Dierks Bentley photo courtesy of artist.

It rained. And rained. And rained some more.

Nashville took in over 13 inches of water in a 48-hour period in May, and some areas of the region were swamped with as much as 20 inches. It was more than the rivers and streams could handle, and by May 3, the drainage system was overflowing. The stage and much of the floor seating at the Grand Ole Opry House was covered, water seeped into one room at the Country Music Hall of Fame, LP Field — the site of the CMA Music Festival — became a swamp, and an instrument storage unit was drowned, destroying guitars and equipment owned by Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Toby Keith and Vince Gill, among others.

It took a while for people to notice outside of Middle Tennessee. The focus of the major news organizations at the time was on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So Music City rolled up its sleeves and started digging out on its own.

The Nashville flood is No. 1 on the list as GAC concludes its countdown of the top country news stories of 2010.

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Brooks & Dunn photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

When they first came to national attention with “Brand New Man” in 1991, Brooks & Dunn were an unlikely combo — a couple of guys who moved to Nashville with dreams of becoming solo performers who were sort of glued together by a Music Row executive.

By the time Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn wound it down with the Last Rodeo Tour in 2010, they had become the most commercially successful duo in country music history — better known than Country Music Hall of Famers the Louvin Brothers with more hits than Hall of Famers the Everly Brothers.

The Brooks & Dunn breakup ranks No. 5 as GAC counts down the dozen top stories of the past year.

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Trace Adkins photo courtesy of Show Dog-Universal Music.

Kix Brooks, Trace Adkins and Buddy Jewell are among the latest acts taking time from their schedules to honor the soldiers who put their lives on the line for their country.

Kix is in the midst of a Middle East tour, Buddy just headed out with with a package of country singers that will visit four countries, and Trace is set to appear on a TV special with a military theme before his own USO journey.

Not that it’s anything unusual for country acts. Among the artists who’ve lent themselves to the USO in the past are Toby Keith, Neal McCoy, Chely Wright, Craig Morgan, Kellie Pickler and the Zac Brown Band.

Here’s what some of country’s stars are doing with the USO:

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Rascal Flatts photo courtesy of Big Machine Records.

April marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and Rascal Flatts is one of several country acts that will remember that moment in American history by appearing in a mini-series.

“To Appomattox” is named after the site where the South eventually surrendered, and the project will employ the guys in a couple of ways. They’ve been enlisted to produce the soundtrack, according to a website devoted to the production. And they’ll also have roles as soldiers. That’s a little bit different than their last attempt at acting, when they appeared as themselves on the CBS drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

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Steel Magnolia photo courtesy of Big Machine Records.

The duo Steel Magnolia took its name from a 20-year-old movie featuring a country legend, Dolly Parton.

But when the couple — Joshua Scott Jones and Meghan Linsey — scored a nomination at this year’s Country Music Association Awards, it linked Steel Magnolia with another history-making act, Brooks & Dunn. Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn called it quits this year on a career that saw them win the CMA’s Vocal Duo of the Year award an astonishing 14 times.

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Garth Brooks photo by Mark Tucker, courtesy of Pearl Records.

The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame added four new people to its rolls Sunday night. They’re four people whose names are more likely to be in parentheses in an album’s liner notes than on a marquee. But without writers such as Paul Davis, Pat Alger, Steve Cropper and Stephen Foster to come up with the words and the melodies, many of the folks with a microphone in their hands would have nothing to sing.

And the artists know it. That’s why Tanya Tucker, Jimmy Wayne, T. Graham Brown and Garth Brooks were among the acts who took part in Sunday’s induction ceremony at the Nashville Renaissance Hotel.

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(l-r) CMA Board Member and singer/songwriter/radio personality, Kix Brooks; CMA Board Member and member of Little Big Town, Karen Fairchild; Executive Director of the Nashville Alliance for Public Education, Pam Garrett; Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Director, Kyle Young; Nashville School of the Arts sophomore, Duncan McPherson; Nashville Mayor Karl Dean; Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee President, Ellen Lehman; CMA Board Member and artist, Luke Bryan. Photo credit: John Russell/CMA.

High-school sophomore Duncan McPherson had a tough gig on Wednesday. He played an intricate Spanish guitar piece with TV cameras rolling before an exclusive Nashville audience that included the mayor of his hometown and three country artists — Kix Brooks, Luke Bryan and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild — all watching from the front row.

Despite the pressure, Duncan played the piece quite nicely, demonstrating the volume of creative potential in the current class of students, if they’re simply given a chance.

“I don’t think any of those chords are in ‘Red Dirt Road,’” Kix quipped.

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Keith Urban at the ACM Honors on September 20, 2010. Getty Images/Courtesy of the Academy of Country Music.

He hails from Australia and New Zealand, he conquered America and he’s found an audience in Europe. Keith Urban’s global assault was hailed Monday as the Academy of Country Music handed him its Jim Reeves International Award during the fourth annual ACM Honors at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

The award wasn’t just a nicety. While country music was born and bred in the U.S.A., it’s had a bit of a rocky road in building audiences beyond American borders. Keith’s made a point of taking his music to other territories, leading host Lee Ann Womack to hail “the world domination of Keith Urban.”

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Lady Antebellum photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

When Miranda Lambert set a record for female acts by picking up nine awards nominations this week from the Country Music Association, no one was more surprised than her.

But that wasn’t the only shock-a-roonie of the two-day nominations announcement. Lady Antebellum achieved something that’s never been done before, Steel Magnolia and The Band Perry each accomplished something that’s probably been done only once. And Miranda did something that’s only happened twice.

Here’s a bevy of CMA trivia that you may not have seen anywhere else:

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Brooks & Dunn during the final concert of The Last Rodeo Tour, in Nashville at the Bridgestone Arena on Thursday, September 2, 2010. Photo by Brian Kaplan, courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

When they announced the Nashville finale for the Last Rodeo, Brooks & Dunn hinted that it would have a superstar lineup as they gave all the proceeds from their end-of-the-road concert to the Country Music Hall of Fame, located across the intersection from the Bridgestone Arena.

But when the last chord rang out and the lights went up on the sold-out auditorium at Thursday’s last-ever Brooks & Dunn show, you could count the extra artists who showed up on two fingers: Tyler Dickerson, who turned in a solid six-song opening set that sounded more mature than his chronological age — 16 — would suggest; and Reba McEntire, who kicked into gear for the last chorus of “Cowgirls Don’t Cry” a little more than half-way into B&D’s two-hour farewell.

Without the fanfare, it felt oddly like a regular Brooks & Dunn show. Kix Brooks broke into a bittersweet smile and doffed his cowboy hat at the end of the aptly titled “You’re Gonna Miss Me (When I’m Gone).” It looked on the video screen as if perhaps, just maybe, he was tearing up, but you couldn’t be certain.

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