Jimmy Wayne says this picture was taken "somewhere in nowhere New Mexico, on US 60 West." Photo courtesy of artist.

At this time a year ago, Jimmy Wayne was putting in a bit of lat-minute training as he made plans for a journey that had all kinds of potential pitfalls he could not completely anticipate. He announced just before Christmas 2009 that he intended to walk halfway across America — from Nashville to Phoenix — to raise awareness for the issue of homeless teens.

Jimmy did indeed set off on his Meet Me Halfway walk on New Year’s Day with Middle Tennessee windchills appropriately in… the teens, and his excursion became one of the most unusual pursuits of 2010. It stands at No. 8 as GAC counts down the one dozen top country news stories of the past 12 months.

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Tim McGraw photo courtesy of timmcgraw.com.

Tim McGraw has quite a nice side career going. He’s dedicated to keeping music his top priority, yet he keeps finding his way into films, including Friday Night Lights, Four Christmases and The Blind Side, where he formed a friendship with co-star Sandra Bullock.

He’s averaged one movie a year since 2004, which is a pretty good pace for someone who tours a lot, makes albums and still spends time with his family. But the motion-picture opportunities keep coming, and Tim keeps taking the handful that actually make sense.

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Trace Adkins (l) and Blake Shelton rehearse on Friday, April 16, 2010 for the 45th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. Photo courtesy of the Academy of Country Music.

From the minute Tim McGraw and Faith Hill announced plans for their multi-artist flood-relief concert Nashville Rising, the event looked like the kind of evening ripe for surprises. And it was.

Even after Brooks & Dunn were forced to cancel because of Ronnie Dunn’s throat problems, a few unannounced stars made their way Tuesday to Music City’s Bridgestone Arena, one of numerous downtown facilities that took in water during the early-May flood. Trace Adkins popped onstage to join Blake Shelton on “Hillbilly Bone,” according to USA Today. And Sandra Bullock — who worked with Tim on the movie The Blind Side — took the spotlight and comically picked out the opening chords from Deep Purple’s classic-rock standard “Smoke On The Water.” Then she got serious.

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Ryan Bingham photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

The Golden Globe Awards are often hailed as the movie industry’s warm up for the Oscars, and it certainly worked that way for Ryan Bingham.

When “The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart)” won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song in January, Ryan was off chatting at the bar, leaving co-writer T Bone Burnett to deliver a somewhat bewildered acceptance speech.

Ryan learned an important lesson for Oscar night: stay in your seat. And he did exactly that on Sunday, until “The Weary Kind” won again. Ryan and T Bone shared the podium at the Kodak Theatre, though Ryan did most of the talking, including a sweet dedication to his wife, Anna Axster.

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Tim McGraw and Faith Hill arrive on the Red Carpet for "The 43rd Annual CMA Awards," on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, live from the Sommet Center in Nashville on the ABC Television Network.Photographer: Jim Hagans / CMA.

The much-talked-about movie The Blind Side, in which Tim McGraw plays the husband of Sandra Bullock, finally hits theaters on Friday. Tim was at first reticent to get involved in a film that would have him play the father of a high school football player. That is, he reasoned, the same kind of role he had in the picture Friday Night Lights.

But when Tim read the script and realized how powerful the movie could become, he changed his mind. It certainly helped that he felt a kinship to his character, whose wife has the same kind of strength that Tim’s wife, Faith Hill, exerts in his real-life family.

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Tim McGraw photo by Danny Clinch, courtesy of Curb Records.

After Tim McGraw earned his first hit 15 years ago with the novelty “Indian Outlaw,” he took a 180-degree turn with his next single by releasing the almost-morbid ballad “Don’t Take The Girl.”

That approach has since become a minor signature in his career: Tim followed the pleading ballad “Please Remember Me” with the playful “Something Like That”; balanced the heavy message of “Live Like You Were Dying” with the goofy wordplay of the next single, “Back When”; and contrasted last December’s alcohol-fueled “Nothin’ To Die For” with the flip follow-up “It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You.”

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