MUSIC Newest country stars come out to boogie

By Jack Hill (Contact)

Chuck Wicks CD cover

LITTLE ROCK — Four of the fresh young faces of country music will strut their stuff Sunday afternoon by the Arkansas River, and it won’t cost the curious more than a can of food for the needy to check them out.

In this election year, the concert “ticket,” as it were, is evenly balanced between men and women, with two of each scheduled to perform. With all virtual newcomers, it’s hard to predict who the headliner will be, so let’s list them alphabetically: Luke Bryan, Julianne Hough, Ashton Shepherd and Chuck Wicks.

All are selling CDs, as indicated in a recent Billboard chart of country music singles and albums. On the singles chart, Bryan was in the lead, with “All Summer Long,” ahead of Wicks’ “All I Ever Wanted” and Shepherd’s “Sounds So Good.”

On the album chart, Hough was in the lead, with her selftitled debut disc. Bryan’s I’ll Stay Me and Shepherd’s Sounds So Good were also on the chart.

Of the four young musicians, all are known to be in their 20s, except Bryan, whose publicity materials notably reveal only his place of birth, Leesburg, Ga. Wicks, 29, was born in Smyrna, Del.; Shepherd, 22, was born in Coffeeville, Ala.; and Hough, 20, was born in Provo, Utah.

Hough may be the best known to many Americans, thanks to her appearances on the Dancing With the Stars reality show on ABC-TV, where in July she was nominated for an Emmy Award for her creative choreography. A dancer since she was 9, she studied in London and at 15, became the youngest dancer and the only American to win both Junior World Latin Champion and International Latin Youth Champion competitions at the Blackpool Dance Festival.

She first got noticed when she was an assistant choreographer on Gwen Stefani’s “Wind It Up” music video and from there she made her way into TV commercials and as a dancer on theshort-lived Show Me the Money game show. In 2006, she got her big break on the fourth season of Dancing With the Stars, as she won, dancing with Olympic gold medal-winning speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, making her the program’s youngest winner.

In November 2007, she and her partner, Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves, won the show’s fifth season, but the following year she and her partner were eliminated in the fourth week. On Aug. 25, the show announced she will return for thenext season and will dance with a Hannah Montana actor, Cody Linley.

She released her CD May 20 and it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and at No. 3 on the top 200 albums overall. She has toured with Brad Paisley, Jewel and Chuck Wicks (to whom she has been linked romantically).

Wicks, who was raised on a potato farm, moved to Nashville, Tenn., when he realized baseball and college were not his fields of dreams. He worked his way up through the songwriting offices and got favorable notices with his song “Stealing Cinderella,” which was inspired by a girlfriend whose job was playing Cinderella at Disney World.

He co-wrote 10 of the 11 songs on his debut CD.

Shepherd got her start when, at 16, she won a talent competition in Alabama, where the prize was an opening slot at a Lorrie Morgan concert. She was spotted and signed by an MCA executive and her debut single, “Takin’ Off This Pain,” came out a year ago, the same month she made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry.

She released her album earlier this year. Of the 11 songs, she wrote eight, co-wrote two and her co-writer wrote the last. She has been signed to open shows for Sugarland this fall. When not playing music, she and her husband work on their produce farm in Alabama.

Bryan moved to Nashville in 2001, and first tasted success when his song was chosen as the title cut on a 2005 Travis Tritt CD, My Honky Tonk History. He debuted his solo career in early 2007 with the single “All My Friends Say.” He also co-wrote a Billy Currington single, “Good Directions,” which was a No. 1 hit.

The Black Top Boogie is the final show in a series of four in the amphitheater, all co-sponsored by Sonic Drive-Ins, Chesapeake Energy, Apex Communications and Pulaski Technical College.

There is a limit of eight tickets per person at the Apex stores and all those obtaining tickets must be at least 18 years of age.

Black Top Boogie Featuring Chuck Wicks, Luke Bryan, Ashton Shepherd and Julianne Hough 2 p.m. Sunday (gates open at 1 p.m.), Riverfest Amphitheatre, President Clinton Avenue and La-Harpe Boulevard, Little Rock Tickets: Free to those who bring a canned food item to an Apex Communications Store in Little Rock, Maumelle, Benton, Conway or Cabot (501) 217-5000

Weekend, Pages 57 on 09/05/2008