Jake Owen, Luke Bryan & More Drop in for Casey’s Taste of Country

Starting the week of right and finishing the year out quietly, Rascal Flatts will be hitting store shelves with a new album due out April 3^rd of next year. After performing this past weekend at the iHeart radio music festival, they said rest and relaxation for the rest of 2011 will be a part of the next few months while completing that album. They are up for ‘Vocal Group of the Year’ at this year’s 45th Annual CMA Awards on November 9^th.

Luke Bryan set to make lots of appearances this week. He’ll make his first-appearance on “Access Hollywood” tonight. And then, you can also see him on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” Wednesday for the first-time ever. I just have a feeling she might get Luke to do a little dance – just a gut feeling.

One of the Zac Brown Band members is debuting his first solo album. The band’s guitarist and keys player, Coy Bowles, will have his album out October 4^th. It’s called “Love Takes Flight.” So if you’re a huge Zac Brown Band fan, like me, I bet you’ll be picking up a copy of Coy’s album, too.

And speaking of albums, Kenny Chesney’s latest album, Hemingway’s Whiskey, just went platinum. Also going platinum were (forementioned) Luke Bryan’s single, “Country Girl (Shake It for Me),” Darius Rucker’s “Alright,” and Scott McCreery’s “I Love You This Big.” Two of Darius’ other singles went gold this week – “Come Back Song” and “This.”

My new best friend, Jake Owen (I wish by the way), is on the verge of going big time. His big hit, “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” is by far his most successful song so far. It’s also the title cut to his third album.

Here’s what Jake had to say about his first number-one success: