Keith Urban photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

With the 45th annual Academy of Country Music Awards a dozen days away, the ACM dropped a long list of trophy recipients Tuesday that’s tattooed with a few publicly recognizable names — including Keith Urban and Mel Tillis — as well as a bunch of significant songwriters, musicians and executives. The off-camera winners, as they’re called, will be formally recognized when the West Coast-based Academy presents its annual ACM Honors in Nashville Sept. 21.

Keith is being honored with the Jim Reeves International Award for bringing global attention to country. Born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, he’s done that somewhat naturally by connecting the dots between his homeland, the U.S. and Canada. Named for one of the first country stars to establish a strong presence overseas, the International Award has previously gone to such figures as Garth Brooks, Roy Clark, Dick Clark and Dolly Parton.

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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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Ryan Bingham photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

If you watched the Golden Globe Awards this year, you likely recall a flustered T Bone Burnett stalling for time just a bit to let Ryan Bingham find his way to the podium when “The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart)” swiped the honor for Best Original Song.

Eventually, T Bone made the speech himself, and the Golden Globes moved on with no sight nor sound on television from Ryan.

Ryan gets a second chance to get it right at the Oscar Awards. “The Weary Kind” was nominated Tuesday by the Motion Picture Academy for Best Original Song, and it’s doubtful anyone will have trouble locating him this time around.

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Taylor Swift wins Entertainer of the Year at “The 43rd Annual CMA Awards,” on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, live from the Sommet Center in Nashville on the ABC Television Network. Photographer: John Russell / CMA

Six decades from now, Taylor Swift can see herself as an annoying grandmother, boring the youngsters with a well-worn story about the good old days. Following a phenomenal 2009, she walked off with the final trophy handed out at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, Album of the Year, and she anticipates it might well be the highlight that stands out when she’s retired and looking back on her innocent years.

“This is the story all of us, when we’re 80 years old and we’re telling the same stories over and over again to our grandkids and they’re so annoyed with us, this is the story we’re gonna be telling over and over again,” she beamed at the podium in Los Angeles’ Staples Center. “In 2010, we got to win Album of the Year at the Grammys. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

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Willie Nelson photo by David McClister, courtesy of Lost Highway.

He’s done American pop standards, the blues, jazz and even reggae music. But Willie Nelson is keeping it simple with his next album, giving it a tell-tale title, Country Music.

Set for release April 20, he recorded the project with the acclaimed T Bone Burnett, who won a Golden Globe this month for his work on Crazy Heart and likewise produced the music to O Brother, Where Art Thou?. T Bone brought together some of Nashville’s best musicians — including guitarist Buddy Miller, mandolin player Ronnie McCoury and background vocalist Jim Lauderdale — to work with Willie, and they laid down a total of 23 tracks, ultimately picking 15 for the final draft.

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Jeff Bridges visits with Nan Kelley on the set of Top 20 Country Countdown.

Jeff Bridges is getting huge Oscar buzz for his performance in the movie Crazy Heart, while Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett have a Golden Globe nomination for writing the picture’s theme song. All three of them will visit host Nan Kelley on this weekend’s edition of GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown.

The film is about a former country star who’s down and out, playing small dives and drinking too much whiskey. Jeff’s character, Bad Blake, is a rough-edged singer built artistically around such iconic stars as Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, and Jeff’s acting drew a comparison from New York magazine to the alcohol-fueled guy Nicolas Cage played in the depressing Leaving Las Vegas. Nicolas apparently drank between takes so he could play the part as realistically as possible in that film, though Jeff declined to go that far to develop his role in Crazy Heart.

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Billy Ray Cyrus photo courtesy of Walt Disney Records.

Billy Ray Cyrus’ next film just had its premiere, Kenny Chesney is in production on his upcoming 3-D picture, and Tim McGraw’s next movie starts shooting in Middle Tennessee this week.

Country artists have a hand in every part of Hollywood’s business these days, from the initial roll of the camera to the glitter of the post-release awards-show circuit.

Here’s what’s up for country’s stars on film:

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#5 on GAC’s Top Stories of 2009 |  View all »

Country fans who listen only to the mainstream commercial outlets in their neck of the woods are missing out on some really great music, and that message was driven home in a big way in 2009. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand album, produced by T Bone Burnett, took home five trophies during the Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for “Please Read The Letter.”

The first single, “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On),” was a favorite GAC video in 2008 with its underplayed vocals and throbbing pulse. It was a unique release, but it called attention to the hip, left-of-country’s-center genre known as Americana music. Once referred to as alt-country, it’s become a sort of catch-all for roots-driven music that’s not easily categorized, blending folk-rock, country-rock, traditional country, western swing and blues music forms into a loose genre that values authenticity — warts and all — over slick perfection.

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

#10 on GAC’s Top Stories of 2009 |  View all »

You can count on seeing country music in certain places on television. It’s a 24/7 proposition on GAC. And the daily talk shows — including “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” and “The Late Show With David Letterman” — obviously need a good smattering of country acts to fill out the music slots on their programs.

But country artists did an excellent job in 2009 in grabbing a larger share of acting roles and musical moments on TV and in the movies. Led by Tim McGraw’s part as Sandra Bullock’s husband in The Blind Side, by Taylor Swift’s TV acting debut on “CSI” and by the bevy of country stars who appeared on the platinum soundtrack to Hannah Montana: The Movie, the genre was well represented in the visual media in the last 12 months.

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T Bone Burnett photo courtesy of tboneburnett.com.

One of the oddities of Hollywood’s awards process is that films that haven’t been released to the general public can still secure major nominations, which pretty much guarantees them getting attention from ticket buyers who might not have gone otherwise.

And that might be at work with Crazy Heart, a movie starring Jeff Bridges that opens on a limited basis Wednesday. Jeff, who sings in the film in his role as a washed-up country star, secured a Golden Globe nomination Tuesday for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture. The music that plays over the closing credits, “The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart),” likewise snared a nod for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture for songwriters Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett.

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