Carrie Underwood | 4th Album Era | Part I

[realityBITES]

Nice interview :) very cool

[Typo]

Tonight's episode of Access Hollywood featured Carrie & Brad on the set of their upcoming CMA promos. Looks hilarious.

And, according to NewsOK, Carrie will be visiting NSU tomorrow for homecoming festivities:

Her hometown won't be her last stop of Underwood's weekend visit to Oklahoma. On Saturday, she will visit Northeastern State University, where she will ride in the homecoming parade, attend the football game and receive a distinguished alumnus honor during halftime.

[Deleted]

Hopefully news stations & people in the crowds capture all of that. :)

[leilamaurizia]

Carrie Underwood Is A Hometown Hero

Carrie Underwood worked alongside hundreds of volunteers on Friday, where her C.A.T.S. Foundation – Checotah Animal, Town, and School Foundation – and national non-profit KaBOOM!, built a new playground in one day at Marshall Elementary School in Carrie’s hometown of Checotah, Oklahoma.

Underwood and the other volunteers assembled the child-designed playground from scratch in less than eight hours with the help of KaBOOM! and more than 200 volunteers on Friday, Oct. 14. Volunteers gathered for a kickoff ceremony at 8:30 a.m. and completed the playground project in time for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 2:30 p.m.

Underwood created C.A.T.S. Foundation in 2009 as a means to give back to her hometown of Checotah, OK. Since its inception, C.A.T.S. Foundation has contributed to the local community in many ways, including donating $117,000 in instruments to the school’s music program (with ACM Lifting Lives), rebuilding the local animal shelter, and making contributions to other local groups in need.

“We had the most amazing day putting together something truly special for the kids – and the community,” said Underwood. “I’m so proud that so many volunteered their time to be here today.”

During the course of the day, Underwood painted a mural, planted vegetation and assembled several playground components, including a Horse Spring Rider and a Tree House Barrier. In total, volunteers mixed and moved more than 12,000 pounds of concrete and moved 43,740 square feet of safety surfacing by hand – enough to cover nearly 10 NBA-sized basketball courts. The new 2,500 square-foot playground includes equipment for children of all ages, including a 360 degree spiral slide, a tree house climber and a tire swing.

“On behalf of the Marshall Elementary students and staff, I would like to thank Carrie Underwood for her generous donation to KaBOOM!, which made this playground project possible,” said Jann Ledbetter, Marshall Elementary Principal. “It is particularly special for us because this was Carrie’s elementary school. At Marshall we believe that play is of the utmost importance in the physical, mental and social development of young children. We are incredibly grateful to the C.A.T.S. Foundation, KaBOOM!, and community and parent volunteers who have come together in making our dream playground a reality. Together we have positively affected our current and future student’s lives for the better.”

Planning for the playground began at a Design Day event held in August when local children and community leaders met with organizers from the C.A.T.S. Foundation and KaBOOM! to design their dream playground. The children’s drawings were then used to create the final playground design.

KaBOOM! is a national non-profit organization dedicated to saving play. For 15 years, KaBOOM! has been fighting the Play Deficit, and this project is one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! will lead across the country in 2011 in an effort to provide a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.

“We’re thrilled that C.A.T.S. Foundation and KaBOOM! share the same commitment of fighting the play deficit among children by bringing communities together to build playgrounds,” said Darell Hammond, KaBOOM! Founder and CEO and author of The New York Times Best Seller KaBOOM!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play. “Thanks to Carrie’s C.A.T.S. Foundation, children in Checotah now have a terrific new playground and KaBOOM! moved one step closer to our vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.”

[vinman]

Thanks for the alert on Access Hollywood. I'll post that segment to my site.

Also, Carrie blogged today @ OFC about her C.A.T.S experience.

ETA: Another news video about her visit to Checotah. Includes long interview.


www.news9.com/story/15697186/carrie-underwood-helps-build-new-playground-for-checotah-school

ETA2: Photos showing up from her being honored at NSU today. Thanks to OFC members for the photo links.

[vinman]

GAC broadcasted last week's OPRY tribute to Randy Travis. You can download both of Carrie's performances on my site.

As a reminder, to play any video with a .divx extension (encoded with divx), you need the free DIVX player. Get it at www.divx.com

ETA: Just realized the whole cap is in the wrong resolution, if you can't wait download it the way it is now but I will eventually replace them with the more HD cap!

[vinman]

[carrieidol1]

Carrie sounded flawless on both IISO and ITYS... I have to say, that was probably my favorite performance of ITYS tied with the 2009 ACMs... Absolutely breathtaking! She sounded like an Angel!

[Deleted]

ITYS has had so many great performances.
The '09 ACMs, the top 11 Idol results show [although Carrie's hair was a bit... that night] back in Season 8, Hollywood Bowl, etc.

[Typo]

Yeah, that ITYS performance was flawless. She always nails it but that one just had something ~special about it.

MJ's Blog has uploaded video of both performances, for those unable to DL Vinnman's videos.

[jptexas]

^^How bout that twang in Carrie's voice. It's like when she sang, "you're looking at country" by Loretta.
Then you see her live singing Sweet Child of Mine and blows everybody's mind. Versatile? Uh, yea.

[boomer187]

Did you hear her British accent, in the CCUSA broadcast with Brad? It is amazing!!

[countryfan1985]

Hey Guys, Don't forget about tonight's Opry performances.

[vinman]

Thanks to obie@ofc,

www.b95.fm/rssItem.asp?feedid=163&itemid=29740640

On Tuesday, Brad Paisley commemorates two number-ones with two special guests. Duet partners Carrie Underwood and Alabama are both set to celebrate their hits “Remind Me” and “Old Alabama” with Brad at the Grand Ole Opry House. This will be the first time a number-one party has ever been held at the Opry. CMA Hosts Brad and Carrie will perform “Remind Me” for the first time live on television during the November 9 awards show.

ETA:

From NSU's campus newspaper.








ETA2:

blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2011/10/18/lauren-alaina-on-her-make-it-or-break-it-debut/

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Lauren Alaina is growing up quickly.

The 16-year-old American Idol runner-up has spent the past four months since the show's season finale performing in arenas across the country, doing interviews, music video and photo shoots, and recording her debut album, Wildflower, released last week.

<Snip>

"I guess when people hear the songs, they're going to know if I've had my heart broken or if I've had my first love or all that kind of stuff," she said. "I just think it's cool that I can share that with all of (my fans) the way that Carrie Underwood or Miranda Lambert or someone would."

Lauren cut a song Underwood co-wrote, called "Eighteen Inches." As a former American Idol winner, Underwood has provided meaningful support to Lauren. The two exchanged phone numbers, and Lauren asks her for advice when she gets upset. Recently, the Georgia native was feeling particularly homesick and reached out to Underwood.

"I just said, "How do you deal with being away from your family for so long and just being gone all the time?' And she said, "You have to think about all the positive stuff that's going on, because you have so much going for you right now. Your family will always be there.' Just hearing that from her, knowing that she had been through what I'm going through, just made me feel 10 times better," said Lauren.

The respect is mutual.

"She is a breath of fresh air in country music today," said Underwood in an email. "I can't wait to see what she'll do in the future!"

[Typo]

The #1 party for "Remind Me" took place earlier today at the Opry:



Excited for tonight's RM performance! I'm prepared for Brad to sound a mess, though.

[Deleted]

Yeah, based on the performances Brad did on tour with the Carrie hologram, he wasn't... good.

Oh, well. I'm still excited that were finally getting a live performance of this!

[carrieidol1]

Unfortunately I won't be able to catch it live tonight... Thank God for Vinman!!!

[cufan7]

Carrie's opry set for tonight's show (10/18) was:

Undo It
Wasted
Jesus, Take The Wheel/How Great Thou Art
Remind Me (with Brad Paisley)

[Deleted]

I definitely want to see this set as soon as possible now. I'm happy she did Wasted

Can't wait for the RM performance.

[vinman]

Cap it done. Up on my site now!

The stream contained some hum tonight, couldn't get rid of it.

[carrieidol1]

I LOVE "Wasted" live!

[Typo]

Loved tonight's performances. I'm not sure if "Remind Me" translated all that well live but Carrie sounded fantastic on it, I think. They still have time to work out all of the kinks before the performance at the CMAs. And, tonight's "Wasted" was just spectacular.

[cufan7]

"Wasted" is always spectacular live. And based off of how many times Carrie seems to perform that one (especially on the opry) she must know her fans love it. I think Carrie reads message boards/posts a lot more than she leads us to believe.

[misterscribbs]

So excited to hear Wasted and Remind Me!

[Typo]

[Deleted]

^^Beat me to posting the video by, like, 5 seconds.

Carrie held her own, although it sounded like she was singing a little lower...? IDK, just what I'm basing things off of by the YouTube. Brad...

[neally]

Oct 18, 2011 21:40:50 GMT -5 vinman said:

Cap it done. Up on my site now!

The stream contained some hum tonight, couldn't get rid of it.

Could you please post a link to your site ? Thanks very much !

ETA: It is hard to judge that LQ clip of 'Remind Me', but Brad sounds out of tune for a significant part of the song and Carrie's "me"s sound off-key, which leads me to believe that is the quality of the recording is off rather the Carrie (and Brad, to a lesser degree).

[Typo]

Brad sounded better than I thought he would. I still think they need to revise the ending a little because it's clearly pushing Brad a little too far. And, I feel like Carrie's voice has been sounding naturally deeper in the majority of her recent appearances. I like it, though, tbh.

Overall, I'm feeling this performance. Carrie's voice just floats on "Remind Me."

[justlurkingaround]

Not a fan of the Remind Me performance. Could be the quality of the video/mp3 I listened to.

[Typo]

Carrie blogged. The entry is titled "Good News"...and it's all about the banning of foie gras in California.