Reba McEntire & Blake Shelton photo courtesy of the ACM.

Country Music’s Party of the Year®, the 47^th ANNUAL ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS, honoring country music’s best and introducing the industry’s hottest emerging talent, will be broadcast LIVE from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 8 p.m. live Eastern/delayed Pacific on CBS. The show is produced by dick clark productions and will be hosted for the second consecutive year by Reba and Blake Shelton.

The 2^nd Annual ACM Fan Jam, hosted by Zac Brown Band, will take place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center Sunday, April 1, 2012. This live remote location gives country music lovers the ultimate fan-pass to be part of the 47^th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards!  Throughout the three-hour Awards telecast from the MGM Grand Garden Arena, there will be live ACM Fan Jam performances, via remote, from the Mandalay Bay Events Center by Zac Brown Band and other top-tier music acts, to be announced at a later date.

The ACM Fan Jam includes a profusion of entertainment, prizes and special giveaways only for attendees, including autographed guitars, trip packages to country music events and merchandise.  The ACM Fan Jam continues after the Awards telecasts ends, with performances by Zac Brown and friends. Details will be announced soon. The inaugural ACM Fan Jam, hosted by Sugarland, took place in 2011.

Additionally, the Academy and dick clark productions will tape an all-star concert special, ACM PRESENTS: Lionel Richie and Friends – A Lifetime of Hits, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena Monday, April 2, 2012, to air at a later date on the CBS Television Network.  This country collaboration with the legendary Lionel Richie, featuring duets from his upcoming album Tuskegee along with solo performances, will include some of Richie’s greatest hits performed by Jason Aldean, The Band Perry, Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Martina McBride, Rascal Flatts, Kenny Rogers and many more. Tickets sales from ACM PRESENTS: Lionel Richie and Friends – A Lifetime of Hits will benefit ACM Lifting Lives, which works to improve lives through music. For more information, log onto www.ACMLiftingLives.org or www.ACMcountry.com. Continue Reading

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The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum opened a new spotlight exhibit dedicated to legendary fashion designer Nudie Cohn on October 28. The “Silver Threads and Golden Needles: Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors” exhibit will run through November 2012. The exhibit traces Nudie’s journey across America from designing burlesque costumes in New York to opening his shop in North Hollywood. Gene Autry, Elton John, Gram Parsons, Elvis Presley, Roy Rogers and Hank Williams are among the  artists who wore Nudie’s designs.

Born Nutya Kotlyrenko in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1902, Nudie immigrated to the United States when he was 11. He became ‘Nudie’ when immigration officials mistranslated his first name. His first job was shining shoes in Brooklyn and in 1918, he headed to California where he worked as a movie extra and film cutter before returning east. On his way back, he met Bobbie Kruger, whom he would later marry. The couple moved to New York, where Nudie found work designing burlesque costumes with his brother.

The Cohns returned to the west coast in the 1940s where they ran a small tailoring shop out of their Los Angeles-area garage for seven years. In 1947, Tex Williams commissioned ten outfits for his band from Nudie. With Tex’s endorsement, business started rolling in and Nudie opened his famous Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors. His slogan was ‘Everything for the Horse and Rider,’ though he began to cater to country artists and stars of western movies.

Nudie found his niche in the industry with the creation of a rhinestone-accented suit for Lefty Frizzell and began creating custom outfits for performers. He designed wagon-wheel suits for Porter Wagoner, Native-American motifs for Ray Price and a railroad-themed suit for Hank Snow inspired by Hank’s hit “The Golden Rocket.”

Working with embroidery specialist Rose Clements and fashion designer and one-time son-in-law Manuel, Nudie also designed instruments, cars, rugs and other items. Nudie was as much a celebrity as any of his clients and was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1969. He passed away of kidney failure in 1984. Continue Reading

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Country Music’s Party of the Year®, the 46th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, honoring country music’s top talent and the industry’s hottest emerging talent, will be broadcast LIVE from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Sunday, April 3rd, 2011 at 8:00 PM live ET/delayed PT on the CBS Television Network. In addition, the Academy will tape an all-star concert special, Girls’ Night Out: Superstar Women of Country at the same location Monday, April 4th, 2011 to air at a later date on the CBS Television Network.  Both shows are produced for television by dick clark productions. Continue Reading

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Lady Antebellum on the Orange Carpet at the 44th Annual ACM Awards in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 5, 2009. Photo © Sara de Boer / Retna Ltd.

Lady Antebellum heard their name called a whopping seven times this morning as Blake Shelton and Reba McEntire announced the nominees for the 45th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on the CBS program, The Early Show. The ACM Awards will air live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 8 at  p.m. ET (delayed PT) on CBS and will be hosted by Reba for the 12th time.

For the third year, fans will select the winner of the Academy’s most prestigious honor, Entertainer of the Year and for the second year, the three newcomer categories for the annual Academy of Country Music Awards —Top New Solo Vocalist, Top New Vocal Group and Top New Vocal Duo — will also be opened up to fan voting. The winner in each Top New category will then move on to compete for Top New Artist which is also a fan voted category. Online voting for all fan voted categories will be available at http://www.voteacm.com/.  The winners of Entertainer of the Year and Top New Artist will be announced live during the 45^th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. 

Lady A‘s seven nominations include Album of the Year for Lady Antebellum and Top Vocal Group.  In addition, the trio was nominated for Single Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Video of the Year for “Need You Now.” They were also nominated as a producer for Single Record of the Year and as a composer for Song of the Year. Continue Reading

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Blake Shelton photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Nashville.

It’s safe to say Blake Shelton‘s having one of the best days of his life today. This morning, he announced the nominees for the 45th Annual ACM Awards with pal Reba McEntire — and heard his name announced as a nominee for Vocal Event of the Year for his duet with Trace Adkins — and the title cut from his new EP — “Hillbilly Bone.”

“This is the best day of my life – I got to read the nominations with the ‘queen of country music,’ Reba,” said Shelton. “And, then I find out ‘Hillbilly Bone’ is nominated! I’m glad that my first nomination in years is with one of my great friends, Trace Adkins. The only thing that could make this day better is if Betty White was there to give me the award should I win!”

Hillbilly Bone is in stores now. Click here to enter our “Blake Shelton Six Pak Sweepstakes” for your chance to win an autographed guitar, all of his albums, a T-shirt and more – and click on the clip below to find out why Blake prefers making EPs to full-length CDs.

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The Academy of Country Music and Great American Country (GAC) announced today that for the second year, the three newcomer categories for the Academy of Country Music Awards— Top New Solo Vocalist, Top New Vocal Duo and Top New Vocal Group —will be opened up to interactive fan voting through VoteACM.com. As previously announced, the Top New Solo Vocalist category will take the place of the Top New Male Vocalist and Top New Female Vocalist categories.

Following is the list of final nominees in the Top New categories that the Academy announced today: Continue Reading

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Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Jamey Johnson is going his own way as an artist. His scraggily beard and gruff appearance are distinctly different from country music’s current mainstream look, and his album That Lonesome Song has a more traditional, Waylon Jennings-inspired sound than most of his contemporaries.

It wasn’t always that way. Jamey had a more standard image and music when he released his first album, The Dollar, in 2006. Only months after that, he lost the recording deal at the same time he was getting divorced, and he ended up deciding he didn’t need the approval of any other person or company to follow his heart in his career. Continue Reading

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