The wrap-up of CMA Fest

The four-day celebration of country music that is CMA Music Festival wrapped up last night in Music City – live from LP Field. The nightly megawatt lineup always includes a classic country artist and a surprise guest. Last night’s CMA Fest crowd of 60,000 people were pumped up when Zac Brown Band gave a rock welcome to Richie Sambora on the song “Wanted Dead or Alive”. Other surprise collaborations during CMA Fest include: Tim McGraw singing “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s” with his wife. McGraw embraced Faith Hill at the end of the song and said “I’m a lucky, lucky man.”

Friday night saw big blonde hair and bigger voices when Carrie Underwood joined Miranda Lambert for “Somethin’ Bad”. The boys of country partied onstage with “Small Town Throwdown”: Thomas Rhett and Justin Moore joined Brantley Gilbert’s set for the song Thursday night. Saturday night’s show brought on a collaborative performance of “You Gonna Fly” with Keith Urban and Florida Georgia Line. The tune was written by hometown band LoCash Cowboys. Little Big Town’s Karen performed “We Were Us” with Urban. All the performances were taped for an ABC special, “Country’s Night to Rock” that airs Aug. 5 on ABC. Lindsay Fisher covered CMA Fest live for Hit Country KI 100.5; you can check out all her coverage on our Twitter @hitcountryki and our Facebook page.

Singers up to bat for charity

The City of Hope Celebrity Softball Game got to swinging Saturday morning with an all-star lineup of players including: Scotty McCreery, Chuck Wicks, Jamie Lynn Spears, Sara Evans, Florida Georgia Line, Jana Kramer and many more. Team Opry faced off against Team iHeart for a win 13 -11. Chuck Wicks slammed two home runs during the game; Chase Rice, who played football at University of North Carolina was Team Opry’s pitcher. The softball game helped raise money for Leukemia. One 8-year-old survivor got to share the home base with Danielle Bradberry. The little guy ran the bases after a home-run hit.