as you read on, you realize it's a parable about all of us who feel different," he said. The singer-songwriter lends his rich vocals to the three-disc set, playing the part of a fifth-grade girl, a grandpa and a fairy god-frog. Meanwhile, his mom's idea was to help kids with self-acceptance. "I was determined that kids know that they don't have to let others' ideas about them become their own," she said.
Don't be surprised if you and Carrie Underwood share a passion for collecting. She says she packs all kinds of newspaper articles, backstage passes and posters into trunks.
There will be 84 tunes on the Rock Band 2 video game coming out soon, and not a single song is even remotely country. So rock on, but we're going to wait for a Rock Band Goes Country.
Bluegrass artist Dan Tyminski and his wife saved the day for an ATV driver who overturned his four-wheeler near Nashville, proving that heroes are definitely among us.
Trent Willmon was a caterer in his past life, but that was before he started singing and writing No. 1 hits for Montgomery Gentry.
It's still almost a year away, but it's never too early to start making your plans to attend a George Strait concert in Canada.
Memorial Day is traditionally the unofficial kickoff of summer, and for many, the first big barbecue day of the season. Country singer Trent Willmon has been honing his skills on the grill for years. The former caterer even makes his own barbecue sauce. "I have been making my own barbecue sauce since I was a teenager," he says. "My grandma made her own, as well as my mom, uncles, cousins, aunts. It's sort of a family tradition. We love barbecue and we love sauce!"
Mark your calendars. Playgirl magazine's annual country music issue comes out next month, including interviews with Clay Walker, Trent Willmon and Troy Gentry. Clothes on, of course.
When you run the numbers for a recent Carrie Underwood show, it comes out to more than $41,000 a song the venue had to pay to bring her to East Tennessee. But Underwood is raking in money in all kinds of ways, like on the set of this VitaminWater shoot in Texas.
Nashville. It's not just for country artists anymore. Forbes talks about the city's second coming as a getaway for Hollywood celebs.
In honor of yesterday's Mother's Day, listen to the moms of Lambert, Ingram, Bentley and Yearwood share stories of raising their famous little ones.
Straight from the we-can't-make-this-stuff-up files, a biologist has named a new species of arachnid after the iconic Neil Young.
If you think you have hit the gym to stay fit, think again. Country artist and true cowboy Trent Willmon says the best workouts just require a little horse sense.
“I had a job exercising racehorses for a couple of years, and I was in the absolute best physical shape of my life,” says Willmon. “I think a lot of horse activities, from starting colts to riding cutting horses, can be quite strenuous and can keep you in shape. Just the everyday maintenance of feeding, watering, cleaning stalls and riding will keep you in shape.”
Willmon should know. He worked as a ranch hand and a horse trainer before he hit the road as a country artist. He rode and roped on a regular basis until excessive touring and long stints away from home forced him to give up his horses. “I currently have no horses, and no time to tend to them if I did have them,” he says. “I sold my last horse a couple years ago. Occasionally, though, I do get to borrow a horse to rope or just ride. I have a few good friends who understand my predicament.”
This is a good idea. Compadre Records is going green with its CD packaging. Instead of those worthless plastic “jewel cases,” CDs will come packaged in digi-paks made of recyclable, biodegradable board and paper foam. Artwork, liner notes and credits will be posted on Compadre’s website. The first CD release will be Trent Willmon’s Broken In on Feb. 26. The label also plans to deliver review albums to media using reusable USB drives and via download. In their own offices, they plan to use only recycled paper as office stationery, recycled toner cartridges and energy-saving light bulbs. And they will encourage their touring artists to put into their tour riders clauses that ban the use of Styrofoam cups or plates. Very laudatory. Especially when it appears that other record labels’ contributions to the environment consist only of releasing vast numbers of CDs that no one wants. Therefore, they don’t go into circulation and sit -- forever, I hope -- in warehouses.
CDs and plastic jewel cases cannot be recycled at all, except for any paper sleeves and booklets. The discs themselves that cannot be re-written, and thus at least re-usable, become worthless trash. So, the sooner that CDs are made obsolete by downloading, the better for life on earth. I would be very happy in a world of downloaded music. As long I can still get vinyl albums. They’re made of recyclable vinyl and they come in recyclable cardboard jackets with recyclable paper booklets. And they sound better than anything else.
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