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Ladainian Tomlinson, the NFL Network analyst and former star running back, will make his feature-film acting debut in a movie based on the country song "Bless the Broken Road," which was first recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and more recently was a hit for Rascal Flatts.

In the film, titled God Bless the Broken Road, Tomlinson plays a pastor trying to help a distressed mom, played by Lindsay Pulsipher, and a disabled war veteran, played by Arthur Cartwright. Jordin Sparks, Kim Delaney, Robin Givens and Madeline Carroll also star.

The song's lyrics tell of a person finding love...

The hottest stars, electric performances, jaw-dropping surprises: What was there not to love about the Cma Festival's four sold-out stadium concerts? Arguably the most important stage in country music, the festival's centerpiece shows, held Thursday through Sunday night at Nashville's Nissan Stadium, will be trimmed down to a three-hour ABC special to be aired Aug. 3. Mark that day on your calendar, and in the meantime, People can whet your appetite with an inside look and our favorite moments: Top BILLINGThe annual ABC special always mixes up the performance order, but the actual concerts follow a fairly predictable order, starting with...

The hottest stars, electric performances, jaw-dropping surprises: What was there not to love about the Cma Festival's four sold-out stadium concerts? Arguably the most important stage in country music, the festival's centerpiece shows, held Thursday through Sunday night at Nashville's Nissan Stadium, will be trimmed down to a three-hour ABC special to be aired Aug. 3. Mark that day on your calendar, and in the meantime, People can whet your appetite with an inside look and our favorite moments: Top BILLINGThe annual ABC special always mixes up the performance order, but the actual concerts follow a fairly predictable order, starting with...

Exclusive: Director Harold Cronk, whose God’s Not Dead grossed $62.6M on a budget of only $2M and spawned a sequel and helped prompt PureFlix to open its own distribution arm, has decided on his next picture. It will be the faith-based God Bless the Broken Road, inspired by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band song title of the same name, and it will be produced through his 10 West Productions along with Great Basin Entertainment and A Really Good Home Pictures. God Bless the Broken…...

When the weather gets hot concert lineups get even hotter, and Summerfest has a 2014 schedule that will blow your mind.

With headliners that range from Bruno Mars to Motley Crue, all musical genres will be covered between June 25th-29th and July 1st-6th when the mammoth festival rolls into Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Also on the bill are big names like Lady Gaga, Paramore, Dave Matthews Band, Outkast, Brad Paisley, Fall Out Boy and Zac Brown Band.

And by the way, tickets for all 11 days of Summerfest are only $70!

The rest of the bands on board for Summerfest are:

New Order

Rise Against

Kip Moore

Ray Lamontagne

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

Nas

Brand New

The Neighbourhood

Fitz & the Tantrums

Ludacris

Five Finger Death Punch

The Fray

The Head and the Heart

Neon Trees

The Airborne Toxic Event

Tegan and Sara

B.o.B.

Robert DeLong

Melissa Etheridge

Bonnie Raitt

Atmosphere

Girl Talk...

Milwaukee’s Summerfest has announced its 2014 lineup, which includes some of the biggest names in pop and rock. Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Outkast, Dave Matthews Band, Brad Paisley, Motley Crue, Zac Brown Band, Fall Out Boy and Paramore will all headline. Check out the complete lineup and watch the festival’s promo video below. Summerfest takes a slightly different approach to the typical festival — running a total of eleven days, June 25-29 and July 1-6, and splitting its headliners into separate shows. Low-cost, general admission tickets can be purchased for one day, three days or the entire festival, while tickets to the headliners’ shows at Marcus Amphitheater are sold individually. Tickets are now available at the festival’s website. Here’s the entire Summerfest 2014 lineup: Bruno Mars Lady Gaga Brad Paisley Outkast Dave Matthews Band Zac Brown Band Darius Rucker Motley Crue Fall Out Boy Paramore Gary Clark Jr. New Order...

On Tuesday night's (Nov. 26) "The Voice" live show, the Top 8 contestants performed "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?," backed by Seattle's Starbucks Chorus, a vocal group that raises money for local charities. But after the performance, the Twitterverse erupted with complaints that the word "Lord" was dropped from the lyrics. 

Backstage, "Voice" coach Blake Shelton was still trying to get to the bottom of why it happened. 

"I don't know what, uh -- how it happened, or -- I'm learning about it just like you guys are," Shelton tells Zap2it. "I was sitting in my chair singing that song how I grew up on it, with 'in the sky, Lord, in the sky.' I sang it as loud as I could. And that might be why I didn't realize until after the fact that 'Lord' was either taken out, or it was just performed some other way."

As for why the lyric was dropped,...

It's night two of the live playoffs on Season 4 of "The Voice," with reigning champ Blake Shelton and newbie coach Shakira's teams taking the stage to prove they deserve the shot to make it to the Top 12. With Adam Levine and Usher's teams taking the night off after a rousing night one, which of tonight's singers will rise to the occasion and which will crumble under the pressure?

Shakira is so cute with her nerves: "All my fingernails are going to be gone tonight."

Blake taking his team out to karaoke to get them ready for their first live performance is hysterical. It's quite in line with Blake's whole goofball persona. All those country kiddos singing "We Are Family" was cute.

This group performance of Little Big Town's "Boondocks" is proof that Team Blake will be playing to their base this season. I'd be shocked if...

People say the darndest things on The Voice. Tonight’s Live Playoffs episode — featuring the members of Team Shakira and Team Blake fighting to make the Season 4 Top 12 — found host Carson Daly dropping this bomb mot: “It’s clear tonight that Blake [Shelton] doesn’t know where ‘the girl place’ is.” (Somewhere, someone at Parents Television Council HQ is firing off a strongly worded email.)

If that wasn’t enough, we had Blake blasting a fire hose of hyperbole at viewers by calling solid but hardly electrifying teenager Danielle Bradbery “one of the most important artists” who’s ever been on the show.

Not all that glitters is gold on the radio, and often one must scratch below the glossy surface of the neatly pressed and homogenous music business where TV pop stars litter radio playlists. Thankfully there is a growing number of outlets that cater to every type of rock music. Here are some of my favorite new releases from October culled from press releases, Spotify playlists, satellite radio, and peer recommendations.

 "3-6-9" Cat Power Sun (Matador) - Still measured genius after all these years; six years in fact since The Greatest. My favorite track is this upbeat, haunting, multi-layered, auto-tuned, electronica-tinged sing-a-long. This is the sound of New Jack City in the 21st century. More Pj than Joni, Ms. Chan Marshall brings the noise and funk on her ninth CD, and in doing so, raises the bar for her musical peers, both genders.

"Ramada Inn" Neil Young Psychedelic Pill (Reprise) - Wtf?...

Nashville, Tenn. -- It may be impossible to overstate the importance of bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs to American music. A pioneering banjo player who helped create modern country music, his sound is instantly recognizable and as intrinsically wrapped in the tapestry of the genre as Johnny Cash's baritone or Hank Williams' heartbreak.

Scruggs died Wednesday morning at age 88 of natural causes. The legacy he helped build with bandleader Bill Monroe, guitarist Lester Flatt and the rest of the Blue Grass Boys was evident all around Nashville, where he died in an area hospital. His string-bending, mind-blowing way of picking helped transform a regional sound into a national passion.

"It's not just bluegrass, it's American music," bluegrass fan turned country star Dierks Bentley said. "There's 17- or 18-year-old kids turning on today's country music and hearing that banjo and they have no idea where that came from. That sound...

Nashville, Tenn. — It is impossible to overstate the importance of Earl Scruggs to American music. A pioneering banjo player who helped create modern country music, his sound is instantly recognizable and as intrinsically wrapped in the tapestry of the genre as Johnny Cash's baritone or Hank Williams' heartbreak.

Scruggs passed away Wednesday morning at 88 of natural causes. The legacy he helped build with bandleader Bill Monroe, guitarist Lester Flatt and the rest of the Blue Grass Boys was evident all around Nashville, where he died in an area hospital. His string-bending, mind-blowing way of picking helped transform a regional sound into a national passion.

"It's not just bluegrass, it's American music," bluegrass fan turned country star Dierks Bentley said. "There's 17- or 18-year-old kids turning on today's country music and hearing that banjo and they have no idea where that came from. That sound has probably always been...

He was once the king of screwball Hollywood comedies, and has now reinvented himself as a bluegrass banjo player. But Steve Martin explains why he can't quite leave the laughs behind

When Steve Martin quit standup three decades ago for a career in the movies, he swore he would never perform live comedy again, so stressful did he find being on stage. But tonight, at the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan, he's cracking jokes and acting out sketches, and looking completely at home.

He's here to perform songs from his second bluegrass album, Rare Bird Alert, with his band, the Steep Canyon Rangers. As well as playing banjo, guitar, mandolin and upright bass with the fluency of virtuosos, they are also the straight men in Martin's comedy routines, supplying deadpan replies to his absurd reveries.

Martin begins the show with a volley of self-deprecating patter. His companions are "one of the best bluegrass bands in existence,...

Make room for another festival. Two months after premier country festival Stagecoach in Indio, Calif., will come a new three-day fest headlined by Tim McGraw and Trace Adkins. The Show-Me Music & Arts Festival will take place June 17-19 on an 800-acre site in Springfield, Mo., according to Billboard. Other artists confirmed to play include Joe Nichols, One Republic, Gloriana, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and David Nail. Producer Conway Entertainment Group expects the festival to feature 25 acts on the main stage, as well as a midway, a Kids Zone, and arts and crafts booths. Headliners for Stagecoach, which takes play...

Those who will rock Manchester, Tennessee at this year's Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival have been announced. Among the performers are Jay-z, Stevie Wonder, Kings of Leon, Dave Matthews Band and Kid Cudi.

Other musical acts include Weezer, The Flaming Lips, The Dead Weather, Norah Jones, Regina Spektor, Rise Against, Tori Amos, Wale, Deadmau5, Ok Go, Brandi Carlile and B.o.B. The annual festivity is scheduled to be held for four days, starting from June 10.

Beside recruiting Hip-Hop artists and rockers, organizers for the annual event also bring in country flavor to the gig. The likes of Zac Brown Band, Jamey Johnson,Miranda Lambert, John Fogerty, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Cross Canadian Ragweed, John Prine and Kris Kristofferson are set to perform.

Tickets and complete line-up of the event can be obtained on Bonnaroo's MySpace.

Festival roster includes more than 90 acts spanning many genres.

By James Montgomery

Jay-z

Photo: Dave M. Benett/ Getty Images

Well, it took all day, but finally, on Tuesday night (February 9), organizers revealed the full lineup for the 2010 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, scheduled for June 10-13 in Manchester, Tennessee.

Jay-z, Dave Matthews Band, Kings of Leon, Stevie Wonder, Weezer and Flaming Lips top the bill for this year's 'Roo, a list of more than 90 acts spanning genres and eras.

There are genuine legends (Jimmy Cliff, John Fogerty), established rock acts (the Dead Weather), hip-hop talent (Wale, Nas, Kid Cudi), electro heavyweights (LCD Soundsystem, Thievery Corporation) and bands that hearken back to the festival's earlier, decidedly jammy routes (Medeski, Martin and Wood, the Disco Biscuits), not to mention the annual WTFs (Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers, Darryl Hall with Chromeo). All in all, it's a rather jam-packed four days of music.

I grew up in Northern New Jersey, which last time I looked is slightly north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Yet thanks to my late great dad -- an early and vocal proponent of Jewgrass -- my first ever concert was seeing the still brilliant Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at Carnegie Hall. Thanks to Mom and Dad, there were also a few Johnny Cash 8-tracks laying around our house for me to discover and treasure alongside those of the Beatles and Neil Diamond. So I suppose I come by my lifelong love of country music pretty naturally. For the past seven years, I've spent a few weeks a year in Nashville writing the script for the Cma Awards, also known for good reason as Country Music's Biggest Night. And while I hate being away from home so long, I love Nashville...

Artist’s first major-label album a lost roots-rock classic; second mostly forgettable

Chris Darrow began as a member of Jimmy Page’s favorite psych-rock band, Kaleidoscope, but as the acid wore off he sought solace in the purity of the American folk tradition. In 1967, before it was trendy for rock ’n’ rollers to “go country,” Darrow joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and, later, in the mid ’70s, he released two rootsy solo albums on United Artists (both included in this two-for-one set). Save for a few tracks, the second album, Under My Own Disguise, lacks energy and bogs down in boring, flat production. Darrow’s self-titled 1973 UA debut, however, is a lost roots-rock classic. Though he’s often compared to Gram Parsons and other California-country artists, Darrow has far more in common with the Appalachian-rooted folk rock of The Band and little-known Capricorn Records group Cowboy. It’s an...