Odds & Ends

• Huge congratulations to The Lost Trailers and Chris Young, who both scored ACM Award nominations earlier this week! The Lost Trailers are vying for Top New Vocal Group, while Chris is up for Top New Solo Vocalist. Fans will have a chance to have their say on who wins when online voting kicks-off February 26th at VoteACM.com.
• The Grand Rapids Press ran a report this past weekend about a neighborhood pastry palace known as Marge’s Donut Den…turns out that Brad Paisley’s tour was headed into town, and a member of Brad’s production team had sent an advance order, only to have the folks at Marge’s go above and beyond the call of dough-ty. They surprised their celebrity client with guitar-shaped glazed doughnuts, adorned with chocolate and white-frosting strings. Brad even Tweeted a photo of the way-cool pastries with the simple caption, “The spoils of fame.” Head over to bradpaisley.com for all the latest on Brad, and you can follow the Paisley Twitter fun at twitter.com/paisleyofficial.
• Congratulations to the incomparable Loretta Lynn, who’s being celebrated this weekend at a ceremony where she’ll be among this year’s recipients of the GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award. Later this year — the 50th anniversary of the Coal Miner’s Daughter’s first single back in 1960 — Lynn and her music will be the focus of an all-star tribute album. Very cool.
• And speaking of the GRAMMY Awards…Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Martina McBride, Brooks & Dunn, Miranda Lambert, and Brad Paisley are among the huge stars nominated for this year’s honors. Look for Miranda as a show presenter, while Carrie is set to join Celine Dion, Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson, and the voice of Michael Jackson in an award-show first — a 3-D broadcast — as they come together to honor Jackson and air, for the first time in public, the 3-D mini-movie for “Earth Song,” which was meant to be the centerpiece of Jackson’s This Is It tour. Through Sunday, fans can pick up free 3-D GRAMMY viewing glasses at area Target stores. Catch all the live music and excitement of The 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards on Sunday, at 8pm, ET, on CBS.
• And speaking of Carrie Underwood…she’s also singing at the Super Bowl! Talk about back-to-back weekends of cool gigs! CBS will air Carrie’s performance of the national anthem as part of the pre-game coverage of Super Bowl 44. See it all, next Sunday, February 7th, and look for Carrie’s performance during the pre-game show at 6pm, ET.
• And since we’re talking about Carrie…if for some reason you haven’t grabbed your copy of her terrific new Play On album, head over to carrieunderwoodofficial.com, where you can order the CD together with an 11-by-17 heavy-paper-stock print featuring art from her album photo shoot. Hand-numbered and limited to 5000, the prints include 500 signed by Carrie that are being distributed at random to lucky fans. They’re selling out, so be sure to get yours today!