CMA Music Fest Attenadance Up; Shooter Jennings Engaged; Steer Tosses Jack Ingram

from The 9513 by Brody Vercher

• Music City TV reports that attendance to CMA Music Fest was up seven percent over last year.
• Shooter Jennings asked his longtime girlfriend Drea de Matteo to marry him at his concert in Utica, N.Y. on Thursday.
• CMT published reviews of the nightly LP Field concerts at CMA Music Fest.
• Lucas Hendrickson recapped highlights of CMA Music Fest.
• Dolly Parton surprised hundreds of girl scouts recently when she appeared at an event to present the girls with a “Coat of Many Colors” patch.
• The New York Times‘ Craig Mark published an interview with Todd Sniderin which he discussed past drug addictions and his new record, The Excitement Plan. (via Hickory Wind)
• The Los Angeles Times‘ Randy Lewis contrasts that Todd Snider recordand the new Darryl Worley album, Sounds Like Life. (via Country California)
• Shania Twain took to her website to fill fans in on the past year of her life and apologize for the lack of new music.
• Tanya Tucker used CMA Music Fest as an opportunity to reconnect with friends and fans as she prepares the release of her new album, My Turn, on June 30. AP entertainment writer John Gerome notes:
  

  Tucker may be one of the more colorful entertainers at the CMA booths. When one woman asked her whose autograph she would most like to have, Tucker replied: “Kevin Costner — on my country rear end.”

• Country Weekly’s Chris Neal turned in three-and-a-half star reviews onDallas Wayne’s I’ll Take the Fifth, Tracy Lawrence’s The Rock andKenny Chesney’s Greatest Hits II.
• Farce the Music introduces Gary Floater, who could very well serve as the blog’s house band/artist.
  

  My next few minutes were a journey into destiny. My ears beheld the glory of Mr. Floater’s nuggets of wisdom. My days pre-Gary had a vast emptiness I didn’t even feel, an unknown longing that has now been satisfied.

• Jack Ingram confided to Hazel Smith that he’ll never attempt to ride another bull after a visit to the emergency room when he was thrown off a steer at a recent celebrity steer riding event.
• Sarah Jarosz sampled her cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” in an interview published on NPR.