It was announced today that legendary singer Lionel Richie will be the opening act when Jimmy Buffett plays Comerica Park this summer:

Lionel Richie — surprise! — will open for Buffett at the Detroit Tigers’ home, promoters announced Tuesday. Richie’s “Tuskegee,” which features country versions of his biggest hits, topped Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart for two weeks last month and has sold more than 600,000 copies, making it the year’s best-selling country release.

Tickets for Buffett’s show, $39-$179, go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday via Tickets.com and at the Comerica Park box office. Tickets are also available by phone at (866)-668-4437.

The Buffett show, the “Margaritaville” singer’s first-ever concert in Detroit city limits and his biggest Michigan concert to date, will also feature an all-day beach bash in the Comerica Park parking lot.

Buffett appears on the duet “All Night Long” on Richie’s new album Tuskegee.

Preview the Richie/Buffett single below:

Buy the album at iTunes or Amazon.

If you’d just like to download “All Night Long” with Buffett, get it at iTunes or AmazonMP3

Tuskegee, the new album from Lionel Richie, is out today! It’s a duets album, featuring some of the biggest artists in country music singing Richie’s hits.

Jimmy Buffett teams up with Richie on the final track of the album: “All Night Long.”

Other artists on the album include Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, and many more.

Preview the Richie/Buffett single below:

Buy the album at iTunes or Amazon.

If you’d just like to download “All Night Long” with Buffett, get it at iTunes or AmazonMP3

If you were at the Birmingham or Tallahassee shows, or listened to them on Radio Margaritaville, then you’re familiar with the story of Matt Hoggatt.

A Gautier police detective by day, Hoggatt won an American Songwriter magazine lyric contest for his song “Dear Jimmy Buffett.” At the Birmingham and Tallahassee shows, Buffett invited him on stage to sing his song, which asks Jimmy for a record deal. Turns out Buffett is giving Hoggatt his chance, putting him on the Margaritaville circuit:

The idea of going on a Buffett-designed tour is “insanely insane,” Hoggatt said. “And on top of that, it’s crazy. It’s still sinking in.”

On Friday, Hoggatt will be performing at Margaritaville Panama City Beach from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Then, on Saturday, he will take the stage at Lulu’s at Homeport in Gulf Shores from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on March 11, he will be at Margaritaville New Orleans for a 5-7 p.m. show.

Accompanying Hoggatt will be guitarist Kyle Rife, who plays in the band for singer Ilo Ferreira, a Cape Verde native who Buffett also discovered.

“This is kind of the next step along the way in seeing if I get offered a deal or not,” Hoggatt said.

Additional tour dates are pending in Key West, Charleston and Orlando.

Read more here.

Bret Michael’s upcoming solo album will feature a couple of special guests, one of which is Jimmy Buffett:

“Loretta Lynn and I are gonna redo ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’ together,” he tells Rolling Stone. “And, for me, growing up in a family that my father loved country music and Coal Miner’s Daughter, this is gonna be a really awesome time.”

How did the two come together? “I met her at Thanksgiving and it was really great. We were out at her ranch in Hurricane Mills and we sat there, me and her, and after everyone, the whole family and my crew sort of dissipated we sat there and started writing some songs together,” he says. And one of the ideas she had was redoing ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’ and I thought it would be unbelievable for me and her to do that together.”

Among the other guests on the album are Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen and Jimmy Buffett. “The song ‘Get Your Rock On’ has Phil Collen from Def Leppard playing guitar with me and it also has Sal Costa from My Darkest Days, really, really good guitar player and good friend,” he says. “Jimmy Buffet and I did a live version of ‘Margaritaville’ together.”

Michaels says the two duets, with Lynn and Buffett, will be “two bonus tracks.” And of the rest of the record he says, “It is just straight up in your face rock & roll.”

Michaels joined Jimmy on stage in 2010 at his show in Detroit. Watch video of the appearance.

The Zac Brown Band performed in New York City Friday morning as part of the Today Show Summer Concert Series. Before performing “Knee Deep,” Zac Brown offered up high praise for Jimmy Buffett:

“I think he’s one of the best American songwriters that have ever lived. We’ve been covering his song forever, and getting to actually collaborate with my heroes has been some of the biggest milestones in my career.”

Watch their performance of “Knee Deep” below: