NashvilleHype!

UPDATE!!

After the show call 1-866-978-2704 !!! TO VOTE FOR ASHLEE!!!

VOTE FOR ASHLEE HEWITT FOR “NASHVILLE STAR” !!!

NashvilleHype! is proud to announce that Ashlee Hewitt is now an official contestant on Season Six of Nashville Star!

If you’re a long time reader of NashvilleHype! you’re already plenty familiar with Ashlee Hewitt.  I’ve had Ashlee (and her sister Katrice!) on NashvilleHype! since November of 2007.

I’ve told you where they were performing, when they were performing, and why I thought Ashlee and Katrice were going to be BIG Stars.  Ashlee and Katrice came out and helped us raise money for the Red Cross back in February - and put on a great show as always.   Ashlee and her whole family has been a good friend to me personally and NashvilleHype!.

And now GREAT NEWS!

NashvilleHype! is proud to announce that Ashlee Hewitt is now an official contestant on Season Six of Nashville Star!  She’s made it all the way to the final 12 - beating out thousands and thousands of contestants throughout America. 

(The official NBC/Nashville Star picture. © NBC)

This is a really big year for Nashville Star as it will be broadcast on NBC Monday nights at 9/8c.  It’s host this year is Billy Ray Cyrus - and judges are Jewel, John Rich (of Big & Rich), and hit country songwriter Jeffrey Steele.

What you’re going to read about Ashlee Hewitt everywhere else is, she was raised in a very large family as one of 13 brothers and sisters.  She grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota.  She loves horses, etc. etc.  They may even mention how her father Jim was called to Iraq fora year in service to our country (NashvilleHype! sends a special hello to Jim and all our Troops overseas and wants to let you know you’re in our thoughts and prayers!)

What you may not read is, Ashlee isn’t a very good bowler.  She can at once be outgoing and shy.  She can pierce you with her eyes and melt you with her smile.  She’s sweet and funny and personable - - all the qualities we hope come across on a TV show like Nashville Star. TV as you well know, is different.  We can only hope.

(© NBC)

You also may not know that Ashlee has worked her butt off to get to this point.  NashvilleHype! doesn’t have anything against random people showing up to be a part of a contest - but we really place a lot of emphasis on working hard, playing shows, meeting fans, keeping them happy, having a unique sound/vocal quality, etc. – you know the drill by now - - and Ashlee Hewitt passes all of these qualifications with flying colors.   After all, together with her sister Katrice, she traveled all over the country performing nearly 100 shows a year for 6 years — before coming to Nashville to “make it”.

And something else?  NashvilleHype! may have been the first to bring her to our readers attention, but we’re not alone in saying she’s going to be a huge star.  I’ve had many conversations with executives, producers, managers, etc - and it’s all but universal - Ashlee Hewitt IS a Nashville Star (and I love it that the winner gets a contract with Warner Bros!).  Oh, I failed to mention, the winner gets a recording contract on Warner Bros. Records. 

Obviously NashvilleHype! is behind Ashlee 100% on Nashville Star.  I will tell you now, we WILL be biased - not that we have anything against the other artists performing on the show - but we’ve long said how deserving Ashlee is and we want her to win!  We want to convince as many people as possible to vote for her each and every week! 

NashvilleHype! Forums is going to have a Ashlee Hewitt / Nashville Star Discussion page - so feel free to discuss all things Ashlee there if you’d like.

Also, there are several Ashlee Hewitt Fan sites:  

http://www.myspace.com/ashleehewittfan

http://www.myspace.com/ashleehewittfanclub

and at least one for Nashville Star itself:

http://www.myspace.com/nashvillestarfans

Wanna hear Ashlee Hewitt?  Learn more about her and see more pictures:

(Ashlee Hewitt and Katrice)

http://www.myspace.com/hewittsisters

 And for ALL the NashvilleHype! Articles on Ashlee, including a Week by Week Nashville Star Update - Please visit the Ashlee Hewitt Category Page

Apryle Cox, who is a friend of NashvilleHype! and was at the Supercell Benefit, was kind enough to take a lot of photos of the event for us.  I’m happy to report that Apryle has now posted those pictures on her myspace page.  Below is a few of the pictures from the event.

Apryle, Victoria Banks, Aaron Tippin, Mary Sue Englund

Kelci Paige and Rachel Farley

Rodney Crisp and Kelly Ray Davis

Katrice and Ashlee Hewitt (The Hewitt Sisters)

Josh Newcom of Indian Rodeo

Kelsey Skaggs

Kerry Harvick and David Kersh

The crowd

More crowd…

And one more

Me and Cathryn (who worked her butt off on this event!)

There are a whole bunch more on Apryle’s site!

P.S. If you still want to help support the Red Cross and what they do - please don’t hesitate!

This week for me is one of the most exciting times of the year, as it is for many! It is what used to be called “Fan Fair Week” but has more recently been dubbed “The CMA Music Festival”. For those of you who might have just recently re-located to our fine area or may be stopping in our town for a visit for something other than this, this would be a short but brief explanation : It is 4 days, of music, music, music! About 30 hours of autograph signings and photo lines by some of the most talented artists you can imagine. Some well known, some just getting started. There are nightly concerts that generally happen once a year by some of todays top performing artists and even some surprise guests! There is live music everywhere you turn, and nearly 400 Country Music artists and celebrities doing things from bull riding to Q and A to Bar-B-Que Cook Off’s. There are thousands of pumped up music lovers from all over the United States that have come in just to get a little closer to thier favorite artists and live the “ULTIMATE COUNTRY MUSIC FAN EXPERIENCE!

Be sure to look for us wandering around the festival and say hi! We would love to meet you! Check back during and after the festival and let us know about your Nashville experience! We love to hear from our readers! Be sure to visit the official CMA Festival page to check out the schedule’s for some of the artists we have featured on our site! We are super excited about them being involved in and around town during this week! Let them know you support them! Thanks guys and we look forward to seeing you!

Television network Great American Country (GAC) and artist development company Music Nation today announced the judges panel for The Next GAC Star, a nationwide talent search for the next country music star. In addition to offering independent country artists national television exposure and the chance to win a record deal, The Next GAC Star will give these up-and-coming acts the opportunity to have their music heard and critiqued by top hit makers. Online voting opened to the public May 23rd.
 
Acting as a judge is legendary songwriter/producer/performer Desmond Child, who has collaborated with artists like Aerosmith, Kelly Clarkson, Bon Jovi and Carrie Underwood.  Throughout his 30-plus year career, Child has helped pen such hits as “Livin’ On A Prayer,” “Dude Looks Like a Lady” and “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”  Joining him is award-winning songwriter/producer/performer Victoria Shaw, who has written hit songs for artists like Christina Aguilera, Garth Brooks, Ricky Martin, John Michael Montgomery and Trisha Yearwood and has her own successful recording career. Shaw also co-produced the debut album from ACM Top New Group Winner Lady Antebellum.
 
“Leave it to GAC to create a contest with fierce competition where we judges look for someone with the total package: looks, talent and the ‘it’ factor,” says Shaw. “The contestants better be prepared to impress an outspoken redhead on the panel of judges. GAC might never be the same again!”   
 
The Next GAC Star is accepting entries through July 14 and country music hopefuls are encouraged to upload their videos, mp3s, and photos at www.gactv.com/star to enter. Public voting is now open at http://musicnation.com/contest/gacstar/matchup  and will run until July 21, after which time the judges will determine six finalists.  These finalists will receive Gibson Les Paul Junior guitars and be flown to Nashville for a two-part television special on September 3rd and 10th, with a live elimination in the second show.  The winning artist will receive a record deal with Original Signal Recordings, a Gibson Hummingbird Guitar, and a music video, which will air on GAC.
 
The voting will run in three phases.  For the first eight weeks, the public will vote on submissions using Music Nation’s head-to-head player, which randomly pits two artists against each other and asks the user to choose a favorite.  Two weekly winners will be chosen during this phase: the highest ranked artist from the head-to-head standings and an “Industry Insiders” pick chosen by GAC and Music Nation.  Select video submissions will also air in the new series Next GAC Star, which premiered Sunday, June 1, and will broadcast every Sunday, offering valuable national television exposure to unsigned artists.  During the second phase, the Next GAC Star judging panel will narrow the 16 weekly winners down to a field of six.  Lastly, these six finalists will be featured on the two TV specials where the Next GAC Star will be determined.

Interested artists and viewers can get more information on Next GAC Star by visiting www.gactv.com/star.

Occasionally someone will write and want to know how they can hear some of my songs or my music — or strangely enough, they want to know more about me. Well, as usual the best place to do this is Mypsace, but for years now I’ve had a problem - my myspace was silly and kind of hard to remember - deadcatbounce. It was the name of a band I started many many years ago.

What actually happened was, someone else had ‘my’ name. They had signed up on myspace in march of 2005 - never signed back in, had no friends, and did nothing with the site. For years I would check to see if my name was available - but for years it wasn’t.

Well, I finally got some great news today.
My new myspace is: http://www.myspace.com/paulking

So for those of you who are a little more interested in who runs NashvilleHype!, and you can’t find the answers in my bio here on site - About Paul - or you just want to hear a couple of songs I’ve written (those change all the time - from Punk, to Rock, to Country and back again) - then come on over. If you’re not a friend, become one — and if you are, be sure to say hello!

Okay, so it is getting close to Summer where everyone seems to be getting busy. We have decided here at NashvilleHype! to make a few changes slowly and add a few new things to see how our readers like and accept it. If you might have any suggestions for something new just let us know, it might be something fun!

So, what we are wanting to do is to showcase some of our new, unsigned artists that are in Nashville or have a connection to Nashville. In this world of YouTube we want to be able to provide you with pretty much the same type of free video service. We have had the same opportunity on the site since the beginning but I am not quite sure that everyone who has visited us has taken the chance to use it. On the right side of the page you will see a box that states “Submit Your Videos to NashvilleHype!” click on that, then proceed with the directions.

We will then choose an artist to showcase for the week. We want to write about that artist, and hopefully get them some attention that maybe they don’t get on YouTube or MySpace. We’ve had over 100,000 hits on the site since February and can you just imagine if the right person at the right time clicked on the video you posted? Our goal is to help you. This is a free service that we provide for you and how in the world could you go wrong with using it right? Free is good! We look forward to many of you adding your videos especially with CMA Music Fest coming up right around the corner! Keep in mind, it does not have to be just Country, it can be any genre.

It seems at every turn today I was thinking about Jaida and her showcase tonight.  If I said one small prayer for her I probably said a dozen.  That things would go well.  That the sound would be right.  That the place would be packed.

I just got back home from watching one of the most exciting (and packed!) showcases in Nashville in a long, LONG time.  Jaida Dreyer absolutely lit up the place from the minute she took the stage - - and the standing room only crowd ate it up.

Jaida is beautiful, but that’s not where her real strength lies - it’s in her completely unique voice.  As long time readers know, one of my favorite quotes is from Quincy Jones who said, ”Listen to ‘We Are The World’ - you don’t hear the best singers, you hear the best voices”.  Quincy knows about singers and what it takes to cut through the crowd here.  Jaida does as well.

It’s not that Jaida couldn’t be classified as a great singer - she’s certainly always on pitch, has her breathing down to a science, and knows when to push and when not to — it’s more that when you hear her sing, you immediately know who’s singing.  If she were on ‘We Are The World’, just like Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Richie, and others who had a verse of their own - you would know it was Jaida singing.

Here in Nashville and on myspace there are about 1,000,000 pretty girls who all sound the same.  After a while even I have to admit to getting tired of listening to them — but Jaida stands out, and in a big way.  I love her sound.  A couple of weeks ago I told her, ‘love or hate, people are going to be talking about you and you’re going to be a huge star because of it.”  I’m more convinced than ever.

The Rutledge was packed for this showcase.  I actually haven’t seen a more packed, more enthusiastic showcase in about 10 years.  Generally speaking industry folks are burned out.  I am too.  There’s only so many showcases you can go to.  There’s only so many artists you can listen to.  And there’s only so many times you can hear that “XX is going to be the next big thing”.   Maybe at NashvilleHype! I’ve been guilty of it too — (but if I may, I do have a real track record over the last couple of years of getting it right). WHEN Jaida signs her deal, I’ll be at 8 artists featured on NashvilleHype! to be signed, pretty unprecedented for a weblog/news outlet. 

One thing that really impresses me about Jaida is her work with Carolyn Dawn Johnson.  There’s not a person in the industry that doesn’t either personally like or respect CDJ, and she’s playing and writing with Jaida.  CDJ has been through about everything in the industry - from writing hit songs for others, having hit songs of her own, being on the radio, having a major label, being dropped from it, signing to an indie and leaving it before an album dropped - - she’s seen it all in this town.  And yet, she’s fully behind and fully encouraging to Jaida.  CDJ knows talent when she hears it. 

And then there’s simply the sheer love of doing music.  Jaida moved to Nashville (the last in a long line of 7 different states) to write songs - never thinking in a million years she would be singing.  It wasn’t until some of her co-writers began encouraging her to sing that she decided to give it a try.  When I saw her a couple months ago it was one of the first times she had ever even performed with a band - and though I knew it because I could tell, I don’t think anyone else did.

Tonight, you would’ve thought she had been performing with a band from the time she was born.  Completely comfortable onstage - it was like night and day.  But more, that just says to me that Jaida doesn’t choke under pressure (and having a major label showcase that’s packed out IS pressure!).  Like I said, she totally rocked it out.

Jaida Dreyer is a star.  In every way possible Jaida is a star.  For those that missed out this time, be sure to catch her the next.  You won’t be disappointed.  My only disappointment of the night was the fact I left my camera in the truck — and I wanted pictures.  (Jaida was gorgeous in her little purple dress and cowboy boots)  Hopefully I’ll find some before long to post.

I’ll keep everyone up to date on what happened for her professionally tonight.  I’m positive Jaida is going to be signed.

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