Today's Country Tidbits

Yesterday morning, Blake Shelton and Reba announced the nominations for the ACM Awards. Backstage, they cut up with a camera crew, and this is the result.

After yesterday's ACM nominees were announced, Reba was as proud as a peacock for Lady A: “Oh my gosh, at the CMA Awards Faith Hill and I were on the front row and when Lady Antebellum won the award, we were like crying like proud aunts ya know because we’ve known Hillary mostly all of her life. And it was just a wonderful feeling. We’re so proud of Lady A and all of the success they are having.”

This year, the ACM awards in the Top New Solo Vocalist, Top New Duo and Top New Group are fan-voted, and the voting is going on now. Artists are getting pretty creative about getting the word out to fans to please vote for them, but it's hard to see how anyone can top Luke Bryan's effort.



James Otto saddled up his motorcycle in Nashville, rounded up a few friends and headed for Bike Week in Daytona. They made it to Atlanta and hit bad weather, so called it a night and hit a hotel. Yesterday morning, his friends left without him - James had come down with an ikky bug that laid him low. Today, he's put his motorcycle on a trailer and sent it to Daytona and he's catching a flight there. Nothing stops inveterate biker James Otto from being at Bike Week!

Last night was the CMT Crossroads taping with Kenny Chesney and Steve Miller. There was a tribute to Les Paul during the show, and Kenny & Steve knocked it out of the park with some Steve Miller Band classics: Fly Like an Eagle, Abracadabra and The Joker. Kenny's great song, Living in Fast Forward, was also part of the fun. Not all the songs will make it to the final, edited edition of the show, but the audience loved them, every one. Meanwhile, the air date for the Zac Brown Band/Jimmy Buffett "CMT Crossroads" is March 19th.

Today is the day Darryl Worley has worked for tirelessly for years - the groundbreaking ceremony for the Darryl Worley Cancer Treatment Center in Savannah, Tennessee happened at 10 this morning. It's the only cancer treatment center for several counties around, meaning that locals will have a shorter ride to life-saving treatment. Having watched members of his family have to travel when they got sick, Darryl decided to focus on making life easier for cancer patients in his hometown. The building is scheduled to open by the end of this year or early in 2011.

Gloriana is excited - not only is the 2010 leg of the Fearless tour about to start, featuring them as the opening act for Taylor Swift, they have a brand new tour bus. It's described as "pretty and lovely." Good thing they like it - it'll be their home away from home for a lot of nights this year!

Love and Theft, who are opening for Tim McGraw on the last 40 shows of his Southern Voice tour, are letting fans play with technology for their live shows. They're streaming them online, and fans get a 360 degree view of the performance.