Tim Mcgraw

Can we expect country superstar Tim McGraw's update on Brenda Lee's biggest hit sometime soon? McGraw sounds like he's ready for a chorus of "I'm Sorry" in a statement he issued Tuesday apologizing for a new hits collection that his record label has issued for the holidays. "I am saddened and disappointed that my label chose to put out another hits album instead of new music," McGraw said in the statement. "I've only had one studio album since my last hits package. It has to be just as confusing to the fans as it is to me. I had no involvement in the creation or presentation of this record."

Brian J. O'Connell, Live Nation's president of country touring, stood in the frantic backstage at the CMT Music Awards in June, smiling. "You realize," he said, "there are four country stadium shows going on this weekend. " O'Connell wasn't hyping. In addition to the Country Music Assn.'s annual CMA Music Festival, which packs Nashville's LP Field for four consecutive nights, Kenny Chesney was performing at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis.; Brad Paisley was taking over Progressive Field in Cleveland; and Taylor Swift was standing room only at Ford Field in Detroit.

Tim McGraw's "Indian Outlaw" is the fastest-rising country single on the pop charts since Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" in 1992, but not everyone is celebrating. Two country radio stations in Minneapolis are refusing to play the song after complaints that some of the lyrics are offensive to Native Americans.

The Grammys are getting a face-lift. The Recording Academy on Wednesday announced a major overhaul of its musical categories that, among other changes, will consolidate a number of awards, eliminate separate awards for male and female vocal performances in the pop, rock, R&B and country genres, and reduce the overall number of categories from 109 to 78, beginning next year. A number of other formerly distinct categories have been combined or folded into existing ones. A new rule will also allow the academy to suspend and eventually eliminate categories that receive fewer than 25 entries for three consecutive years, and to transfer subsequent submissions in that category into the "next most appropriate category.

Tim McGraw "Southern Voice" (Curb Records) . ½ Tim McGraw sharply criticized Curb Records about this time last year for issuing a third "greatest hits" collection from the country star rather than release this album, which sat on a shelf for nearly two years after it was completed. McGraw sees this, his 10th studio effort, as a way of reclaiming his voice, and bucking the powers that be might well be one facet of that voice. If only more of that feistiness were evident in the songs he's selected.

Curb. Three years after rocketing to stardom with "Indian Outlaw," McGraw has settled in as country music's Celine Dion--the consummate pro, surrounded and supported by top song-crafters and musicians who weave such attractive wrapping that whether there's an actual human being inside is almost moot.

Country music superstars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have sold their Beverly Hills Post Office-area home for $9.5 million. The two-story Mediterranean sits on 4 gated acres with panoramic canyon and city views and a swimming pool with a spa. The two-story entry features limestone floors. The 10,500-square-foot house's six bedrooms and 7 1/2 bathrooms include a master bedroom suite with his and her bathrooms and a connecting gym. Hill, 42, has sold more than 40 million records.

Tim McGraw led the list of nominees for the 40th annual Academy of Country Music Awards with six nominations, including one for entertainer of the year. Kenny Chesney, Alison Krauss and Gretchen Wilson each received five nominations, while Toby Keith, Brad Paisley and Keith Urban had four apiece. Keith, the reigning entertainer of the year and a nominee for the award again this year along with McGraw, Chesney, Urban and Brooks & Dunn, announced the nominees Thursday.

Ray Charles' collection of duets, "Genius Loves Company," and Jill Scott's second studio album, "Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2," made impressive showings on this week's pop album charts, but they fell short of knocking Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying" out of the No. 1 spot. Charles' album, which features duets with such artists as Norah Jones, Willie Nelson and Van Morrison, sold 202,000 copies in its first week in the stores to finish No.

Tim McGraw fit right in as an attraction at the Orange County Fair. The newly minted country star's show Wednesday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre offered a midway's worth of musical junk food, but dang if the flash, the barker-blarney and the swirl of enthusiasm didn't make you want to swallow at least some of it. McGraw's 95-minute show included enough sugary fluff and drippy molasses to start his own cotton-candy and candy-apple franchises.

SERIES Law & Order: UK: Brooks and Devlin's (Bradley Walsh, Jamie Bamber) investigation into the murder of a prison officer soon uncovers evidence that he was not as honorable as his colleagues insist. Wunmi Mosaku guest stars in this new episode, along with regulars Harriet Walter and Ben Daniels (6 and 9 p.m. BBC America). Who Do You Think You Are? Country music superstar Tim McGraw is determined to learn more about his paternal family tree in this new episode (8 p.m. NBC)

Gwyneth Paltrow is the kind of well-mannered celebrity who never ? even in her gregarious 20s ? raised eyebrows by swaying boozily on a bar top, hopping in and out of rehab or kissing a man who wasn't her own. So it is with relish that the actress, now 38 and the kind of conscientious mother of two who coordinates play dates from 5,000 miles away, does all that misbehaving and more as a country star in her new movie, "Country Strong. " "My life is all responsibility," says Paltrow, shrugging into a hooded sweatshirt and kicking off her three-inch heels after a performance to promote the film at Yahoo in Santa Monica last week.

There is a down-home comfort saturating "Country Strong," in that "somebody done somebody wrong song" way, that almost carries you through when its music-drenched melodrama gets predictable. Which is pretty much as soon as the fragile, still-in-rehab country superstar played by Gwyneth Paltrow starts talking about the baby bird she's found and is trying to save. So like, Scene 2. Paltrow's Kelly Canter is trying to mend her own broken wing, her drinking and on-stage meltdowns having put her career in need of rehab and recovery too. The actress brings her own surprisingly sweet voice to the foot-stomping, two-stepping proceedings with such surety that if you didn't catch her coming-out party on the Country Music Assn.

Country music superstars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have sold their Beverly Hills Post Office spread for $9.5 million. The two-story Mediterranean, with panoramic canyon and city views and a swimming pool with a spa, sits on 4.85 gated acres — a fair amount of breathing room for a "city" home. The two-story entry features limestone floors. There is a step-down living room. The 10,500-square-foot house's six bedrooms and 7 1/2 bathrooms include a master bedroom suite with dual bathrooms and a connecting gym. Hill, 42, has sold more than 40 million records.

What's in a name? If the names are Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg, there is enough star power to attract 500 people to the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel and gross $1.7 million to benefit the Entertainment Industry Foundation's Women's Cancer Research Fund. The two couples co-founded the charity, along with Kelly Chapman Meyer, Anne Douglas, Quinn Ezralow, Marion Laurie and Jamie Tisch, to help find more effective approaches to the early detection of women's cancers.

I have resolved to change for the better this year, and not dwell on such craziness as Josh Groban singing the national anthem at tonight's BCS title game, a puzzling choice even if the participants weren't a couple of chicken-fried schools like Alabama and Texas. Josh Groban, he of the Rudy Vallee vibrato? Groban would've been an inspired choice were, say, the University of Chicago and Juilliard playing for the national championship. Till that happens, give me Tim McGraw any ole day. Hey, you know who would make a great choice?

TIM McGRAW has come a long way since he was a boy growing up in a flyspeck of a Southern town called Start, La. For one thing, the Grammy Award-winning country music star has sold over 33 million albums, 4 million singles and placed 26 singles at No. 1. For another, his Soul 2 Soul II Tour 2006 with his wife, Nashville powerhouse Faith Hill, was the highest-grossing tour in country music history. He also received acclaim in the 2004 feature film "Friday Night Lights."

Top North American tours of the decade Band Gross Band Gross 1. Dave Matthews Band 529.1 26. Barry Manilow 173.9 2. Celine Dion 522.2 27. Bob Dylan 161.1 3. Kenny Chesney 455.6 28. "American Idols Live" 156.8 4. Bruce Springsteen 444.3 29. Ozzfest 154.9 5. Rolling Stones ...