Following the demise of their former label Lyric Street Records, Rascal Flatts announced that they have signed a deal with Nashville-based record label Big Machine. The trio released eight albums with the Disney-owned Lyric Street label before the company shut down earlier this year. At a conference in Music City on Thursday, Rascal Flatts bassist and vocalist Jay DeMarcus confirmed their new deal with Big Machine, the home of Taylor Swift and several others.

Following the demise of their former label Lyric Street Records, Rascal Flatts announced that they have signed a deal with Nashville-based record label Big Machine.

The trio released eight albums with the Disney-owned Lyric Street label before the company shut down earlier this year. At a conference in Music City on Thursday, Rascal Flatts bassist and vocalist Jay DeMarcus confirmed their new deal with Big Machine, the home of Taylor Swift and several others, saying "I'm just thrilled that Taylor let us on the label."

Big Machine's president and CEO, Scott Borchetta, commented on the signing, calling it "a new beginning and a new partnership." He added that his "whole team is ecstatic."

"We feel we have so much left to do . . . . We're grateful someone wants us after 10 years," DeMarcus says.

Borchetta and the band also used this week's conference to unveil the artwork for the next Rascal Flatts album, Nothing Like This, which is due out in the fall.

Little Big Town have begun a special iTunes countdown to the release of their forthcoming album, The Reason Why. As part of the promotion, the group is releasing tracks on the music download service leading to the album's official release. The first track released was the album's title track, which was made available on Tuesday. The band will release a new song every week until the album hits stores.

Little Big Town have begun a special iTunes countdown to the release of their forthcoming album, The Reason Why.

As part of the promotion, the group is releasing tracks on the music download service leading to the album's official release. The first track released was the album's title track, which was made available on Tuesday. The band will release a new song every week until the album hits stores.

Songs released in the coming weeks will include "Kiss Goodbye" (August 3), "Why Oh Why" (August 10) and "All The Way Down" (August 17).

The Reason Why is set to be released on August 24.

Darius Rucker has signed on to mentor the winner of this year's Nashville Songwriters Association International Song Contest. The contest, co-sponsored by CMT, opens on August 1 and admissions will be accepted through the end of October. The contest will have two Grand Prize winners, one selected by a panel of industry professionals and one Listener's Choice winner, selected by fans through CMT. The winners will also receive tickets to next year's CMT Awards and other prizes.

Darius Rucker has signed on to mentor the winner of this year's Nashville Songwriters Association International Song Contest. The contest, co-sponsored by CMT, opens on August 1 and admissions will be accepted through the end of October.

The contest will have two Grand Prize winners, one selected by a panel of industry professionals and one Listener's Choice winner, selected by fans through CMT. Along with being mentored by Rucker, the winners will receive tickets to next year's CMT Awards, a tour of the CMT studios and meetings with various publishing executives.

"Through the years the NSAI Song Contest has been a vehicle to let our organization discover some amazing new talent," says NSAI Executive Director Bart Herbison. "Many of the winners have gone on to sign professional songwriting or artist deals."

He adds: "While many of the new talents were not the winners, they were discovered throughout the judging process. We get excited every year when the NSAI Song Contest Presented by CMT comes around for this reason!"

Contestants pay $35.00 (current NSAI members) and $45.00 (non-members) per song and can sign up at the NSAI website.