McGraw And Hill Resume Katrina Tour

Country Power Couple Returns To The Road After His Illness

NEW ORLEANS, July 5, 2006 | by Jessica Derschowitz

(AP)  After a bout with bronchitis, country singer Tim McGraw was ready to take the stage Wednesday with wife Faith Hill as they prepared to resume their summer concert tour in New Orleans and give all proceeds to Hurricane Katrina victims.

Country music's foremost couple canceled two tour appearances last week after McGraw, who was raised in Start, La., got sick.

Both McGraw and Hill, who's from Star, Miss., have been vocal critics of the U.S. government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people along the Gulf Coast and flooded 80 percent of New Orleans.

In interviews, Hill described the post-Katrina progress as "embarrassing" and "humiliating" to the country.

"It's wrong," she said. "It really gets us fired up. That's our homeland."

They said they wanted at least half the floor seats at Wednesday's show to go to first responders. Ticket prices were lowered to between $20 and $85. At an upcoming show in Atlanta, prices range from $47 to $87.

Proceeds from the New Orleans show will go to the Neighbor's Keeper Foundation, a group the couple formed to help the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast. The venue, New Orleans Arena, seats 17,000 and was expected to be sold out.

"We will not stop, we will not forget, we will not quit, until we see our friends, our families and our neighbors returned to the lives that they once knew," the couple said when they announced the show.

Between them, Hill and McGraw have sold more than 60 million albums and racked up six Grammy Awards, 17 American Music Awards, 22 Country Music Association Awards, 16 Academy of Country Music Awards and more than 35 No. 1 singles.

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