Today's Country Tidbits

It's all over but the aloe lotion for sunburns. The CMA Music Festival wrapped up last night with a stage full of stars. Brad Paisley, Trace Adkins, Blake Shelton, (joined by Miranda Lambert for a duet on the song, "Home") Darius Rucker, Kellie Pickler and Justin Moore all volunteered their time and talents to close this year's festival with the sold-out LP Field concert. More than 40,000 fans packed the place and loved knowing that this year, in addition to money going to music education for schoolkids, half of the proceeds from the 2010 CMA Music Festival will go towards flood relief in Middle Tennessee. The per-day attendance to the festival was 65,000 people, up from 56,000 last year. We'll all get to re-live the best parts of the week on September 1st, when Tim McGraw hosts "CMA Music Festival: Country's Night to Rock" on ABC.

Smaller, but trying harder, the BamaJam Music and Arts Festival had a gate count of over 300,000 and was responsible for selling out hotels within a 50-mile radius of Enterprise, AL. More than 2,000 jobs were created during the annual festival.

Martina McBride hosts an auction every year at the CMA Music Festival to benefit the YWCA. Other stars show up and pitch in as guest auctioneers, as well as bringing things to auction off. At yesterday's, over $100,000 was raised.

Taylor Swift's 13-hour autograph signing turned into a 14.5 hour event, as she made sure to meet and greet every fan, no matter how old or young.
And lots of artists show up at their fan club parties and perform, but how many bring the whole family with them for the fans to meet? Trace Adkins, for one.
Zac Brown Band closed out the week at the Bonaroo Music Festival last night. They played at the CMA Music Festival on Saturday night, after spending the afternoon with the ZBB fan club for their party, and performing there. And that's after playing Memphis on Thursday night and Birmingham on Friday night. Hope the guys all get a break today!

If you were an award-winning country singer, where would you stash your trophies? So far, Lady Antebellum has won 9 country music awards, and Hillary and Dave share their swag-stashing-secrets. “(Hillary) I have my Grammy on my bedside table and I say Good Morning and Good Night to it every day. (Dave)I’ve given like three or four of them to my Mom just because I don’t like to put them up around—I have my Grammy up like Hilary does. (Hillary) Do you say good morning and good night to it? (Dave) Yes, I sleep right next to it. But I give them to my mom—she gets a big kick when she has people over to the house—they love to see that stuff and take pictures with it.”

He was a country singer long before his name became synonymous with great sausage. The legendary Jimmy Dean has died. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame earlier this year, and was also a member of the Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame, the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame and the Meat Industry Hall of Fame. According to his wife, Donna, he was eating dinner in front of the tv, but never finished dinner, passing peacefully. He was 81.