Big And Rich Team Up With Bon Jovi For New Album
After more than five years Big and Rich are get­ting ready to put out a new album – as the “Hill­billy Jedis.” That’s what they’re call­ing the new release which fea­tures Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Samb­ora. Big Kenny says Bon Jovi sug­gested the title dur­ing a joint writ­ing ses­sion. He said the line – from one of their songs – was good enough to go on a T-shirt so Big & Rich decided it was good enough for the cover of their new album. There’s no release date yet, but its first sin­gle “That’s Why I Pray” is cur­rently climb­ing the charts.

CMT Presents First Of Its Kind ‘Cross­roads’ Event
CMT is mix­ing it up. This week­end coun­try stars includ­ing Kenny Ches­ney, Brad Pais­ley, Sara Evans, Luke Bryan and Hunter Hayes will be pay­ing trib­ute to rocker Joe Walsh. Billy Gib­bons of ZZ Top will also make a guest appear­ance on “CMT Cross­roads: Joe Walsh and Friends.” The show will fea­ture Eagles’ clas­sics and Walsh’s hits includ­ing a per­for­mance of “Rocky Moun­tain Way” with Brad Pais­ley.

Turner’s ‘Punch­ing Bag’ On Top
Josh Turner’s fifth stu­dio album, “Punch­ing Bag,” will be the top coun­try disc when the Bill­board Coun­try Albums chart comes out today. The disc sold 45,000 copies. This marks the fourth time Turner has hit the top 10 on the over­all Bill­board chart and the 11th coun­try disc to do so this year