Country Music News

TODAY IN COUNTRY MUSIC HISTORY

(Thursday, Jan. 30)

Jeanne Pruett born in Pell City, Ala., 1937.

Norma Jean born near Wellston, Okla., 1938.

Jerry Bradley, son of Owen Bradley and former head of RCA Records' Nashville office, born in Nashville, 1940.

Warren Smith, rockabilly pioneer, dies at 46, 1980.

Johnnie and Jack record "I Wonder if You Know," "What Do You Know About Heartaches," 1959.

MUSIC AND MORE

VINCE AND AMY WON'T BECOME 'SONNY AND CHER'

Vince Gill, who kicks off his road trip in Las Vegas Thursday night, put a lot of work into his wife Amy Grant's recent album, "Legacy...Hymns & Faith."

Pooling their talent in the recording studio doesn't mean they're combining their careers, however.

"We're both trying to let our past continue to be who we are and just occasionally do a thing or two together here and there," Grant tells LAUNCH. "We don't have to all of a sudden become Steve and Edie or Sonny & Cher."

Gill's new album "Next Best Thing" is to be released Feb. 11. The title track is No. 23 on the current Billboard Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart.

DIXIE CHICKS 'LIKE SISTERS'

Two of the Dixie Chicks -- Emily Robison and Margie Maguire -- are real sisters but the trio tells People magazine they're a sister act on stage and off.

Not only do they work in the studio and tour together, but their homes in Austin, Texas, are not far from each other and they hook up to do lots of stuff.

Emily, Margie and Natalie Maines get together to shop, work out, go to a trivia night at an Austin bar every Tuesday -- and all three were in the delivery room when Emily had her son last November.

"We're all sisters out here," Maines tells the magazine. But if one acts up, says Maines, "we're close enough to go, 'You're being a bitch, you need to stop.' Just like sisters would."