Sorted by date Results 1 - 20 of 20
COLUMBIA, Tenn. (AP) — Dangerous storms crashed over parts of the South on Thursday even as the region cleaned up from earlier severe weather that spawned tornadoes, killed at least three people, and gravely injured a boy who was swept into a storm drain as he played in a flooded street. A heavy line of storms swept into Atlanta near the end of the morning rush hour. Busy hub airports in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, reported delays. The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center cited an "enhanced risk" for severe weather f...
Toby Keith, a hit country crafter of pro-American anthems who both riled up critics and was loved by millions of fans, has died. He was 62. The "Should've Been a Cowboy" singer-songwriter, who had stomach cancer, died peacefully Monday surrounded by his family, according to a statement posted on the country singer's website. "He fought his fight with grace and courage," the statement said. He announced his cancer diagnosis in 2022. The 6-foot-4 singer broke out in the country boom years of the 1990s, writing songs that fans loved to hear. Over...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When country music star Brad Paisley and his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, helped create a free grocery store in Nashville, Tennessee, their goal was to give families in need the ability to choose their own food in a place that felt like a normal store. This year, The Store is offering that same dignity of choice to parents looking for gifts for the holiday season. During a two-day event starting Friday, 400 families will shop at a free toy store, stocked with brand new toys, video games, stuffed animals, s...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lisa Marie Presley — the only child of Elvis Presley and a singer herself — was hospitalized Thursday, her mother said in a statement. "My beloved daughter Lisa Marie was rushed to the hospital. She is now receiving the best care," Priscilla Presley said. "Please keep her and our family in your prayers. We feel the prayers from around the world, and ask for privacy during this time." Los Angeles County paramedics were dispatched to a Calabasas home at 10:37 a.m. following a report of a woman in full cardiac arrest, accor...
NEW YORK (AP) — "Stop Right There!" Three words of warning — and three words that Ellen Foley credits with launching her career in music. It was Foley who belted out the words to Meat Loaf about halfway through their eight-and-a-half minute duet "Paradise By the Dashboard Light," the epic seduction song on his mega-selling 1977 "Bat Out of Hell" album. Foley is now looking back on the singular experience of making the memorable song as she recalls Meat Loaf and a "beautiful, feisty, joyful friendship" that began in her early 20s. Meat Loa...
Congress is set to force America's armed services to keep better track of their guns and explosives, imposing new rules in response to an Associated Press investigation that showed firearms stolen from U.S. bases have resurfaced in violent crimes. Under the proposals, the Department of Defense would tell both lawmakers and civilian law enforcement authorities more about guns that vanish from military armories, shipments and warehouses. Overall, AP has found that at least 2,000 firearms from the Army, Marines, Navy or Air Force were lost or...
Shocked by an Associated Press investigation into the loss and theft of military guns, the Pentagon's top general signaled Thursday that he will consider a "systematic fix" to how the armed services keep account of their firearms. The AP's investigation reported how some of the missing guns have been stolen and later used in violent street crimes, while many others have vanished without a clue from the military's enormous supply chains. In all, AP identified at least 1,900 guns that the four armed services recorded as lost or stolen during the...
Pulling a pistol from his waistband, the young man spun his human shield toward police. "Don't do it!" a pursuing officer pleaded. The young man complied, releasing the bystander and tossing the gun, which skittered across the city street and then into the hands of police. They soon learned that the 9mm Beretta had a rap sheet. Bullet casings linked it to four shootings, all of them in Albany, New York. And there was something else. The pistol was U.S. Army property, a weapon intended for use against America's enemies, not on its streets. The...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Grammy-winning singer songwriter Jason Isbell says he is going to donate money that he makes from Morgan Wallen's cover of his song "Cover Me Up" to the NAACP. Wallen, who has had the No. 1 album in the country for the past four weeks, was caught on camera last week saying a racial slur, but sales of his record increased after radio stations removed him from their playlists. Isbell, a popular Americana artist and former member of the Drive-By Truckers, wrote "Cover Me Up," which Wallen included as a cover in his s...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country stars Reba McEntire and Darius Rucker are promising laughs and good music when they co-host this year's CMA Awards in November. McEntire, a Country Music Hall of Famer and veteran host of country music awards shows, returns after hosting last year with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton. It will mark her fifth year as a host. Rucker, who crossed over from the rock world about 15 years ago and is a Grand Ole Opry member, will be a first-time host of the CMAs when the show airs on Nov. 11 on ABC from Nashville, T...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country star Miranda Lambert turns her "Wildcard" into an ace as she's the leading nominee at the 2020 Country Music Association Awards, including her first entertainer of the year nomination in five years. The CMAs announced Tuesday that Lambert earned seven nominations. The Grammy winner was pushed by the success of songs like "Bluebird," her first country airplay No. 1 in years, as well as positive reviews of her smart and sassy "Wildcard" album. Lambert — who has won 13 CMAs throughout her career — makes histo...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tourists are flocking to Nashville to see a new mural of Dolly Parton that celebrates her position on Black Lives Matter. Mural artist Kim Radford had already decided to paint the mural of the country music icon on the side of a local music club called The 5 Spot, which was made famous for being one of the many filming locations for the TV show "Nashville." But as she was finishing the mural, Radford saw an article from Billboard in which Parton said she supported the Black Lives Matter movement, saying "Of course B...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Bobbie Harris, 79, lost her rental home, her job and her church when a deadly tornado struck her community in North Nashville. But all she could think about was her blessings. "Through it all, God is good," Harris said. Harris joined other members of Mount Bethel Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday to worship just outside the ruins of the church, which has been in the community for 135 years. The roofs of their two church buildings are gone, ripped away by strong winds early Tuesday. The church pitched a tent in the p...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — What started as a joke on Twitter about an unwritten rule among country radio stations not to play two female artists in a row prompted outrage by country music stars, but also pledges to give women equal airtime. A now-deleted tweet by a Michigan radio station 98 WKCQ-FM last week claimed "we cannot play two females back to back" in response to a writer for Variety magazine. The station's parent company later denied that was ever a rule, but the fire that had been steadily smoldering for years over the perceived b...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Writer-director Callie Khouri is drawn to stories about female friendships and country music, and her latest television film "Patsy and Loretta" combines those passions into the true story of a friendship between two of country music's most powerful voices. The biopic about Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, which airs Oct. 19 on Lifetime, centers on their friendship, which has often been underexplored in country music history, at a time when the two pioneering women's careers overlapped in the early '60s. Khouri, who w...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The backstage of the Grand Ole Opry, a radio staple since 1925, is a place where you might run into your favorite country star, drop a letter in a singer's mailbox or take a peek inside a dressing room where an impromptu jam session is happening. Every year, 1 million people come to the Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee, to see a performance, or event, or take one of the backstage tours that allow fans to see behind the red curtain on the "show that made country music famous." And a new feature this year on those tours...
Country star Roy Clark, the guitar virtuoso and singer who headlined the cornpone TV show "Hee Haw" for nearly a quarter century and was known for such hits as "Yesterday When I was Young" and "Honeymoon Feeling," has died. He was 85. Publicist Jeremy Westby said Clark died Thursday due to complications from pneumonia at home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Clark was "Hee Haw" host or co-host for its entire 24-year run, with Buck Owens his best known co-host. Started in 1969, the show featured the top stars in country music, including Loretta Lynn, Tammy W...
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had won victories on desegregation and voting rights and had been planning his Poor People's Campaign when he turned his attention to Memphis, the gritty city by the Mississippi River. That decision set in motion events that had a profound impact on his country, and on those who directly witnessed the subsequent tragedy. It began Feb. 1, 1968, when two sanitation workers were crushed when a garbage truck compactor malfunctioned, sparking a strike by about 1,300 black sanitation workers w...
BENTON, Ky. (AP) — A 15-year-old student killed two classmates and hit a dozen others with gunfire Tuesday, methodically firing a handgun inside a crowded atrium at his rural Kentucky high school. "He was determined. He knew what he was doing," said Alexandria Caporali, who grabbed her stunned friend and ran into a classroom as their classmates hit the floor. "It was one right after another -- bang bang bang bang bang," she added. "You could see his arm jerking as he was pulling the trigger." Police led a teenager away in handcuffs minutes l...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The company that owns the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium is opening two new venues in Tennessee and Oklahoma with the help of country star Blake Shelton. At a press conference Thursday in Nashville, Shelton and Colin Reed, the CEO of Ryman Hospitality Properties, announced details about Ole Red Nashville and Ole Red Tishomingo, in the Oklahoma town where Shelton lives. The Nashville location will cost $20 million and will open in 2018, while the smaller Oklahoma location is due to open in 2017. Although S...
