Alabama,
Kenny Rogers, Rodney Atkins, Chris Janson, Jamey Johnson, Montgomery
Gentry, Michael Ray, Ricky Skaggs, Michael W. Smith, The Randy Travis
Band, Tanya Tucker and Josh Turner Announced to Join Country Music Hall
of Famer at Bridgestone Arena
Tickets to the Historic Event Will Go On Sale Friday, December 9; More Artists Will Be Announced in the Coming Weeks
Kenny Rogers, Rodney Atkins, Chris Janson, Jamey Johnson, Montgomery
Gentry, Michael Ray, Ricky Skaggs, Michael W. Smith, The Randy Travis
Band, Tanya Tucker, Josh Turner and more to be announced.
Tickets for the highly anticipated event go on sale to the general
public Friday, December 9 at 11:00am CST at all Ticketmaster locations and the Bridgestone Arena Box Office.
In October, Randy Travis was officially inducted into The Country
Music Hall of Fame. The multi-platinum country giant suffered a massive
stroke in 2013 and has made miraculous strides towards recovery since,
recently singing “Amazing Grace” at his Country Music Hall of Fame
induction ceremony as well as the tagline to his iconic “Forever and
Ever, Amen” at the 2016 CMA Awards in November alongside numerous
country legends and stars.
A portion of the proceeds will go to the Randy Travis Foundation; a
501(c)3 non-profit that raises money for stroke research and
rehabilitation.
“Nashville is coming together on February 8 for one night in one
place and at one time to give back to their friend and musical hero,
Randy Travis. It’s amazing to see the support that Randy has received
from the music industry since his stroke. We’re thrilled to have all of
these artists come out and pay tribute to him,” said producer of the
event and Travis’ manager, Tony Conway of Conway Entertainment Group.
1 Night. 1 Place. 1 Time.: A Heroes & Friends Tribute to Randy Travis
is produced by Mary Travis along with Tony Conway of Conway
Entertainment Group, Mike Smardak of Outback Concerts of Tennessee, Inc.
who is also the promoter of the event and Kirt Webster of Webster and
Associates.
About Randy Travis
With lifetime sales in excess of 20 million, Randy Travis is one of
the biggest country record sellers of all time and the most recent
inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame class of 2016. His honors
include seven Grammy Awards, 10 Academy of Country Music statuettes, 10
American Music Awards, two People’s Choice awards, seven Music City News
awards, eight Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association and five
Country Music Association honors. In addition, three of his performances
earned CMA Song of the Year honors, “On the Other Hand” (1986),
“Forever and Ever Amen” (1987) and “Three Wooden Crosses” (2003). To
date, he has 18 No. 1 singles, 29 top-10 smashes and more than 40
appearances in feature films and television shows to his credit. Ten of
his albums are Gold Records. Eight are Platinum. Two have gone Double
Platinum. One is Triple Platinum and another is Quintuple Platinum. In
2004, Randy was honored with his own star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame
and is honored on the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville, TN. He has
been a member of the cast of the Grand Ole Opry since 1986. Since his
near fatal stroke in 2013, with the help of his wife Mary and vigorous
physical therapy, Randy continues to make improvements in his speaking,
walking, and yes, singing.
About Alabama
It’s been 40 years since a trio of young cousins left Fort Payne,
Alabama, to spend the summer playing in a Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
bar called The Bowery. It took Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry and Jeff Cook
six long years of tip jars and word of mouth to earn the major label
deal they’d been dreaming of, but then seemingly no time at all to
change the face of country music.
ALABAMA is the most successful country band in history. The band’s
blend of traditional country music and Southern rock, combined with
elements of gospel and pop music, gave it a crossover appeal that led to
a success no one could have imagined. The band has 43 number one
country songs to their credit and has sold over 75 million records,
making it one of the world’s best-selling bands of all time. They have
won an unprecedented 263 industry awards from the CMA, ACM, Grammys, and
Dove Awards, just to name a few. Their influence on music earned them
an invite to become lifetime members of the Country Music Hall of Fame,
and they have since garnered stars on both the Hollywood Walk of Fame
and, most recently, the Music City Walk of Fame. AllMusic credited the
band with popularizing the idea of a country rock band and wrote that
“It’s unlikely that any other country group will be able to surpass the
success of Alabama.”
About Kenny Rogers
Throughout his iconic career, Rogers has sold more than 120 million
albums worldwide. He has charted a record within each of the last seven
decades. The first country artist to consistently sell out arenas,
Rogers quickly became a pop superstar as well — his 28 Billboard Adult
Contemporary Top 10’s rank him fourth-best of all time among men,
trailing only Elton John, Neil Diamond, and Elvis Presley. Rogers has
recorded 24 No. 1 hits, 11 No. 1 albums, 25 Top 10 country albums and is
the RIAA’s eighth best-selling male solo artist of all time. He has
received three GRAMMY® Awards, 11 People’s Choice Awards, 19 American
Music Awards, eight Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards and six
Country Music Association (CMA) Awards. The past several years have been
some of the most active, creative, and rewarding of Rogers’ entire
storied career. In fall 2015, he announced his retirement from touring
on The Today Show, which leads the kick-off of his worldwide Farewell
Tour. His first studio Christmas album release in seventeen years, Once
Again It’s Christmas, hit stores on September 25, 2015 and marks Rogers’
third full studio release of all new recordings since 2011. In 2015,
Rogers was named CMT’s “Artist Of A Lifetime.” In 2014, Rogers received
his latest GRAMMY® Award nomination with Dolly Parton for “You Can’t
Make Old Friends,” and in 2014 and 2015, his legendary career was
showcased in a year-long exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and
Museum. In 2013, Rogers was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame
and received the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award at the 47th
Annual CMA Awards. Some of his recent festival appearances include Great
Britain’s Glastonbury, Tennessee’s Bonnaroo, and Morocco’s Festival
Timitar, where he played to a combined hundreds of thousands
concert-goers. For recent updates or more information on Kenny Rogers,
visit his official site at kennyrogers.com.
About Rodney Atkins
Rodney Atkins is an award-winning country music singer/songwriter
whose six chart- topping hits include “Take A Back Road,” “It’s
America,” “Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy),” “These Are My People,”
“Watching You” and “If You’re Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even
Knows).” His fourth studio album, Take A Back Road, yielded Atkins’ fastest-rising single to date with the title track. He released his latest album, Rodney Atkins – Greatest Hits,
via Curb Records in 2015 and is currently working on his fifth studio
album with new music expected in early 2017. For more information and
the latest updates, visit RodneyAtkins.com or follow on Twitter @RodneyAtkins and Facebook.com/RodneyAtkins.
About Chris Janson
Warner Bros. Records/Warner Music Nashville country artist Chris
Janson was born to entertain crowds. In 2015, his breakthrough #1
Platinum single “Buy Me A Boat” was the 7th bestselling country song of
the year, although his professional music career began more than 10
years ago. The “Holdin’ Her” singer has written multiple top-charting
hits including “Truck Yeah” (Tim McGraw), “That’s How I’ll Always Be”
(Tim McGraw), “I Love This Life” (LoCash), and over 25 additional hit
songs recorded by a long list of established artists. Janson has been
nominated for multiple awards and won several, including two 2016 BMI
songwriter awards (“Buy Me A Boat” and “I Love This Life”) as well as Country Song of the Year (“Buy
Me a Boat”) at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. Janson is currently
featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame as part of the ACM Gallery.
He plays every instrument on stage, and is best known for his signature
harmonica playing. Additionally, Janson has played the Grand Ole Opry
more than 150 times to date, and made numerous television appearances
including: The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth
Meyers, CONAN, The Today Show, ACM Awards and ACCA Awards.
About Jamey Johnson
Award-winning singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson has released a new
song, “Alabama Pines,” on his new label, Big Gassed Records, to
commemorate the 15th anniversary of his move to Nashville. This is the
first single release of Big Gassed Records and it follows the late 2014
release of Johnson’s five-song EP, The Christmas Song.
About Montgomery Gentry
With 20 plus charted singles, the Kentucky-born duo has earned CMA,
ACM, and GRAMMY awards and nominations with undeniable blue-collar
anthems like “Hell Yeah,” “My Town,” and “Hillbilly Shoes”. They’ve
notched five No. 1 singles (“If You Ever Stop Loving Me,” “Something To
Be Proud Of,” “Lucky Man,” “Back When I Knew It All” and “Roll With
Me”), were inducted as Grand Ole Opry members in 2009 and were inducted
into the KY Music Hall of Fame in 2015. For more about Montgomery
Gentry, visit montgomerygentry.com, engage with Troy and Eddie on Facebook, @mgunderground on Twitter, @montgomerygentry on Instagram and check out their YouTube channel.
About Michael Ray
Hailing from Eustis, FL, newcomer Michael Ray is already well on his
way to becoming a household name to country music fans across the
country. His debut single “Kiss You in the Morning” went #1 in just 24
weeks, an incredible achievement for anyone, let alone someone straight
out of the gate. Raised in rural central Florida, an hour from Orlando
but worlds away, Ray grew up hunting alligators and fishing for tarpon
at the end of white sand roads. The child of a family full of musicians,
Michael began his professional career before he was a teenager,
graduated to the bar scene as soon as he could drive, and hasn’t let up
on the pedal since.
Ray soon began to write his own songs, blending the raw spirit of
classic favorites with the energetic new sounds of modern country; what
emerges is a thoroughly contemporary sound that’s sonically adventurous,
lyrically diverse and over the top on the voltage meter. Ray recently
wrapped a very successful opening leg of his first headlining tour. The
“Think A Little Less” Tour is titled for Michael’s latest single, which
is currently sitting in the Top 20 on country radio and rising.
About Ricky Skaggs
Earning 12 #1 hit singles, 14 GRAMMY® Awards, 11 IBMA Awards, nine
ACM Awards, eight CMA Awards (including Entertainer of the Year), two
Dove Awards, the ASCAP Founders Award, three honorary Doctorate degrees,
inductions into the Musicians Hall of Fame and GMA Gospel Music Hall of
Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s 2013
Artist-In-Residence, an Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement
Award in the Instrumentalist category along with countless other
awards, Ricky Skaggs is truly a pioneer of Bluegrass and Country music.
Since he began playing music more than 50 years ago, Skaggs has released
more than 30 albums and has performed thousands of live shows. He
started his own record label, Skaggs Family Records, in 1997 and has
since released 12 consecutive GRAMMY®-nominated albums. His latest
release, Hearts Like Ours, with his wife, celebrated artist
Sharon White of The Whites features the couple dueting on handpicked
country love songs. And the Grand Ole Opry member has released his
first-ever autobiography, “Kentucky Traveler.” The book details the life
and times of Skaggs and provides a descriptive history of Country and
Bluegrass music, as told by the master himself. In addition to his
regular touring schedule with his band, Kentucky Thunder, he recently
performed a string of dates with his better half Sharon White along with
guitar legend Ry Cooder on the critically-acclaimed
“Cooder-White-Skaggs” tour and from time to time hits the road with
versatile singer/songwriter and pianist Bruce Hornsby on another
critically-acclaimed tour, “Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby with
Kentucky Thunder.”
For more information on Ricky Skaggs, visit rickyskaggs.com.
About Tanya Tucker:
In 1974, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Tanya Tucker with the
headline that said “You’re Gonna Hear From Me.” Truer words have never
been spoken. The country music icon’s sultry voice and vivacious stage
presence makes her one of the most admired and respected female
vocalists in the country music genre. Tanya’s reign includes 23 Top 40
albums and a string of 56 Top 40 singles, 10 of which reached the No. 1
spot on the Billboard charts. Along the way, she has provided some of
the biggest country music hits of each decade, including, “Delta Dawn,”
“Soon,” “Two Sparrows in a Hurricane,” “It’s a Little Too Late,”
“Trouble” and “Texas (When I Die),” just to name a few. Tucker is also
the recipient of numerous awards, including two CMAs, two ACMs and three
CMT awards. In August 2016, the Academy of Country Music honored Tucker
with the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award during the 10th Annual ACM
Honors™. For more information, visit TanyaTucker.com.
About Josh Turner
With a rich, deep voice and distinctive style, Turner has sold more
than five million albums. As a disciple of traditional country music and
a mentor to up-and-coming artists, Josh is one of the youngest members
of the Grand Ole Opry. From his 2003 Platinum-selling debut Long Black Train to his most recent 2012 Billboard No. 1 release Punching Bag,
Turner has received six Inspirational Country Music Awards and garnered
multiple GRAMMY, CMA, and ACM nominations. Turner’s hits include “Your
Man,” “Time Is Love,” “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” “Firecracker,” “Would
You Go with Me” and more. Turner is currently on the road in support of
his latest radio single, “Hometown Girl,” which Rolling Stone Country
notes, “pairs the South Carolina native’s unmistakable,
country-to-the-core baritone with a modern, rollicking beat.”
For more information and tour dates visit joshturner.com.
About Michael W. Smith
Michael W. Smith is an acclaimed singer, songwriter and musician who
has sold more than 15 million albums, achieved 32 No. 1 songs, earned
three GRAMMY® Awards, one American Music Award and more than 40 Dove
Awards. In honor of ASCAP’s 100th Anniversary, Smith, along with Amy
Grant, was honored as “a cornerstone of Christian music,” for his
groundbreaking career and significant influence on the genre. In 2014,
Smith released both Hymns, his first-ever classic album
featuring church favorites available exclusively at all Cracker Barrel
Old Country Store® locations and CrackerBarrel.com, and Sovereign,
which took a Top 10 spot on the Billboard 200, as well as the No. 1
spot on Billboard’s Christian Albums Chart. His fourth career Christmas
album, Michael W. Smith & Friends: The Spirit of Christmas,
released during the fall of 2014 and received critical acclaim from The
New York Times, USA Today and more. Featuring Vince Gill, Lady
Antebellum, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Amy Grant, Carrie
Underwood, Jennifer Nettles, Bono and Michael McDonald, the project was
one of the top-selling Christmas albums of the season. Smith is an
active supporter of Rocketown, the Nashville-based center for at-risk
teens, Compassion International and Samaritan’s Purse. For more
information, visit michaelwsmith.com.