Zac Brown Band Cook Up Duet With Alan Jackson

Today (Aug. 10) is the day you can get in on what the Zac Brown Band has going on. Specifically, you can preorder the new album on the band’s website and download the insanely cool first single which they sing with Alan Jackson. It’s called “As She’s Walking Away” and it will be on ZBB’s You Get What You Give album due out on Sept. 21. (If you pre-order, you’ll have access to all kinds of goodies like an exclusive lithograph, a cookbook, a T-shirt and trucker cap, some cooking rub from Brown’s own recipe and a chance to win a free cabin on the band’s Sailing Southern Ground cruise next month). The new album will also feature vocals from another singer you may have heard of, Jimmy Buffett, on “Knee Deep.” These Zac Brown Band guys do not mess around when they pick who to collaborate with.

HullabaLOU Loses $5 Million Despite Country Stars

Say you’ve lined up Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Zac Brown Band, Kenny Chesney and a whole onslaught of talent from all kinds of music for an outdoor festival. Sounds like a moneymaker, doesn’t it? So how on earth did Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., lose $5 million in three days with HullabaLOU? I could see taking a bit of a loss, but come on. Five million? The president of Churchill Downs Entertainment said that he wanted to create the Kentucky Derby of music festivals (which is a nice goal, by the way) and noted, “When we started out with Derby, it didn’t start out with 155,000 people. And it’s grown for 135 years. Hopefully this thing will grow over the next five to ten years and become something that’s meaningful.” They had hoped to have 90,000 people but wound up with about 78,000. And the lost income from slow tickets, parking and concessions is partly what caused the big loss. They aren’t giving up just yet, though. Organizers say they will try again in 2011.

Photo Credit: Erika Goldring/Getty Images
(HullabaLOU 2010)

Trisha Yearwood, Zac Brown Help Me With Dinner

There was a foodie story about country starson the Tennessean‘s website last week that I printed out, so that I could try the recipes when I got back home after my Nashville business-plus-pleasure trip. I prepared them all yesterday, and have to say I have never had a better meal. Maybe it’s because I knew I had two great country singers by my virtual side. But you should try at least one of these recipes. Trisha Yearwood’s Pork Loin was a no-brainer. Zac Brown’s Black Eyed Pea Fritters were not pretty, but everyone loved them and I was glad to teach my kids that black eyed peas were an actual food, not just a band. But Yearwood’s Key Lime Cake was hands-down the favorite of the night. I know she joked on the CMT Music Awards blue carpet that she was not going to give up singing for cooking, but she absolutely has a gift for both. If she cooks like this every night, Garth Brooks is a lucky man.