THE KINGS & QUEENS OF COUNTRY CONQUER THE STRIP WELCOME TO NASH-VEGAS
It was an extraordinary night of superstar successes and tremendous triumphs for the rhinestone kings and queens of country at the 43rd annual Academy of Country Music awards show:
*It was the first year ever that fans and viewers got to vote on the Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year Award.
*It was also George Strait’s 56th birthday and the day his 56th record hit No.1 on the country charts!
*It was the first time ever that George and Kenny Chesney performed their “Shiftwork” live.
*It was the first time that the massive three-hour show that takes two-weeks to stage was shot in High-Def TV.
*It was also the 10th anniversary of singer Reba McEntire hosting the CBS-TV awards show.
During a break from rehearsals at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Reba told me: “Look at this set! I remember when I started we just had a quilt as the backdrop. Now it looks as if we’ve moved the Vegas Strip neon skyline right inside here.” Reba, who has just finished a lengthy concert tour continued: “I’ve gotten more relaxed and more at ease every year. I still get a little nervous with the butterflies in the stomach but its such a great group of friends to work with it’s a wonderfully easy assignment. “I’m very honored to be doing double duty!””
The 53-year-old singer, who will be appearing at Primm Valley on Saturday, July 5, was also nominated in Vocal Event of the Year with the “Because of You” duet with Kelly Clarkson who she has been touring with. She added: “Garth Brooks paved the way for many of this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards nominees, so they can’t complain if he steals the show this year.” He received the Academy’s Crystal Milestone Award for being “the biggest selling solo artist in recorded history.”
Reba added: “Vegas becomes a country music town during the ACM Awards. It’s a great opportunity for everyone in the industry to enjoy the city.”Dick Clark’s son Richard ‘RAC’ Clark, who executive produced the awards show told Luxe Life: “”Las Vegas is so sophisticated when it comes to entertainment. There are so many options that can’t be found in any other city in the world and there really are a lot of country fans in Vegas. The Academy of Country Music Awards is the only country music award show not currently held in Nashville. Hosting our event in Las Vegas gives us a tremendous advantage. It’s our sixth year on the Strip and it’s mutually beneficial for Vegas and us.” Carrie Underwood, the former American Idol 2005, winner also won for Top Female Vocalist and told us: “I love coming to Vegas. The city has a wonderful energy and excitement.” “Vegas lets us play the loudest of anywhere,” Randy Owens concurred “Everybody plays louder here offstage and on.” Trace Adkins summed up: “One of our awards shows needs to be out of town. It needs to stay in Vegas.”
RED CARPET HIGHLIGHTS:
*Best dress of the night was the beautiful backless gold number worn by Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland who won numerous awards.
Her floor-length gown was created by New York designer Hoffman/Franco.
Hottest shoes of the night were worn by Kimberley Rhodes of Little Big Town.
Skimpiest outfit of the night was the Marc Jacob short-hot-pants number worn by multi-millionaire supermodel Karolina Kurkova.
“I have my Victorias’ Secrets on underneath,” she mischievously told me.” It shows off my spaghetti legs to their best.” She was one of the show presenters and admitted: “I really like country music. I love all music but its one of my favorite genres.”
*Stunning couple of the night was our future Luxor resort headliner, Mindfreak magician Criss Angel and new gal pal Giselle Diaz in the tightest thinnest red dress possible.
Criss wore a sleeveless vest to prove he had nothing up his sleeves and he told me he wouldn’t be doing any magic tricks for the first award of the night. We’ll have his new secret revelations about the new Mindfreak series and the Believe show later this week!!
*Miranda Lambert, just 24, who won for Album of the Year was with boyfriend, country singer Blake Shelton who revealed that his giant hit “Home” came from her because she put Michael Buble’s version on his iPod! “The rest is history,” he laughed.
*‘Vegas beauty and Dancing with the Stars’ professional Julianne Hough revealed she’ll be reunited with Adam Carolla on tomorrow’s (TUES) finale of this season’s ABC show.
They were KO’d early in the run this season. “It’s also the day my debut country single is released, how coincidental is that?” our hometown heroine told me. Luxe Life will have our full interview with Julianne about her days at the Vegas Academy and her new decision to quit TV for country music touring here tomorrow, so make sure you click back here for that!
*Hollywood Yates, better known as Wolf for his howls on NBC’s American Gladiator’s show told me that he even has two wolves as pets in his animal menagerie.
Before striking stardom on the hit TV show he was a rodeo clown and a bullfighter on the professional rodeo circuit where he won two world titles and three NFR rings. In addition to his acting career he was a WWE wrestler.
*Lady Antebellum, who won as Top New Group chatted to me about the differences between overnight multi-millionaire success in the pop world compared to the slow career build in country.
“Once you’re in the rope in country you are there to stay. We don’t have one-hit wonders in country. You are natured for long-term success. Its why it takes so long and it isn’t overnight. It takes a long slow build with a lot of work but it pays off because you don’t vanish overnight like you arrived.”
*Palms hotel tycoon and Sacramento Kings basketball owner Gavin Maloof escorted Brandi Milloy who was the runner-up winner on Oprah Winfrey’s Big Give TV show.
Here are the winners and the backstage sound-bites:
Entertainer of the Year, Kenny Chesney.
Backstage he told us: “This one is really extra special, because long before I had a hit record, the fans always came to the shows. I want to thank you guys for voting and for being there for me. … I want to thank my mom and dad for having sex so many years ago and being responsible for me being up here tonight. But seriously, a lot of great artists and people who mean a lot to this business have stood up here in years past, and I’m honored to be up here for the fourth year in a row.” Kenny will be joined by LeAnn Rimes back in Vegas when he appears on Friday, June 6 on his “Poets & Pirates Tour” at MGM.
Top Male Vocalist, Brad Paisley:
Who said backstage: “A singer is nothing without inspiration. I thank my wonderful wife, Kim, who is not here tonight. I probably ought to thank my son for the first time for inspiration. I am so honored to carry the torch another year, and thank God for all the blessings in my life.”
Top Female Vocalist, Carrie Underwood:
The former American Idol winner said backstage: “Wow. God is good! God is good! I would like to thank the most wonderful family in the world. I have great parents, great sisters, great family. … There are so many people who have done so many wonderful things for me, and I know I don’t deserve it. But I’ll take it!” Thank you fans! Fans got me everything that I have and I owe everything to you, so thank you fans.”
Top Vocal Group, Rascal Flatts and Gary Vox:
“Thank you, seriously, to the fans so much for coming out every night. We like to give God all the thanks and all the glory for giving us a stage to stand up and perform on every night.” Commenting about the searing 100-plus-degree temperatures on awards night he added: “Thank you to Las Vegas for keeping air conditioners on.” Then fellow Flatt, Jay Demarcus chimed in: “We are humbled and honored to receive this, and of all we’ve been given, this is probably one of the most special. We’ve been firm believers that if you get, you give back. … I want to challenge everybody out there to give your blessings back because it will come back to you 100 times over.”
Top Vocal Duo, Brooks & Dunn hung out casually amongst our computers, cameras and mics in our backstage press interview room.
“We thought it was Sugarland’s night so we were definitely surprised with the win. It looked like they were on a roll and would win everything. We’re glad Dr. Phil was here because we’re going to need therapy now!” said Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn added: “There’s a little fire in the train now, it’s heated up.” They told us they’d just spent two weeks in Australia and only did four shows, which gave them lot of time to tour the country and they want to return to encourage the blossoming country music fan scene “down under.” Said Ronnie: “When we started out we cut our teeth in clubs not on American Idol, so back then finding success was nowhere near as immediate as it is now. But we still prefer to ride the bus when we’re touring instead of a private plane. When we started we just had a little TV but now we’ve got wi-fi, huge plasma screens and a lot of DVD’s so that’s when we get to watch all the other country stars.”
Top New Male Vocalist, Jack Ingram:
“To anybody who dared to dream big dreams and high hopes with me, know this: Live it! Own it! Dreams come true, man. Never give up.”
Top New Female Vocalist, Taylor Swift:
“There are so many people who deserve to be thanked for this, but I am going to thank one. And that’s a person that used to love to go to lunch with her friends and cook dinner for her family and sleep in her bed every night. She gave that all away and left that all behind to go on the road with her 16-year-old daughter and then she was sleeping in rental cars and in airplanes and rental cars with her mouth wide open because she was so tired. And so Mom, thank you so much! I love you! This is for you!”
Top New Duo or Vocal Group, Lady Antebellum:
”If we only get one award we’ll rotate it for four months each between us,” joked Hilary, who said their career would never have gotten off the ground if they hadn’t met up and swapped music on MySpace. Now my first thing is to go learn to play craps because I’m feeling lucky.”
Album of the Year, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Miranda Lambert:
“I don’t know what to say. I was not expecting this at all. I was right behind Kenny Chesney, and I just don’t feel right taking this. But thank you so much to my fans and to the industry for accepting me so much, being a little left of center. I’m a songwriter. I poured my heart and soul into this album. It’s a part of who I am. Thank you for appreciating it. Thank you to my family and to … my boyfriend (country star Blake Shelton) for supporting me and telling me it’s OK to be who I am.”
Single Record of the Year “Stay” by Sugarland:
Lead singer Jennifer Nettles told us: “It is a real shock to win this. We’ve got whiplash. We love Vegas and went to see Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles Love at The Mirage. Now we want to increase our show production budget and be that theatrical.” Commenting about their off stage deliberate fall back she added: “We do all our own stunts and we always like to do a different one to end every show.”
Song of the Year “Stay” by Sugarland. Written by Jennifer Nettles who said: “It means so much to me that you guys really relate to this song and that you accept it. Thank you so much to my partner Kristian Bush and to Gail Gelman, our manager for believing in this song before anybody did. Thank you to Luke Lewis and your whole staff at Mercury to have big ones enough, that when we came to you and said, ‘Hey, let’s put a song without drums on the radio,’ you said,’ Sure!”
Video of the Year, (artist/producer(s); director(s)) “Online”: Brad Paisley/Mark Kalbfeld, Peter Tilden; Jason Alexander (YES that Jason from Jerry Seinfeld’s TV series Seinfeld)
Vocal Event of the Year, “Find Out Who Your Friends Are,” Tracey Lawrence with Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney
The first Crystal Milestone Award was presented to Garth Brooks who is in semi retirement, but won it for sales of 123 million albums. It makes him the best selling solo artist of all time even beating out Elvis Presley.
He told us: “”I just want to say thank you. This is about record sales. I’m hoping it’s about music. I have to thank all of record retail. Of course, I have to thank all the guys in Nashville and country radio. Country music fans, of course, are still the greatest and the biggest population out there. I think like all children out here, which I am, I owe this to my mom and dad since they probably bought half of these records anyway.” Garth sang on the show with his wife Trisha Yearwood and commented: “She is one of the five best singers in the world, I said that before I married her and its certainly true now. And wow look at her in that dress!”
Everywhere you turned in Nash-Vegas the past few days you would have run into country music stars, all here for last night’s telecast. It was one heckuva of a high-speed super-slick show, exactly as the CBS head of specials Jodi Roth promised me! That’s because her first job in TV was working for me at Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous!
The weekend kicked off with over 35 country stars riding in the 4th Annual Motorcycle Ride benefiting the Academy of Country Music Charitable Fund. For the 5th consecutive year Montgomery Gentry hosted with Eddie Montgomery on the lead Harley with Troy Gentry alongside trekking through our nearby desert and winding up on Fremont Street.
Only 35 bikers took part five years ago and this year close to a thousand participated.
Not only is it country music’s biggest night of the year but its also their biggest party of the year. Cowboy hats off to these down-to-earth record stars for their honest-to-goodness manners and warm sincere friendliness to fans and journalists alike! For two consecutive nights they presented free concerts down at the Fremont Street Experience and thousands of fans packed the surrounding streets. We’ll have those full photo reports later in the week.
The ultimate country-superstar party with all the recording stars and executives had everybody agreeing that the 43rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards was “the best and biggest year yet.” Each day this week Luxe Life will bring you different reports of the country invasion as we go golfing and motorcycling with the stars, shopping with the singers, and meet country’s new, up-and-coming artists.