Months later, Jeanne entered a local radio contest and won tickets to see Tim at the 157th Great Allentown Fair. Before heading to the show, her husband designed a poster in hopes of offsetting his wife’s disappointment about missing Tim at the ACMs. The long, tall, tongue-in-cheek sign read: 2 tickets to ACM awards, $300; hotel and airfare, $1350; casino losses, $1000; listening to my wife moan Tim did not appear—endless; getting the chance to meet Tim backstage to call it even—priceless.

“I kept saying, ‘The sign is too big—people will get mad if you hold that up and they can’t see,’” says Jeanne. “I also was scared Tim might not want to be reminded of the ACMs.” Not only was the sign no problem, but Jeanne and Jim encountered no resistance when they walked to the front row to display it. “While the guards were telling other people to sit down they never said a word to us,” recalls Jeanne. “It was like it was meant to be.”

Midway into the show, explains Jeanne, they handed the poster to Tim (who had already noticed the sign and made eye contact). “He immediately unrolled it and said, ‘This is gonna take all night—it’s bigger than my kids’ Christmas list.’” After reading the sign, Tim invited her up to meet him—then and there. After talking with Tim, she remained onstage as the singer invited other audience members to come up and join him for the song “Just to See You Smile.”

“When I got offstage, my husband said, ‘Why didn’t you give him a hug or kiss?’ And I am still kicking myself for letting that opportunity pass!” Jeanne, who asked us to publicly relay her thanks to her husband for making and holding the poster, figures she more than made up for the letdown at the ACM awards show. “Nothing could top [meeting Tim],” she says. “Unless, of course, I did get that hug or kiss!”

On Oct. 1, she posted the words to a song written with Nashville tunesmith Dave Berg, “What You Are,” and four days later she shared a homemade video of herself performing it acoustically. During the same period she posted lyrics to more new songs, including “You Lied” and “Winter of Love,” and even discussed a few of the stories behind them. To read, hear and see them all, go to jeweljk.com and click on “Jewel’s Blog.”

Dave recently posted a demonstration video at the group’s official website, ladyantebellum.com, and at youtube.com/ladyantebellum. The clip finds Dave explaining with the help of onscreen graphics how to play the correct chords, get the right tuning and even replicate the unique way he plays an F chord (with his thumb over the top of the neck).

Fans watched on video screens as Keith made his escape, threw on a jacket, stepped out into the New York night and within moments flagged down a cab. “The yellow taxi is synonymous with New York City and I was trying to figure out how I could incorporate it into the show,” says Keith, who dreamed up the idea a few weeks beforehand. “I think I did it—not to mention that I beat the rush for cabs after the concert let out!” The stunt worked so well that Keith did it again at the following night’s show in Buffalo.

Toby and Lori met at his I Love This Bar & Grill restaurant in Mesa, Ariz., to discuss several topics, including the genesis of his upcoming European tour. “We had, out of the blue, in Norway, a platinum album on That Don’t Make Me a Bad Guy,” he explained “So when we were coming back from our USO tour we stopped in Europe and people for the first time were coming over and recognizing me and saying, ‘Hey, we’ve been getting your music over here.’” See the full interview at blog.cmt.com.