The top selling singer of 2008, Taylor Swift, has officially announced her tour dates for 2009, in support of the hit album “Fearless”. The 19 year old will have Kellie Pickler as part of the tour.

For a full list of the dates you can visit Taylor’s MySpace Page for a rundown of the cities and venues. She has had an incredible run of success, and with her appearance on Saturday Night Live on her Mother’s Birthday Jan. 10, to a national audience, tickets for the tour will probably sell fast.

Taylor really likes to make fun of herself, not a bad idea, when you are as popular as she is, it could be real easy to fall into the trap that other music stars have, and forget that her family, friends and fans are more important then what the media and news sites like this one say about her. Here is a video that Taylor posted on her MySpace Page, and gives a glimpse into the life of a performer.

After recording the first of four #1 songs of his career in 2001 with “Austin”, and then “The Baby” in 2002, followed by “Some Beach” in 2004, and the 2008 hit “Home”……. Blake Shelton’s song She Wouldn’t Be Gone has made the climb to #1 on the current Country Top Twenty song chart, making this his fifth number one song.

Blake has had a steady production of top twenty hits in his 10 years of recording and as of 2007, he began dating fellow country singer Miranda Lambert, whom he met at the CMT’s 100 Greatest Duets Concert. Lambert also sang background vocals on “Home”.

Here is a video and lyrics of the new #1 Country Single “She Wouldn’t Be Gone”……………

Red roadside wildflower,
if I’d only picked you,
took you home, set you on the counter,
oh at least a time or two,
maybe she’d have thought it through.
Yellow sunset
Slowly dippin’ down in the rearview,
oh how she loved to sit and watch you,
I could’ve done that a whole lot more.

Red roadside wildflower,
if I’d only picked you,
took you home, set you on the counter,
oh at least a time or two,
maybe she’d have thought it through.

Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, Ricky Skaggs, is part of a group trying to help the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum raise more than $1 million to keep some of its historic instruments in place, or they will have to sell them, and lose the pieces of country history.

The drive for money follows last month’s settlement of a year long legal battle in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The Instruments had been purchased using ill-gotten money in an elaborate Ponzi scheme created by the late Robert W. McLean.

The co-chairs of the campaign are Scott Siman, Tim McGraw’s manager, and museum board chairman Steve Turner, a local developer. It is estimated that it may take two or three years to complete the fundraising, given current economic conditions.

“It’s worth it,” he said. “The historical significance of these instruments is just unmatched. There is no way we can sit back and have these instruments lost to a legal battle and a private collector.”

The instruments are Mother Maybelle Carter’s Gibson 1928 L-5 guitar and Bill Monroe’s Gibson F-5 Loar mandolin, both of which they spent their lives playing. McLean also had donated Johnny Cash’s Martin D-35 acoustic guitar and his Martin prototype guitar to the museum.

What was one of the most watched videos and listened to songs on country radio in 2008 – “Holler Back” , by the Georgia Country band, The Lost Trailers, will be featured at Super Bowl 43 in Tampa Bay.

Beginning at 5PM EST on Sunday, February 1, more than 600 stations across the nation and 175 foreign countries will hear the Super Bowl customized version of “Holler Back” begin Westwood One’s exclusive radio coverage of The Super Bowl, called by Marv Albert, Boomer Esiason and others. When the Lost Trailers were asked to commission this special rendition, they were honored.

For the country fans that have not seen the video, here is The Lost Trailers -”Holler Back”…………….

The chart is based on the Bob Kingsley’s Country Top 40 and Kix Brooks American Top 40 Countdown……..