January 22nd, 2007 by Brody Vercher
Man, I knew when I woke up on Saturday that tickets for the Willie, Merle, and Ray concert were going to be on sale, but I figured I d wait until today to purchase them so that Brady, Jenna, and I would be in the office to decide how many to get. We decided to purchase seven tickets in the Golden Section. Unfortunately for us they were sold out of that section and the next section, too.

It took less than two days for them to sell out of the two best sections! Luckily we still got tickets for the back section. Next time a big concert comes through that I want to attend I ll be sitting on the website refreshing the page until the tickets go on sale.

Unbelievable.
By the way, we ll be having a contest next month to give away two of the tickets that we purchased. Hopefully all three sections will be sold out by then, leaving our tickets in high demand and thus driving large amounts of traffic to The 9513 to enter the contest.

Without further ado, I bring you the best of today s news:

Keith Urban has the kind of that creates buzz, similar to what I suggested in my , but he one ups it by posting a .

There s a nice addition of over on Gallyerwinter. He talks about the Trifecta, hitting up the same artist in concert on three consecutive nights, a couple of truly amazing shows from Jack Ingram, and Doug Moreland s newest CD in which he hones his skills and creates his own sound.

Speaking of Jack Ingram, he s featured on the cover of Texas Monthly.

I don t do what is down the middle of the road, Rhyder said. People ask me all the time, What type of music do you play?

I call it country. Not old country or new country, but country.
If you ve never heard of Brandon Rhyder, I highly recommend his album, Conviction.

The guy has got some awesome vocals. January 19th, 2007 by Jenna Vercher

Last of the Breed, a two disc set featuring Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price will be released on March 20th by Lost Highway Records. It was recorded in Nashville and Fred Foster produced the album, which includes 20 newly recorded classics and two new songs.

If you live in the Austin area, don t forget to get your for the March 16th concert, they go on sale tomorrow.

Jimmy recently saw Big Rich s John Rich at the Ryman and told him, You think you are so hot. Me and Anderson have got Little Po and we re going to run you out of business, Bill says.

John thought it was the funniest thing he ever heard.

We before that Carrie Underwood and Tony Romo were dating, but Carrie Underwood has confirmed they .

Kellie Pickler co-hosted The View yesterday morning and was surprised with a gold album in honor of the RIAA Gold certification of her debut album, Small Town Girl.

Martina McBride s ninth album, Waking Up Laughing, will be released on April 3. Her starts April 12 in Kansas City, with Little Big Town and Rodney Atkins as the opening acts.

Taylor Swift and singer/actor Tyler Hilton got together for the video of her second single, Teardrops On My Guitar .

The video was shot at a high school in Nashville.
I found out he was a fan of my music and he came to my show, she said. I met him in the meet and greet line, and we became friends.

He came onstage with me at the show, and I asked him in front of the crowd, Do you want to be in my video? and he said, Yeah!
January 12th, 2007 by Brody Vercher

So the most exciting news today, to me at least, is Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Ray Price, and Asleep at the Wheel are coming to Austin on March 16th 17th.

Tickets go on sale in eight days, January 20, for the concert at the Backyard. I m so not missing this show. I just hope they perform Pancho Lefty, one of my all time favorites.

I didn t get the chance to catch Nashville Star last night, blame it on Jenna and her IKEA furniture, but has the rundown on the show. Nashville Star s Fifth Season kicks off with some firecracker performances, and two of the newest hopefuls are sent packing.

Among a number of the country songs that are entering the is the classic He Stopped Loving Her Today from George Jones, as well as the Wanted!

The Outlaws album from Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser.

Stonewall Jackson, a longtime member of the Opry, filed a claiming age discrimination, breach of contract and retaliation.
Jackson said he approached Fisher on several occasions and was told things like, I don t want any gray hairs on that stage or in the audience, and before I m done there won t be any and You re too old and too country.

I don t know who is right and who is wrong, but it seems like the Opry has been getting a lot of negative publicity lately.

has a press release on an up and coming young lady, Leah Durelle, who is only 15. The reason I mention her is because she ll be one of the artists added to the iPod contest within the next week or so, keep an eye out for that.

has picked up a story on the Porter Wagoner signing with Anti- deal. It s an interesting read about a man that a lot of new country fans don t know a whole lot about.

January 10th, 2007 by Brody Vercher

CMT s DukesFest 2007 is approaching fast.

Tickets went on sale today for the June 2-3 show celebrating the Dukes of Hazzard. Doesn t it suck that there are so many shows around the country, but most people are limited to what they can attend because of jobs and such.

Toby Keith was the for 2006, and he was ranked the third most played artist out of all genres.

At first I couldn t think of any extra exposure he had last year, then I remembered the I Love This Bar song and it all made sense.

Tennessean.com is reporting that Dierks Bentley, known for his curly locks, has for one of his videos.

Unfortunately they don t have a picture at this time, so we can t tell you whether it was a mistake or not.
UPDATE: Matt posted a link in the comments to Jimmy Carter s website where he has a . Also, suzyj at Galleywinter posted .

The Texas Senate has been pondering what rules should be in place for . All the big fuss is caused by the proposition of naming a tollway after Willie Nelson. Republicans don t like it because he s a well-known democratic supporter.

Personally, I wouldn t want a toll road named after me. Robert Earl Keen admits that he s not extremely talented in the vocal department, but what makes him a huge success is the songs that he writes and the through those songs.

Winner s from the People s Choice Awards, held last night, are no surprise to us: January 3rd, 2007 by Brody Vercher

Ed Ward over at the Austin Chronicle has a fine piece of literature on Willie Nelson s .

Even if you re not interested in Willie, it s an entertaining read about what goes on behind the scenes at a studio recording.

One of my favorite TV shows currently on TV, , has been using a lot of Texas music. Although it s not all country, some of it is, including: Jerry Jeff Walker, James McMurtry, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Billy Joe Shaver.

Dolly Parton had a big year in 2006 and it got even bigger as she was name by the Tennessean. She was singled out for her work in literacy through the Imagination Library.

Bob Wills is getting a posthumous lifetime achievement award during Grammy week in February, as reported by .

Speaking of Bob Wills, how many people do you know that still pronounce it Bob Wells?

having listened to plenty of Rascal Flatts and witnessed those boys in concert, I wouldn’t inflict that hack band on my worst enemies — apologies to their legions of fans. I just don’t get it.

I’m not going to similarly write off Carrie Underwood or Keith Urban, both of whom flex more musical finesse; but if the “American Idol” star and Aussie hunk are “mainstream” country, how much different are they from pop, really?

Opry s king of twang, Del Reeves at the age of 73.

One of my favorite movies as a kid was Robin Hood, the Disney version with different animals .

It was recently released on DVD and I just learned that the Voice of the singing rooster dude (I don t recall his name) was Roger Miller. No wonder I like country music, it was drilled into me even at a young age.

December 27th, 2006 by Brody Vercher
We had a busy holiday season here at The 9513.

Brady spent the holidays in Washington with his fiancé s family and won t be back until tomorrow afternoon, I was in Fort Stockton visiting my girlfriend s family, while Jenna spent her Christmas down in Uvalde. We had a few posts prepared to automatically update the site on Christmas day, but other than that we kind of slacked off on the posting during the past week or so. Have no fear, we will begin writing more regularly as the new year begins.

Without further ado, I bring you the latest news in country music:

that Carrie Underwood and Tony Romo are dating. If you watched the Cowboys get thrashed by the Eagles on Christmas day you should have seen her sitting in the press box, hugging Romo before the game, or at least heard the announcers talking about her and Romo. Good thing it s Underwood and not Jessica Simpson, who he was linked to before.

Dennis Linde - songwriter for Elvis, Garth Brooks, and numerous other country singers - of a rare lung disease. CMT has a list of the .

It seems like everday Jessica Simpson is linked with country stars.

This time it s with Willie Nelson. Willie will be playing Simpson s grandfather in an titled Blonde Ambition based on an older movie, Working Girl. You can add this to my list of movies not to watch in the upcoming year.

December 22nd, 2006 by Brody Vercher

Jessica Simpson made the headlines a couple of weeks back when she walked off the stage during a tribute to Dolly Parton. The excuse given at the time was that her dress was falling off and it caused her to lose concentration. However, they gave her a second chance to perform her tribute for the TV version, and now that she s seen the tape of her performance, .

We appreciate the time and energy Ms. Simpson put into this event and respect the high standards she has for herself and that of the Kennedy Center Honors, said George Stevens Jr., show producer.

(hehe, he said high standards and Ms. Simpson in the same sentence)

Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, the Dixie Chicks were among the country artists in the Rolling Stone magazine s list of top 50 albums of 2006.

Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price will be performing together in the upcoming year while using Asleep at the Wheel as their backup band.

How would it be to attend that show? I could die happy if I ever get the chance to see Willie and Merle perform Pancho Lefty live.

Chris Young, whom I had never heard of until about him in his Best Albums of 2006, seems to be destined to make it big.

He lists Keith Whitley and Marty Robbins (one of my favorite artists) as some of .

December 20th, 2006 by Brody Vercher
I m starting a series on The 9513 titled and then I ll choose a topic and find as many country songs about that topic as I can. Today s topic is Kicking Ass.

Below are a few of the songs I came up with that are about kicking ass, and a couple of them even make you want to kick some ass of your own after hearing them.
Songs like This Cowboy s Hat are about sticking up for what you believe in and not letting people trample on you, some of them are just story songs ( Pancho Lefty and In Lonseome Dove ), and maybe others you can apply to your life, such as telling your boss to shove it. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ass kickin .

December 14th, 2006 by Brody Vercher

Dolly Parton contributed $500,000 to a hospital in honor of the doctor who . She says Daddy paid him with a sack of cornmeal, and I ve always joked that I ve been raking in the dough ever since.

Wheel of Fortune has announced that they ll be having a in which they ll pair country music stars with other contestants to try and solve the puzzles.

The singers earnings will go to their charity of choice. You can catch the week long series in February from the 12-16.

Nick Cristiano from the Philadelphia Inquirer posted a list of his top ten country/roots albums of 2006.

His taste varies a little from each of ours, but he still has that could be worth checking out.

Taylor Swift had a . She is now 17 years old.

Most people know Taylor from her Tim Mcgraw song. She says she got the idea for the song in freshman math class. She also talked to Tim McGraw on the phone and he said he and Faith Hill like the song, but it makes him feel old.

GAC reports that a new CD, The Complete Million Dollar Quartet, with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins will be released with material.
Although it s generally assumed that Johnny left before the session really got going, the CD offers a revealing glimpse into the musical instincts of these extraordinary figures. Taking turns on lead vocal, Elvis, Carl and Jerry Lee went through some country tunes, some Chuck Berry numbers and some Elvis hits.

But the focus was on gospel, including Just a Little Talk With Jesus.

GAC is also reporting that a Nashville newspaper of several celebrities, including Dierks Bentley.
I haven t had anybody come over to my house yet, he tells X Radio, but this is not something you really want to have happen.

Dierks has a message for any would-be thieves: If you re a robber, I actually will be there every night of the week. And my dogs are always there. Jake is such a big dog.