In addition to giving the race team of half- and mini-marathoners a great sendoff, the event served the additional purpose of introducing songs from Danny’s new EP “Love Again” to an intimate audience of  fans and supporters. The event was held at the Compassion Nashville facility, with some residents able to join in the fun.

Over $10,000 was raised through the Run for Compassion in this first year, in no small part due to members of the iheart community.     Special congratulations to our own Pam and asics for leading the way in fundraising — to include beating a certain bespectacled singer  

Danny was joined by Brandon Fraley, Jamelle Fraley, and Matt Reviere — and by his four-legged friend “Sweet Pea” who made some cameo appearances during the evening

Danny and friends performed a number of acoustic songs, new and old, and played tracks from the new EP with commentary by Danny and Brandon. (Note: Since the EP will shortly be available for sale, we are only providing sample snippets from the recorded tracks that were played at the pre-release party.)

Let us know what you think about the new songs by leaving a comment — and, of course, be sure to pick up your personal copy of the full-length and full-quality songs as soon as the EP is available!

If you choose to buy the EP through iTunes, remember you can buy any iTunes items through the links to the right and support IHDG in the process.

Danny Gokey discussing his new EP

Love Again – song excerpt

Love Again – acoustic performance

Comments on Gimme a Kiss and Win Me Over – acoustic performance

Everything Works Together – intro and song excerpt (feat. Beckah Shae)

Intro to Second Hand Heart Remix

Second Hand Heart Remix – song excerpt
comment: audio quality is not good for this video compared to the actual recording

Faith Hope and Love – intro and song excerpt

Faith Hope and Love – song excerpt feat. choir

Faith Hope and Love – acoustic performance

PYT and You Are So Beautiful

I Need You acoustic performance (LeAnn Rimes cover)

I Still Believe Remix – intro and song excerpt feat Sophias Heart choir

Crazy Not To – acoustic performance

Gimme a Kiss Remix – song excerpt

Nashville, Tennessee

April 27^th, 2012

Each year the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon attracts approximately 30,000 runners to compete in Nashville and raise funds for charity.  This year Sophia’s Heart and Danny Gokey threw a pre-race party to cheer on it’s first ever SHF running team and the pre-release of Danny’s new EP “Love Again”.

Iheartdannygokey.com regulars of Pam, Michelle, Asics, Milgokey, and Steph joined Danny Gokey and few other teams to raise funds for Sophia’s Heart.

Things kicked off with a carb loading meal of lasagna, spaghetti, bread and cookies to fuel the runners and Danny’s fans.  (Oh, and tossed salad, LOL.)

Next came the anxiously awaited unveiling of Danny’s new EP “Love Again” and an acoustic concert by Danny, Jamelle and Brandon Fraley and Matt Reviere.  Two brand new songs were unveiled: the title track, “Love Again” and “Everything Works Together”.  Danny introduced each song on the EP, performed a few of them live and added some fan favorites to a well received concert set.  Fan favorites of  CNT, Win Me Over, PYT (complete with audience accompaniment of “PYT and TLC” at the right times), and “You are So Beautiful” as well as a Danny (and my) favorite cover of LeAnn Rhimes’ “I Need You”. A special guest at the event was Danny and Leyicet’s puppy, Sweet Pea. But true to cat mystic, Mr. Wigglesworth kept his aloof reputation and did not make an appearance for Danny’s fans.

Danny revealed that while he has left Mission Management, he is in discussions with a new management firm. He is very excited about it, he hopes to update us all soon, but if  it works out, a complete plan would soon be developed to land a new label and music projects.  He also explained that he tried to get the rights for “Win Me Over” from RCA, but he was not successful for this EP .

After the concert, Danny signed EPs, greeted fans, and posed for pictures.

Sign up to attend by simply donating at least $30 to any of our Race for Compassion team members from the IHeartDG community.

Or if you prefer, you can donate $30 or more at sophiasheart.org.  (**  If you have participated already as a donor to the Sophia’s Heart “Race for Compassion” with a donation of at least $30, or are one of the SH race team members, you are already covered! Contact SH if you have any questions to confirm you are on their list for this fun pre-release event. **)  Tickets at the door may also be available for $35.

For the first time Danny also confirms publicly that he will be appearing on April 28th at the “Night of Hope” in Washington, D.C. with Joel and Victoria Osteen.  This appearance is after Danny’s participation that morning in the Nashville mini-marathon, so we hope Danny plans to run fast

Milwaukee native and Season 8 “American Idol” alum Danny Gokey isn’t letting his November split with label RCA Nashville prevent him from releasing new music.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to talk about friend and “The Voice” contender Jamar Rogers (look for the story in the JS and on Tap Milwaukee soon), Gokey, 31, confirmed he plans to self-release a yet-to-be-titled six-or-seven song EP in late April, around the time he’ll speak at Joel and Victoria Osteen’s “America’s Night of Hope” at Nationals Park in Washington.

“It’s an experimental project to see what the fans like,” Gokey said of the EP. “There’ll be country on it, but there’ll be different styles on it. There’ll be contemporary, and maybe a pop song.”

Read the full article at  http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/144488625.html

This is great, one of our favorite Danny Gokey live performances ever is now available on a Christmas compilation CD from Kohl’s. And Danny is in very nice company for this project

Learn more at kohls.com or stop by your local Kohl’s store

Celebrate the holiday with this Kohl’s Cares “Have Yourself a Merry Little Country Christmas” CD. Country music stars lend their voices to 12 of your favorite Christmas songs. Immerse yourself in the holiday spirit with this “Have Yourself a Merry Little Country Christmas” CD.

• A Holly Jolly Christmas by Alan Jackson
• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing by Martina McBride
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Lonestar
• Santa Baby by Kellie Pickler
• The First Noël by Carrie Underwood
• O Little Town Of Bethlehem by Kenny Chesney
• I’ll Be Home For Christmas by Sara Evans
• Frosty The Snowman by Willie Nelson
• O Holy Night by Danny Gokey
• Silent Night by Brad Paisley
• The Christmas Song by Brooks & Dunn
• Joy To The World by Dolly Parton

Danny Gokey’s official site has now posted the cover art for his upcoming single “Second Hand Heart” — be sure to let us know what you think of it!

And you can hear the official version of Second Hand Heart via DannyGokey on Youtube below.

Danny Gokey debuted his eagerly awaited new single Second Hand Heart, aired by country radio station Y96.9 this afternoon in Colorado Springs.

Thanks to American Idol blog mjsbigblog for capturing audio of the single and Danny’s interview segments.

Listen here and be sure to come back and tell us what you think!

The songwriters seem to like it

@stevens_shane: Excited @dannygokey debuted new single Second Hand Heart on radio! Amazing to hear such a great voice singing one of your songs! thanks man!

@stevens_shane: Yay!!! To my cowriters @carybarlowe @joshkear!! Think we got is one with @dannygokey come on Second Hand Heart!! Thank you country radio!!

A few weeks ago we sent out our First Annual Roughstock Fan Poll survey which asked fans to give us their choices for a string of categories.  Hundreds of fans participated in the survey and now we’ve tallied the votes and have found the fans have largely followed the trends of what is ‘most popular’ in retail and with critics – with a few exceptions. For the purpose of this survey, we allowed 4^th quarter 2009 releases like Carrie Underwood’s Play On to be included but didn’t include older albums like 2008’s The Foundation from Zac Brown Band or Fearless from Taylor Swift.

Top 10 Albums:

1. Need You Now – Lady Antebellum

2. My Best Days – Danny Gokey

3. Play On – Carrie Underwood

3. Revolution – Miranda Lambert

5. My Kinda Party – Jason Aldean

5. You Get What You Give – Zac Brown Band

See the complete list at Roughstock.com.

By: Matt Bjorke

2010 was an interesting year for country music in that it announced the arrival of quite a bit of fantastic new talent to help usher in a new decade (’11-’20).  Along with the new talent, we had an explosion of fantastic superstar new releases, particularly during the final quarter of the year which gave country music the ability to have one of its better years.  While it’s true that albums don’t sell nearly as well as they did even five years ago, they still are relevant in an era when the single seems to be returing to a prominence not felt since the 1960s.   In this rundown of our favorite albums of the year we wanted to keep it a lean Top 10 but that was then usurped by a Top 20 and then, well you see what happened here.  We have collected 40 of our favorite albums that we heard in 2010 and while some are expected to be here, you may be surprised to find other albums among this list.  So with that we offer up our Top 40 albums released in 2010. (Note: you can click on any album title to read our review of the album).

40: My Best Days – Danny Gokey (19 Recordings/RCA Nashville)

The debut album from 2009 American Idol third-place contestant showcased the artists fantastic vocals and while song selection was a bit spotty, the album did feature one of our favorite singles of 2010 in “I Will Not Say Goodbye,” the tender ballad “It’s Only” and a couple of strong ‘tempo’ tunes like “Tiny Life” and the title track.

Read the full article: http://www.roughstock.com/blog/the-year-that-was-the-top-40-country-albums-of-2010

When it came to sales debuts, this year’s American Idol winner and runner-up couldn’t beat the third-place finisher from 2009. And the winner of the show’s third season made the biggest Idol splash of the year, sales-wise.

[...] Season 8′s Danny Gokey had the biggest opening week of any debut Idol act, his 65,000 copies of My Best Days easily surpassing releases from Lee DeWyze (39,000) and Crystal Bowersox (58,000). Danny has sold nearly 200,000 copies of the album, which came out in January. [sic]

[iheartdannygokey.com note: My Best Days officially came out on March 2, 2010.]

Read the full article: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/idolchatter/post/2010/12/fantasia-danny-gokey-have-2010s-top-idol-debuts/1

December is a time for award nominations and year-end lists. Billboard.com has compiled their 2010 year-end charts. An impressive 10 Idol alums made the list this year, and most of them appeared on multiple charts. They are: Carrie Underwood, Adam Lambert, Daughtry, Kris Allen, Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia, Danny Gokey,Kellie Pickler, Blake Lewis, andChris Sligh.

[...]

Hot Country Albums
#4 - Play On, Carrie Underwood
#35 - My Best Days, Danny Gokey
#60 - Kellie Pickler, Kellie Pickler

Hot Country Album Artist
#4 – Carrie Underwood
#31 – Danny Gokey
#43 – Kellie Pickler

via: http://www.americanidol.com/news/view/pid/4062/

Danny Gokey Is Getting in the Holiday Spirit with the Release of “Tennessee Christmas”

Nashville, TN – 19 Recordings/RCA Nashville recording artist Danny Gokey hails from Wisconsin, but living in Tennessee now may have given him a little extra incentive to record “Tennessee Christmas,” the holiday favorite first made famous by its co-writer, Amy Grant. Serviced to country radio last week and available to fans now as a digital single, the song is one that Danny was delighted to sing as the first holiday music he’s ever released.

“I love Amy Grant’s version of ‘Tennessee Christmas,’” Gokey says. By recording the song, Danny offers, “I wanted to add my own soulful country touch to this wonderful classic.”

The song is available for download at your favorite online music retailer, as well as on Danny’s site at www.dannygokey.com.

After co-hosting this past weekend’s online red carpet broadcast for the American Music Awards, Gokey is also a nominee for another award show – the American Country Awards – where he’s nominated in the category of Artist of the Year: Breakthrough Artist. TheAmerican Country Awards will air December 6 on FOX.

Video credits: our Steph

Video credits: dear Toni

Check out the studio version HERE (via MJsbigblog) and don’t forget to buy this gorgeous rendition on iTunes or Amazon on November 22nd!!!

A preview of Danny Gokey’s new Christmas single “Tennessee Christmas” is now available for listening at amazon.com.

Listen here!

Credit the CMA Music Festival: All the country Idols saw week-to-week sales increases last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and they were the only Idols in the Billboard Top 200 to do so.

Carrie Underwood‘s Play On leads the pack with 16,000 sales (a 5% increase). Danny Gokey‘s My Best Days (+6%), Carrie’s Carnival Ride (+12%), and Kellie Pickler‘s self-titled album (+8%) all saw weekly bumps, too.

[...]

Danny Gokey, My Best Days (3,000, +6%, 163,000)

via: USA Today: Country Idols see sales spike following CMA Music Festival