Country singer Luke Bryan made a promise to the crowd last September at the Coffee Weed Plantation that he would be back and he has kept his promise.

Bryan is bringing his annual “Farm Tour” back to the area for the second year in a row Thursday night and he has some surprises in store.

“We’ve been planning for quite a well and excited about being back around the home front,” Bryan said in an interview with The Valdosta Daily Times.

Valdosta native Rhett Akins will be joining Bryan on the six-date tour, along with Luke’s long-time from Albany, songwriter Dallas Davidson.

“Obviously we have Dallas Davidson and Rhett Akins, two of my buddies,” Bryan said. “We’ve got a guy named Ken Miller who is opening the show and we’re just going to have a bigger stage this year and it’s going to be a bigger production.”

Akins and Davidson are part of the hit songwriting trio known around Nashville as the Peach Pickers with another Valdosta native, Ben Hayslip.

Akins, best known for his hits “That Ain’t My Truck” and “Don’t Get Me Started,” has topped the charts this year as a songwriter with “Honey Bee” by Blake Shelton (co-written with Hayslip) and “Take A Back Road” by Rodney Atkins. Davidson co-wrote Bryan’s hit “Rain is a Good Thing” and most recently, Justin Moore’s “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away.” The two songwriters, along with Hayslip, have a song on Bryan’s latest album that is rumored to be his next single called “I Don’t Want This Night to End.”

“We’re excited about

 having Rhett out (with us),” Bryan said. “We’ve got some surprises in store with Rhett, too. It’s going to be fun.”

The show, which will be taking place again at the Coffee Weed Plantation on Ousley Road between Valdosta and Quitman, is a way for Bryan to celebrate farming communities. The proceeds from the ‘Farm Tour’ are used as scholarships for college students from farming families.

Bryan himself is the son of a peanut farmer and grew up in Leesburg.

While he hasn’t had a chance to meet any of the students the scholarship has helped, he hopes to get the chance soon.

“I guess that’s probably our next step is making sure we can do something,” he said. “We know (the money is) getting to them and it’s the least we can do to provide and do something for some college kids.”

Bryan is getting ready to kick-off his headlining CMT Tour with Josh Thompson and Lee Brice in support of his new album, “Tailgates and Tanlines” that came out in August. The album debuted at the top of the Billboard Country Album charts and has been as high as No. 2 on the Billboard 200 charts.

According to Bryan, who has been on tour with Tim McGraw and Jason Aldean this year, they have changed up the set a bit.

“We changed up the set quite a bit,” Bryan said. “We’re doing a lot of the songs off the new album so people get to hear those songs.”

Among those songs are his latest hit, “Country Girl (Shake It For Me),” which he co-wrote with Davidson.

“Obviously ‘Country Girl (Shake It For Me)’ is really, really fun to do live and we’re enjoying that,” Bryan said. “That’s fun to kick off into that song and people go crazy.”

Concert

What: Farm Tour 2011

Who: Luke Bryan, Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson

When: Thursday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m.

Where: Coffee Weed Plantation, 8033 Ousley Road, Valdosta

Tickets: Bluewater Bar & Grill, Boot Country Outlet (Lake Park), Smitty’s Package Store, The Gin (Tifton)

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