This week, Gretchen Wilson heads back to her roots when she launches her I Got Your Country Right Here club tour which will hit a total of 18 cities. The performances will be in small venues where fans can "hear it before you buy it" as they get the opportunity to experience music from the 'Redneck Woman''s fourth studio album also titled 'I Got Your Country Right Here.'

"This is where I started," the former bartender turned singer says of the bars and small clubs where she honed her craft before landing her major-label record deal in Nashville. "There's nothing like the immediate feedback you get from the fans when they're just a few feet away."

Allison Moorer was working on her album 'Crows' this past summer while husband Steve Earle was on tour, an unusual circumstance since the two try to travel together as much as possible. The singer recorded the new disc under another new situation in her life -- she was pregnant with the couple's first child, a boy who will be born in March. The singer swears her unborn child is already familiar with all the music on the new CD and that he moves around when he hears it.

While Allison declines to reveal the baby's name, she says the couple are thrilled and excited about his birth. They plan to take off a few months after he's born, leaving New York City for their home in Woodstock, New York, to give the family time to bond. In the meantime, Allison is doing as much as she can to promote 'Crows,' which hits stores today (Feb. 9). She's set to perform on the 'Late Show with David Letterman' on Wednesday (Feb. 10) and is excited about opening for Levon Helm on his Midnight Ramble in Woodstock on Feb. 13. Recorded in Nashville over a four-day period and produced by R.S. Field, 'Crows' is filled with reflective lyrics, tunes that allow Allison to showcase the beauty of her voice against the varied background of piano and guitar with jazz and blues overtones that pair easily with her country roots. Whether recalling her mother's love or imparting hope to the listener, the singer/songwriter presents a beautiful album that is poetry set to the motion of music.

The new project is a far cry from her earlier material, recorded for a major label in Nashville at a time when she had an Academy-Award-nominated song ('A Soft Place to Fall') in the Robert Redford film, 'The Horse Whisperer.' Allison says 'Crows' may be the truest musical statement she's ever recorded. Allison spoke to The Boot about the new album and some of the songs that are dearest to her.

The songs on this album are so descriptive, yet they leave much for the listener to fill in with their own experiences. How do you go about crafting those kind of lines?

There are all kinds of ways to write a song. I purposely wanted to be more abstract than before, more poetic and not literal, with the songs on this album. That is what imagery is about. I tend to communicate in more visual terms. I will use visual reference more than something that anyone can understand. I'm skewed that way; I'm not sure why. It was done on purpose with this album, but at the same time it wasn't. It's just where my head was at the time I wrote the songs. Because I wanted to write the melodies that are more open than I've done previously I wasn't interested in doing anything that was that straight forward.

When Jason Aldean was looking at opening acts for his 'Wide Open' tour, he looked no further than Luke Bryan and pretty much wouldn't take no for an answer.

"We've got a lot of stuff in common, and when we first started talking about going out on the road, he was my number one choice to get," says Jason. "And they were asking me, 'If we can't get him, who do you want?' And I didn't really have anybody else in mind. 'I'd like to get Luke, and if we can't get him, then we'll look at other people, but this is who I want.' Luckily it worked out. I think when you're out on the road, you've got to be out there with people you like hanging out with. Not only does it make the time go by a lot quicker, but I've been on tours that weren't that much fun, and I've been on ones that were a lot of fun. When you enjoy the people that are around you, it's a lot of fun."

From his own Black & Gold draped suite in Sun Life Stadium, Kenny Chesney cheered his New Orleans Saints on to a wild 31-17 Super Bowl victory on Sunday. Afterward, with his father and college buddies in tow, he attended Coach (and friend) Sean Payton's post-game locker-room speech. And after that -- at Coach Payton's request -- Kenny hit the stage at Miami's Intercontinental Hotel to rock the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints' victory bash along with hundreds of jubilant players, their families and guests.

Sporting a white T-shit and Saints cap, Kenny pulled Coach Payton onstage with the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy, shouting "The Saints just won the Super Bowl!" and then lit into 'Living in Fast Forward.' When the elated coach announced that he intended to drink beer in Mexico, Kenny kicked into a raucous performance of 'Beer in Mexico.'

Reckless Kelly set the musical bar high for themselves after the release of their sixth album, 'Bulletproof,' in 2008. Soon after its release, the album became the Austin-based band's biggest seller, hitting the Billboard Top 200 chart and reaching the Top 25 of the magazine's Top Country Albums chart. 'Bulletproof' contained their first No. 1 on both the Texas and Americana charts, 'Ragged as the Road.' The success of the song and album also scored Reckless Kelly a nod for Best Band or Duo at last year's American Music Awards.

With the release of their latest project, 'Somewhere in Time' (in stores Feb. 9), the country-rockers stepped out on a limb by trying something brand new -- recording a full album of tunes they had no part in writing. The 12 tracks on 'Somewhere in Time' were all penned by the band's mentor and idol, Pinto Bennett. (Listen to the album track-by-track, here.)

"Usually I do all the songwriting or most of it," Reckless Kelly's lead vocalist and guitar player Willy Braun tells The Boot. "This was a record we've wanted to make for a long time. Pinto is a big hero of ours and an old friend, so it's been an idea we've had for quite a while. We finally just got the timing right to pull it off."

Rascal Flatts are getting into the Olympic spirit this year. Their latest hit, 'Unstoppable,' is being used as the theme song for athletes at the upcoming Winter Olympics.

"AT&T and NBC came to us about the song, and they wanted to change it into more of an anthemic thing before the Olympics -- not just about love but about you being unstoppable ... like an Olympic athlete, for instance," guitarist Joe Don Rooney explains to The Boot. So Jay [DeMarcus] got with the writers, Hillary Lindsey and James Slater, and rewrote the song to fit more of that theme, and it turned out killer."

Dating can be daunting ... especially if you're famous. The gossip rags just love to pair up single celebs ... whether they're actually a couple or not.

Taylor Swift has been linked with a number of suitors, including Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, and more recently John Mayer. The 20-year-old country superstar likes to keep her love life in her lyrics ... and out of the press. But one thing she will reveal is her "type."

Taylor's ideal man will be tall (not sure about the dark and handsome part). The 5'11" multi-Grammy winner admits her heart skips a beat when she meets someone taller than her.