Jason Aldean shows off his guy-next-door charm.

Vince Gill, Civil Wars get underneath their roots for Bluegrass Underground.

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers tell Paul Revere’s tale.

Roger Miller’s widow loses court battle over the rights to his songs.

Kevin Gordon takes a road less traveled in Nashville.

The event opened the annual Country Radio Seminar, a gathering of radio programmers and on-air personalities. CRS concludes Friday (Feb. 24) with the New Faces Show spotlighting live performances by Hunter Hayes, David Nail, Sunny Sweeney, Thompson Square and the Eli Young Band.

This year’s Country Radio Hall of Fame inductees included Beverlee Brannigan, operations manager and director of country programming for KFDI/Wichita, Kan.; Ron Rogers, former president and general manager of KVET and KASE/Austin, Texas, and programming consultant Rusty Walker. Also inducted were WSM-AM/Nashville personality Eddie Stubbs, WSM-AM Nashville, syndicated morning show host Moby and veteran disc jockey, songwriter and comedy writer Bill Whyte.

Although Campbell, who is battling Alzheimer’s disease, was not present to accept his award, there were many other artists in the audience, including Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott, Country Music Hall of Famer Kitty Wells, Marty Stuart, Connie Smith, Mark Collie, Radney Foster, Jerrod Niemann, Deborah Allen, Linda Davis and the Oak Ridge Boys’ Duane Allen, Joe Bonsall and Richard Sterban.

CRB’s president’s award was conferred on Bob Kingsley, former host of American Country Countdown and now the voice of Bob Kingsley’s Country Top 40.

Unlike previous induction ceremonies, this one featured no live music.

Campbell’s induction consisted of a slide show and a videotaped tribute from Keith Urban, who thanked the star “for blazing such a trail for guitar-slinging singers in this town.” Urban concluded his segment by singing “Wichita Lineman,” Campbell’s signature Jimmy Webb-penned hit from 1968.

Talent manager T. K. Kimbrell accepted Campbell’s award. He said he had spoken with Campbell and his wife, Kim, a day earlier.

“It’s perfect timing,” Kimbrell said of the award, “because Glen can still understand what an honor it is.”

For the other honorees, it was an evening of nostalgia. All spoke at length (the event lasted for just under two and a-half hours) about the circumstances that led them into radio and detailed how their careers flourished.

Kingsley talked of his love for songwriters and recalled hearing songwriter Craig Wiseman sing the song that would become one of Tim McGraw’s biggest hits, the Grammy-winning “Live Like You Were Dying.”

Sounding the itinerant theme that the other inductees would follow, Brannigan noted she has worked for 19 different general managers of radio stations since she launched her career in 1976.

Singers Linda Davis and Lang Scott — who are also the parents of Lady A’s Hillary Scott — inducted their friend and frequent picking buddy Whyte.

As part of their presentation they showed a graphic that resembled the cover of Lady A’s Need You Now album. However, the faces superimposed on those young bodies were those of Davis, Scott and Whyte, and they were prominently identified as “Lady Grannybellum.”

Whyte told of how he had booked singer-songwriter Bruce Robison to appear on his WSM radio show the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was attacked.

He said he was watching the tragedy unfold on TV as Robison was getting his guitar out of its case. When he drew Robison’s attention to the TV, Whyte said, Robison “packed up his guitar and left” without saying a word.

Marty Stuart inducted Stubbs, whose somber and cadaverous appearance caused Stuart to refer to him good-humoredly as “the country music undertaker.”

He said he first met Stubbs 35 years ago when he — Stuart — was playing in Lester Flatt’s band. Stubbs, who would later go on to fiddle with the Johnson Mountain Boys, was even then an avid bluegrass fan.

Stuart read an entry from the journal he kept at the time in which he pegged Stubbs as the type that alphabetized, color-coded and annotated every record he had.

“What I’m trying to tell you, ladies and gentlemen,” Stuart continued, “is that he’s crazy as a bat.”

Stuart said he “fell in love” with Stubbs as a disc jockey when he listened to tapes of the show Stubbs was then hosting on public radio station WAMU in Washington, D.C.

“He embraced our legacy,” Stuart asserted. “He embraced our heart and soul.”

“That’s a lot to live up to,” Stubbs responded when he came to the stage. Noting that he will have been with WSM for 17 years in March, he credited Kitty Wells and her late husband, Johnnie Wright, for bringing him to Nashville, initially as a member of their band.

The crowd rose to its feet as one when Stubbs pointed out that Wells was there in the audience to witness his induction.

Legendary entertainment lawyer Joel Katz inducted Moby, whose real name is James Carney.

Moby related the circuitous route by which he progressed from country to rock and back again to country as a DJ, and he proclaimed (as did most of the others) that he was unworthy of the distinction he had just received.

“It’s the Academy Award of country broadcasting,” he intoned as he held his plaque.

Taylor Swift told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show that she no longer reads her Google alerts. (Those are automatic emails that come every time there’s an Internet story or mention about a certain person. So that means you see them incessantly if you are signed up for the Swift alerts.) She admitted that to Leno when he was asking her about her song, “Mean,” which she said is about a music critic who kept giving her really bad reviews. “Like, nothing ruins your day more than getting a bad review. And then there’s like the scathing review, which is past constructive criticism and it’s more into like I-hate-you territory, which is mean,” she said. “It really got me down. Because I do get my feelings hurt. You never really do get thick skin for that sort of thing. Well, I don’t, at least. It got me down for a long time, and the only way I could get myself to feel semi-better about it was to sing this melody in my head.” Swift went on to say that winning two Grammys for the song helped her feel better, too.

Carrie Underwood tells Nfocus magazine that Charlize Theron and Reese Witherspoon are her icons. “They are beautiful, but in a natural way. They look like they take care of themselves but don’t do anything too crazy. They always look and act classy,” she said. “I always just try to choose clothes that I feel good in. I really don’t focus on what the reviews will be, whether they are rave or not. I just want to feel good about myself.” So what does she wear that keeps her in that more classy, less crazy range? Well, she admits that the tried-and-true sweatpants and a T-shirt is her go-to outfit when she’s not getting dressed up. And as for her healthy eating routine and resulting slim figure, she gives most of the credit to being a vegan. “I am a vegan, so that certainly helps. It’s hard to be vegan and not stay pretty lean,” she said. “I eat almonds, apples, dried fruit … raw fruit and nut bars, maybe a few squares of super dark chocolate and veggies and hummus. I am such a label reader and always take my food with me everywhere. Eating out is a definite diet sabotage, and most of the time, it’s hard for me to find quick food to eat, so I always make my own food ahead of time and take it with me. That way, I know exactly what’s in it, and I can still stay healthy and satisfied when I’m working.”

“I was like, I cannot wait any longer,” he grinned as he relived the moments of getting down on bended knee to propose. “I had to do it the old-fashioned way.”

Engaged to Sara Reeveley on Jan. 2, the singer-songwriter’s good fortune had only just begun. A few weeks later, the song craftsman would garner his fourth Academy of Country Music Award nomination for “Crazy Girl,” a passionate love ballad he co-wrote with Liz Rose and was later recorded by the Eli Young Band. The chart-topper is nominated for song of the year at the April 1 awards show in Las Vegas.

“I’m just honored to be sitting anywhere near them,” Brice said of his fellow nominees. “It’s crazy to me to be where I was 10 years ago, where I was five years ago and now, in the company that I’m in. I mean, Vince Gill and Chesney? These are guys I grew up listening to. It’s an honor.”

What’s more, he’s currently enjoying airplay with his newest single, “A Woman Like You,” written by Johnny Bulford, Phil Barton and Jon Stone, as well as recording his second album, Hard to Love, due this spring. In a recent interview with CMT.com, Brice shares a few stories behind his successful songs and explains which tune he’s thankful Blake Shelton and Chris Young didn’t get to first.

Let’s talk about “Crazy Girl.” How did this song transpire, and what was the writing process like for this?

It was awesome! I had a best friend for years and years, and I always had a thing for her. I always wanted to date her, but she always knew I was just kind of this good guy, and she dated all these bad boys. By the time we ended up dating, she kind of got a little insecure. These guys had treated her bad, and so that song was really for her. When I was with her, I was in, and it was hard for her to really believe that with her whole heart. So it was just a song to her. It was just a reassurance kind of a thing.

Liz Rose is an amazing writer. Her biggest quality, to me, in a writer is she makes you stay so honest to what’s going on. She wants to write a true story. And at that time, that’s what my story was. I was talking about my girlfriend to her. So that’s what we wrote. We wrote it in a few hours — probably from like 11 in the morning to 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon. That was eight years ago. So it sat around. I really wanted to do something with it. We already had a single out, and it just couldn’t work. It sat around for a long time. And then, luckily, the Eli Young Band loved it, and I could see that they were really passionate about the song, and that meant a lot to me.

What was it about your current single, “A Woman Like You” that appealed to you?

My friend Jon Stone, we’re just buddies and we trade songs all the time … I just heard his work tape, and I went, “Oh dude! What a smash!” So I ran inside to my house. I had a little studio, and I just picked up an acoustic [guitar], and we did a little version of me singing it. The next day we recorded it with a full band in the studio as a demo session, played that demo for my label, and they flipped out. We went in and just tweaked a couple of little things and left the demo just like it was and made it the record. And it’s magical. I felt like it was a smash and felt like it was very pertinent to my life at the time. It’s very me.

It sounds like a song you would write.

I would have written it just like that, number one. Number two, there are great songs out there that I’ve heard that I just couldn’t record because I couldn’t, for some reason, connect to it. That doesn’t mean it’s not a hit. I’ve passed on some hits before, and it’s hard to do, but if you’ve gotta sing it every day for the rest of your life, you’ve got to believe it. But this song I believe, man! I so believe it. (laughs) So when I sing it every night, it’s just like I wrote it. I feel as if I wrote it. I was just lucky he [Stone] came to me that day instead of anybody else because I think anybody else in town — if Blake or Chris Young or anybody — would have got their hands on that, I think it would have been a smash for any of them. I was just lucky to get my hands on it first.

What else can we expect from your album due out this spring?

It’s very true to me. It’s kind of like what’s going on with me right now with me in my life, and you can hear a lot of that in it. It’s called Hard to Love. I’m just so excited. I went and made the record I wanted to make. “A Woman Like You,” that was the beginning.

I was able to go in with my buddy Jon Stone and with my other buddy Kyle Jacobs and then a couple of other things with my original producer Doug Johnson, who I’ve done all my stuff with, who I just adore and love and look up to. I’ve got three different producers on this record and myself in-between all of it because I just knew what I wanted. We went in and we got it, so it’s fun.

You know, you hear Jerrod Niemann’s album or Jamey Johnson’s album, and they went in and made the record they wanted to make. And then they went and got a deal with that so they were able to go, “Look, this is the album you get if you want to give me a deal.” They were able to make exactly what they wanted. I so wanted that. And so I’m so fortunate my label gave me the freedom to go do that because a lot of the times you don’t get that. I’m excited that I was able to go do some different stuff. It doesn’t sound like the average thing on the radio.

Makers of “Red Solo Cups” can’t believe their good fortune.

LeAnn Rimes works with a DJ on a special project.

Trace Adkins parks his support with Pilot Flying J travel centers.

The Mavericks confirm a new album and record deal.

Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and more salute a bluegrass philanthropist.