NASHVILLE, June 10 (UPI) -- Rock veteran Bret Michaels from Poison has been added to the CMA Music Festival line up as country music's largest U.S. event embraces other genres.
The four-day festival, renamed this year from the Fan Fair moniker it carried for decades, opened Thursday in Nashville as approximately 25,000 country music fans trek to Music City.
The new name is a move to attract music fans from other genres to the four days of concerts, autograph sessions and fan club parties.
Michaels is slated to perform the rock anthem "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" at Sunday's closing night concert with country artist Chris Cagle, according to a release from event sponsor Country Music Association.
Country singers Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, Hank Williams Jr., Wynonna, Pat Green, Keith Urban and Dierks Bentley also are on Sunday's bill at the Nashville Coliseum
Michaels, who moved to Nashville from Los Angeles several years ago, has a country/Triple A album in the works, tentatively titled "The Other Side of Me."
