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(CNN) -- ESPN says it has severed its relationship with singer Hank Williams Jr. "We have decided to part ways with Hank Williams Jr. We appreciate his contributions over the past years," the network said in a statement released Thursday. The success of 'Monday Night Football' has always been about the games and that will continue." Williams, the 62-year-old son of the legendary country singer Hank Williams and a widely popular entertainer himself, compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, a remark that prompted controversy and resulted in "Monday Night Football" pulling his popular musical introduction from this week's game.

Hank Williams Jr. and his iconic theme song will not return to ESPN's "Monday Night Football," the network announced Thursday.

Ah, Mr W, you are still one of my musical heroes…… At 87 Slim Whitman is still around (though he heard rumours of his own death in 2008) but in the early 50s he was very big on the US country scene. In America he had faded in the charts by the end of the decade but he was always popular in Europe and frequently toured there.

Hank Williams Jr. won't be ready for some football this Monday night. ESPN bounced Williams' trademark opening "Are you ready for some football?" after the longtime voice of Monday Night Football's theme song, after he compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler. "While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football," an ESPN spokesman wrote in an email to the Daily News. "We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight's telecast." The...

In last Thursday’s Stark Country, we revealed that gold spins are on the rise for the Dixie Chicks eight and a half years after the incident that cost them their career. But even after all this time, a surprising number of country programmers say they’re still not playing the group’s past hits. Even those who are playing them are doing so very cautiously, with the politics of each market still playing a deciding role. When asked if all had been forgiven and forgotten when it comes to the Chicks, one programmer responded, “Are you kidding?” We asked programmers how much...

A Tennessee judge set a tentative October trial date for the long-running legal battle over the estate of the late country star Jim Reeves, who died in 1964. At issue is a dispute over millions of dollars of past and future royalties from Reeves' body of work, which includes "Four Walls" and a bevy of other hits from the "Nashville sound" school of country music from the 1950s and 1960s. The (Nashville) Tennessean said Sunday the Nashville Seventh Circuit Court ruled that the case would be decided based on the interpretation of a 1976 will written by Reeves' widow, Mary...

Created by Frank Peppiatt and John Ayleswoth, the first HEE HAW show aired on the CBS Television Network on June 15, 1969, as a summer replacement series for the SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR. HEE HAW was such a resounding success CBS slated the series for mid-season debut and as they say, the rest is history. From December 17, 1969 thorough December 27, 1997, HEE HAW shows were a weekly event in American households. A total of 585 one-hour shows were taped in Nashville, Tennessee, initially in 1969 at the CBS affiliate WLAC-TV (now WTVF-TV) and then moving to the Opryland...

This may be old news, but, I just ran across this article. It was reported recently that country music singer Hank Williams Jr. plans to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee in 2012 -- the next time a Senate seat is up in the state. An intriguing notion to say the least, but no announcement has been made yet, according to Williams's publicist.

How well do liberalism and Country Music mix? Here are my observations…I’ll let you decide… At the recent Kennedy Center Point of Lights Tribute event honoring George H.W. Bush for his efforts in promoting volunteerism, a CNSNews.com reporter asked Grammy Award-winning country artist Garth Brooks, if President Obama was living up to his expectations. Brooks responded by saying “I love him to death and I fully support him and I just wish him well because it’s got to be hell in that office” When Grammy Award-winning superstar Carrie Underwood was asked the same question, she replied, “See, now you’re getting...

(CNSNews.com) - Grammy award-winning singer Garth Brooks told CNSNews.com that he "fully" supports President Barack Obama and that it must be "hell" serving as President of the United States. Before his performance at the Points of Light Institute's ceremony honoring former President George H. W. Bush at the Kennedy Center on Monday, Brooks was asked if President Obama has lived up to his expectations. "Yeah, I think what President Obama is finding out is all that we want to do, the system kind of doesn't allow the most powerful guy in the world to kind of do his job and...

Grammy award-winning singer Garth Brooks told CNSNews.com that he "fully" supports President Barack Obama and that it must be "hell" serving as President of the United States. Before his performance at the Points of Light Institute's ceremony honoring former President George H. W. Bush at the Kennedy Center on Monday, Brooks was asked if President Obama has lived up to his expectations. "Yeah, I think what President Obama is finding out is all that we want to do, the system kind of doesn't allow the most powerful guy in the world to kind of do his job and I'm sure...

Ferlin Husky, a pioneering country music entertainer in the 1950s and early '60s known for hits like "Wings of a Dove" and "Gone," died Thursday. He was 85. The 2010 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee died at his home, hall spokeswoman Tina Wright said. He had a history of heart problems and related ailments. Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/17/2732626/country-entertainer-ferlin-husky.html#ixzz1GuKd9Prs

Revealing: What ABC Didn’t Show You from the CMA Country Music Fest Posted By Bruce Carroll On September 2, 2010 This article is nearly three months in the making. For the second year in a row, my partner John and I attended the Country Music Association (CMA) Music Fest in Nashville, TN in early June. As a side note, if you ever get the opportunity – GO! It is a weeklong celebration of great country music and the great American city of Nashville. But this isn’t a tourist agency pimping of Music City. Nope, it is a damning indictment of...

"Look, they've already won because this is a no-win position that we've been put in," said Trace. "I don't know who their PR person is, but they're better than ours because it doesn't matter how we react now, we already lose. If they get to build the mosque, they can run around the rest of the Islamic world and proclaim victory that they tore down an iconic structure and rebuilt a mosque in its place. And if we don't let them do it, then they'll go preach to the Islamic world that we're intolerant. So it's a no-win for us."

"American Idol" introduced Kristy Lee Cook to America. Now the country singer is hoping that hunting will make her an American household name. This weekend, Cook debuted her new reality series, "Goin’ Country" on cable network Versus, where cameras chronicle the singer’s struggle to get a record deal while also following her on a series of hunting expeditions across the country.

Taylor Swift headed to the Bahamas over the weekend for a show at the Atlantis resort on Saturday night. Before hitting the stage, Taylor found time that afternoon to slip into a retro polka-dot bikini and hit the beach with her friends.

I’m at that awkward age where I’m able to remember what a great country America has been and how the freedom we have here enables anyone to rise from abject poverty to a millionaire if he/she has the right work ethic and the right values. Maybe that’s why it bothers me so to see what political correctness and the attempts by the Obama administration to “fundamentally change America as we know it” have done to us as a culture as well as a country. And nothing better illustrates those simple, old-fashioned values than the life of a gentleman who passed...

Music-industry bible Billboard took the opportunity this week to comb through its chart records and compile the top 25 Country artists of the past 25 years--and who do you think is topping the list? Nope, it's not Garth Brooks, who I would say is a more than reasonable guess. However, Garth landed at No. 2, falling short only to George Strait.

www.catholicnewsagency.com Johnny Cash remembered for his faith-based music Johnny Cash. Rome, Italy, May 26, 2010 / 09:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Johnny Cash was remembered for how his music “sang the faith” in an article published on Sunday in the Italian Bishops’ Conference’s newspaper Avvenire. Without his faith, the article said, "the voice of Cash would not have been the same."The bishops' newspaper remembered the man who, though he "knew" prison and nearly died of a drug overdose, "still ... at a certain point in his life, took from it a possible Meaning, with a capital letter." Cash dedicated the...

Gay country star Chely Wright struggled to recount her romance with Brad Paisley in her memoir "Like Me," because she felt so terrible about making the singer think she loved him. Wright dated Paisley in 2000 and called off the romance when the "Celebrity" hit maker started to get serious and talk about marriage. But, rather than sit down with her one-time beau and tell him the truth, Wright simply cut the heartbroken star out of her life. In her book she recalls taking a long bath with the music blaring from her sound system so she couldn't hear Paisley...