BILLY RAY CYRUS HONORS TEACHER
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Billy Ray Cyrus is honoring a Nevada math teacher killed by a 12-year-old student in a schoolyard shooting near Reno last year. The country singer calls Michael Landsberry a “true American hero.” Cyrus presented a memorial plaque to Landsberry’s widow, Sharon, during a concert this past weekend. Police say Landsberry tried to talk the middle school shooter into turning over the handgun before he was shot in the chest last October 21. The student wounded two classmates before killing himself.
GARTH BROOKS TO USE HIS OWN WEB SITE FOR MUSIC
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — If you can’t beat them — try to beat them again. That seems to be the approach Garth Brooks is taking toward his music. He is one of the last musicians to refuse to put his work on iTunes. And he isn’t ready to cave, either. He is now making his music available digitally on his own Web site. Brooks has been one of music’s top-selling artists. He has said he had no beef with Apple — but disagrees with its approach to selling music. Other iTunes holdouts like AC/DC, the Beatles, Radiohead and Led Zeppelin have relented and now have their music on the site.
MARY SARAH GETS BIG NAMES FOR DEBUT
NEW YORK (AP) — Usually it takes a while for a new artist to get top singers to work with them on an album. But this new singer isn’t your usual artist. Her name is Mary Sarah — and she will have country music legends Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard on her first go-round, titled “Bridges.” Sarah says she got help with some of the collaborations from singer-songwriter Freddy Powers, a close friend of Nelson and Haggard. She says it took “miracle after miracle” to get so many big names on the album — and all, as she put it, “on a handshake.”
FOUR NAMED TO NASHVILLE SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Nashville Songwriters Association International plans to honor John Anderson, Paul Craft, Tom Douglas, and Gretchen Peters this year. They will be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in October. Anderson’s songs include “Swingin’,” ”Seminole Wind” and “I Wish I Could Write You A Song.” Craft’s songs include “Dropkick Me, Jesus” for Bobby Bare and “Brother Jukebox” for Mark Chestnutt. Douglas wrote “Little Rock” for Collin Raye, “I Run To You” for Lady Antebellum and “The House That Built Me” for Miranda Lambert. Peters’ best-known song is “Independence Day” for Martina McBride, but she also wrote “The Chill of an Early Fall” for George Strait.
