Trace Adkins photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

It’s a good time to be Trace Adkins. He sang with Toby Keith during their concert dates this year; he’s currently touring with Martina McBride in the Shine All Night Tour; he’s got a role in “Tough Trade,” a new series for the video-on-demand and online service EPIX; and he’s the inspiration for the Luke McBain comic book.

Distributors sold out the first McBain issue in a mere 48 hours. The second in the four-issue series comes out Dec. 16.

The Martina tour is taking a holiday break before resuming in January, but Trace will still be out at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Saturday performing on the Grand Ole Opry along with Little Jimmy Dickens, Marty Stuart, Connie Smith, Bill Anderson and Vince Gill.

And if all that activity isn’t enough, Trace has plenty going on in his recording life, too. On Monday, he released a new single — a novelty song called “Ala-Freakin-Bama” — at the same time he already has two other titles in country’s Top 30: the Blake Shelton collaboration “Hillbilly Bone” and the ballad “All I Ask For Anymore.”

The latter song picked up two Grammy nominations last week. Trace is a finalist for Best Male Country Vocal, while songwriters Casey Beathard and Tim James are in the running for Best Country Song. Whether they win or not, the acknowledgement is one that will live forever in the history books. The sentiment that drove the song in the first place now has a sense of permanence, too. Tim authored it in appreciation of his wife and two daughters, and Trace — who similarly touched on the family as subject matter in “You’re Gonna Miss This” — was obviously moved by the song, too.

“It is a true-to-life situation in the sense that I was praying one night, asking God for the things I needed in life when I realized that I really didn’t need those things at all,” Tim told The Tennessean, explaining the “All I Ask For” origins. “From that moment on, all I was going to ask for was that God watch over my wife and kids. I figured I could handle most anything in life as long as they were safe and sound.”

The Grammys will be presented in Los Angeles Jan. 31. By then, the second issue of Luke McBain might be sold out all over the U.S. — not just in Ala-Freakin-Bama.

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