When ABC’s new reality television singing competition “Duets” debuts this summer, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Robin Thicke and Jennifer Nettles will be sitting behind the judges table – and also appearing onstage alongside contestants.

The reality series has the judges select two unknown singers from a talent pool as their protégés. After extensive coaching by the judges, the contestants will eventually take the stage to sing – you guessed it – duets with their mentors. The singing will take place in front of a live studio audience, and the winner will receive a recording contract.

John Legend was a late addition to the lineup, as the formerly announced judge, Lionel Richie, had to pull out of the show due to scheduling conflicts. Legend says he had to work a little faster to catch up during the initial selection process, which is going on now, but that he is now having a good time on the show.

One thing that all of the judges stress is that the show is not just another run of the mill show that will get lost among other established singing competitions like “American Idol,” “The Voice” and “The X Factor.”

“Everybody says like, ‘Oh musicians are coming out of TV programs.’ And people are bashing it,” Clarkson told CNN recently. “But the reason why I love it, most of the time, is because there is no A&R anymore in the entertainment world. If you don’t make it right off the bat, like if you’re a band that just goes through a label and you don’t make it right off the bat, you get dropped.”

Of course, it’s possible that Clarkson may be slightly biased, as she herself became known after she won the first season of “American Idol,” but Thicke also said the hard work of the judges is what sets the show apart.

“It’s a little bit more involved [for us] than, I think, the other judges on those other shows,” Thicke said. “Like, we’re working our butts off! I didn’t realize how much work this was going to be! But we’re having a great time doing it.”

The name of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Festival may be slightly misleading, as it is definitely not only a jazz festival. A newly released lineup for the festival includes such big names as Kid Rock and Sugarland.

The Labor Day festival will take place August 31 to September 2 in Snowmass Village, Colo., which is near Aspen. The festival features genres including classic rock, country, funk, hip-hop, R&B and, of course, jazz.

Other notable names in the lineup include the Steve Miller Band and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue. Additional artist are expected to be added to the lineup soon.

The festival bills itself as the “Hottest 72 Hours of the Summer,” and the festival is held at Snowmass Town Park. In addition to the big-name headliners that will play on the main stage, the event also features two additional stages. Concertgoers can send tweets with the hashtag #72hoursofjas during the festival to ask questions of the organizers that will make their experience even better.

In addition to the music, festivalgoers can expect all the Colorado town has to offer, including mountain biking, whitewater rafting, sunbathing, spas, hiking and skateboarding. An Early Bird 3 Day Pass is currently available for the event for $199. There’s been no word yet as to what the price will be after Early Bird Passes run out.

In addition to the Labor Day festival, the “Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Festival” also will be held at the same grounds. The event will run for two weeks, with four nights of headliners that will play at the Benedict Music Tent. Those nights will be June 22-24 and July 7. Headliners for the festival will be K.D. Lang, Joe Cocker, Chris Botti and The Dukes of September Rhythm Revue. The latter is a supergroup of sorts that features Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs.

Sugarland will perform the first concert ever held at Houston’s recently built BBVA Compass Stadium. The event will be held August 26 at the downtown stadium, which also will host Texas Southern University football and Houston Dynamo soccer matches.

“We are really excited and humbled to be the first act announced at the BBVA Compass Stadium,” said Sugarland’s Kristian Bush in a statement. “This year’s tour is focused on the fans and will be an all request tour and we couldn’t imagine a better place to see and perform for all of our fans than this new stadium, it’s really a special gift as we just love Houston!”

Earlier this month, the country duo announced the “In the Hands of the Fans” tour for this summer, which lets fans of the band pick the set lists for the tour through Twitter, Facebook, phone calls during the show and selections directly from the stage. Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles said at the time that, “if [the song that’s requested] is on one of our records or if we’ve played it on a stage it is fair game.”

Not yet complete, the groundbreaking for the stadium was held in February 2011, and the venue is set to open in mid-2012. It is situated on a six-block area of downtown Houston near Minute Maid Park, the George R. Brown Convention Center and the Toyota Center.

“We are very excited about this concert announcement and are fortunate to get an act like Sugarland at the venue,” said Doug Hall, who is general manager of the stadium, in a statement. “We look forward to showcasing the venue to concert fans and making this a new destination in Houston to see a variety of top name artists.”

The “In the Hands of the Fans” tour is the group’s sixth consecutive headlining tour, and kicks off April 5 in Toledo, Ohio.

Sugarland has announced its next tour, and this time the duo is doing things a little differently.

The “In the Hands of the Fans” tour lets Sugarland fans pick the set lists for the tour. Singer Jennifer Nettles issued a statement about that tour that clarifies how this will happen.

“This year’s tour is based around the concept of putting the show into the hands of the fans,” she said in a post on the band’s official website. “THEY will make the requests that will help form the set list and guide the show. Through texts, handwritten signs, the Internet (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) phone calls made during the show and selections directly from the stage, the fans will become the conductors as well as the audience. If it’s on one of our records or if we’ve played it on a stage it is fair game.”

The tour will kick off on April 5 in Toledo, Ohio and will run at least through August 18, when the group will play a show in Stateline, Nev. Other cities that have been announced include Niagara, Ontario; Charlotte, N.C.; Mountain View, Calif; Chicago; Valdosta, Ga. and Sturgis, S.D. With more than 25 dates announced already, Sugarland’s website promises “more dates being announced soon!”

Reaching out to the fans is likely a good move for Sugarland, which took some heat from fans earlier this month stemming from the group’s appearance at Indiana State Fair last year when a stage collapse due to high winds resulted in seven deaths and many injuries. The group’s legal team claimed, “some or all of the plaintiffs failed to exercise due care for their own safety” and “some or all of the plaintiffs knowingly and voluntarily assumed and/or incurred the risk of injury to themselves.”

The band’s manager later clarified the band’s stance.

“Sadly when a tragedy occurs, people want to point fingers and try to sensationalize the disaster,” she said in a statement. “The single most important thing to Sugarland are their fans.”

Lawyers for country duo Sugarland have said that concertgoers were at least in part to blame for the injuries sustained when a stage collapsed during a Sugarland concert in Indiana last year.

The collapse, which occurred last summer at the Indiana State Fair, killed seven people and injured many others.

In a civil lawsuit, attorneys for the group have said that fans “failed to exercise due care for their own safety.” The lawsuit also alleges that “some or all of the plaintiffs’ claimed injuries resulted from their own fault.”

The statement has already caused incited outrage among many of the injured, and Sugarland’s manager, Gail Gellman, issued a statement to the Associated Press regarding the incident.

“Sadly when a tragedy occurs, people want to point fingers and try to sensationalize the disaster,” the manager said in the statement. “The single most important thing to Sugarland are their fans. Their support and love over the past nine years has been unmatched. For anyone to think otherwise is completely devastating to them.”

Two days after the stage rigging and sound equipment fell onto the crowd during high winds, Sugarland lead singer Jennifer Nettles also issued a statement to the AP that expressed how moved the band was by their fans.

In the statement, she said she was “moved by the grief of those families who lost loved ones. Moved by the pain of those who were injured and the fear of their families. Moved by the great heroism as I watched so many brave Indianapolis fans actually run toward the stage and try to help lift and rescue those injured. Moved by the quickness and organization of the emergency workers who set up the triage and tended to the injured.”

The state of Indiana, however, is saying that the band may be at least in part to blame, as well, since they allegedly refused to delay the beginning of the concert because it would have complicated further tour plans. The state already has paid out $5 million to victims and their families. That amount is the highest currently allowed under Indiana law.

Sugarland says their tour manager saved them, following Sunday’s tragic events which left countless injured and five dead.

The country duo had been scheduled to take the stage a few minutes prior to a 60-70 mph gust of wind blowing the stage down at Indianapolis State Fair. Nearly 100 people were crushed, with many injuries and five deaths, including Nathan Byrd, the daredevil stagehand. Miraculously, the duo weren’t injured during the stage collapse.

It was all because of Hellen Rollens, their tour manager. She made the decision just minutes before the collapse that the conditions were too unsafe for Sugarlandto take to the stage in spite of the fact that others were telling the pair to go on stage.

Rollens informed Gail Gellman, the full manager for the band, that she had gone by her intuition instead of anything else. It appears now that the last minute decision made by Rollen’s might have saved the lives of the Sugarland band members. Gellman praised Rollens in a Washington Post story.

Gellman said, it’s very important for a tour manager to understand weather conditions when playing outdoors. We have always discussed not putting our band out there to play during heavy rain, lightning or wind.

Everyone was inside a prayer circle, preparing to take the stage. The stage fell just as Hellen walked down the ramp. Her decision of holding them for a minute, literally save each crew and band member’s life.

Sugarland, particularly its female half Jennifer Nettles, is slowly becoming a force to reckon with in the country music scene, kind of like this generation’s Reba McIntyre. So influential, she was able to raise $50,000 for the Attic Community Playground through an online auction. The money raised will be used to allow more children to be exposed to musical and creative education, a cause that is dear to Nettles’ heart. “I don’t take it lightly that people see and watch and are interested in what I do. Our fans trust us and we trust our fans not only artistically but to uphold a [standard].”

And that ‘standard’ or level of creativity is what gravitates their fellow artists, regardless of genre, towards the critically acclaimed and chart topping duo. The fan and critical reception for Jennifer Nettles and Rihanna’s duo for the song ‘California King Bed’ at the recently concluded ACM Awards was astounding and extremely positive, with both artists seeming to break the barriers surrounding their own respective genres. And that’s just the beginning.

“One time Paul McCartney stopped us in a hallways [at an awards show] and said ‘I like your sound check. We were like ‘Arg! You’re Paul McCartney!’ I think the thing that startles me the most is when people who are famous or movie stars or musicians stop and tell you they are fans. That blows my mind! I get really excited about it,” tells Nettles’ Sugarland partner, Kristian Bush, who recalls the incident with a gush.

But perhaps they shouldn’t look too far or across the pond for their biggest fan. Constant tour companion Little Big Town, who joins them again in their ongoing Incredible Machine Tour, is not just their biggest fan but close friends as well, a friendship that was forged and transcends both the hard hitting pavement and music.

“They are just great people and friends. We always love to tour with them,” says Little Big Town lead Karen Fairchild. On the road, the two groups have joined forces in covering some pretty good classics, ranging from Dream Academy’s “Life in a Northern Town” to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”.

Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles spearheads an online auction for the benefit of the Attic Community Playground. The auction, which will run through the website CharityBuzz, has been up and running since yesterday, April 20, and will continue to be till May 11. Among the items up for bidding are concert tickets and VIP backstage passes to see any of the following artists who are set to hit the pavement this year: Kenny Chesney, Katy Perry, Bon Jovi, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Kid Rock, Reba McEntire, Sheryl Crow, Martina McBride and of course, Sugarland.

The Attic Community Playground holds a dear spot in Nettles’ heart, as it continues to provide art education, particularly music education and training, for youngsters. Nettles, as well as other musicians, performers and artists, realize the fact that art programs are slowly becoming endangered – if not extinct – facets of school curricula, with continuous internal budget cuts and lack of external funding and support system. “This is an extremely sad fact not only because I enjoy a career in the arts, but I enjoyed and benefitted from studying the performing arts as a kid. ACP hopes to help provide students with opportunities for experiencing and studying the arts so they can develop their self-expression, emotional exploration and self-confidence,” shares Nettles.

Meanwhile, Sugarland has just released their follow-up single to “Stuck Like Glue”. Through iTunes, “Tonight”, the duo’s new single from their “Incredible Machine” release, can now be downloaded, while the video can be streamed online via AOL starting today. The video features Nettles being chic and sophisticated, kind of like skimming through a fashion magazine with Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush’s voices playing in the background.

“We were inspired in writing this song by the emotional longing we heard in the soundtracks of iconic 80?s movies like the Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Say Anything. The feeling of being so in love that you would trade everything for just one day with that someone,” explains Bush. He also adds, “This song is an event every night we play it. When Jennifer gets to the first big ‘Always’ and holds it forever, and the band finally kicks in, and the electric guitars rumble to life under her note, it really turns the room into a stadium. I love how the audience start to cheer and scream and how that energy carries us and the song to a new place. It makes a man want to play guitar!”

The song is now receiving more than ample airtime both on radio and music video channels since debuting earlier this week.

The Sugarland radio station is ready to be debuted by Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles. However, one would think that because there are only 4 albums to their name, they would quickly lose listeners if that’s all they played. Luckily, Bush and Nettles will be playing the songs of their own personal favorite singers along with their own.

Nettles stated, “I’m so excited to give fans this look behind the curtain at Sugarland and show what makes Kristian and me tick. People may be surprised about some of our musical influences, and we’ve got some great stories to share.”

These musical influences include the Cure, Coldplay, Arcade Fire, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, R.E.M. and many more. They will all share time on the fledgling radio station.

Even though both singers are enthusiastic about their new project, they are also hoping that understanding the links between bands will aid in gaining fans from all genres. Bush said, “We are really lucky. Country music is often built in such a way that separates singers from the song. We don’t do that. We write all our own songs and we write about things we know. In that way, we find a connection with the people around us.”

The Sugarland radio station is produced by A.P.E. Radio.

Rihanna goes country for one night at the upcoming ACM Awards in Las Vegas this April via a rare duet with Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles for the song “California King Bed”, RiRi’s new single. She could not contain her excitement that she had to tweet about it: “I’m so bloody excited to be performing at the ACM’s! What an honor…” Apparently, she had also gone British.

Apart from Rihanna and Jennifer Nettles who, along with her Sugarland half Kristian Bush is in the running for the ACM Top Vocal Duo of the Year award, all six ACM Entertainer of the Year nominees namely Keith Urban, Taylor Swift, Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert and Toby Keith, will be performing in the said event as well. Alabama, Dierks Bentley, Zac Brown Band, Carrie Underwood, Sara Evans, James Taylor, Ronnie Dunn and Martina McBride are also appearing in the event as special performers.

The 46th Annual Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards will be held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on April 3. Reba McEntire and Blake Shelton will be hosting while Ryan Seacrest, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Nancy O’Dell are among the night’s presenters.