Womack wins best album at Country Music Awards

By Ellen Wulfhorst and Chris Reese

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Singers Lee Ann Womack and Keith Urban
were the big winners at the Country Music Awards on Tuesday,
held for the first time outside Nashville and transplanted to
New York, a city that does not even have a country radio
station.

Womack won Album of the Year for “There’s More Where That
Came From,” which marked her return to country roots after
years of recording pop songs. She also won Single of the Year
for “I May Hate Myself in the Morning” and Musical Event of the
Year for “Good News, Bad News,” a duet with George Strait.

The Australian-born Urban won Male Vocalist of the Year for
a second year in a row and Entertainer of the Year at the 39th
annual Country Music Awards, broadcast live on CBS television.

Brooks & Dunn won Vocal Duo of the Year for the 13th time,
Gretchen Wilson won Female Vocalist and Rascal Flatts won Vocal
Group of the Year for the third year straight.

“It was great for country to come to New York City to widen
the scope of what we are trying to do with the genre and dispel
some misconceptions about country music in general,” Jay
DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts said backstage.

Kix Brooks added: “New York actually took notice of us and
it wasn’t in a hokey, hay-bale kind of way.”

This year’s show in New York — the ceremony returns to
Nashville in 2006 — capped a week of publicity and media
appearances by country stars all over New York, the largest
U.S. media market.

“This is good for all of us,” Urban said backstage. “This
is good for a lot of New Yorkers that are starved for their
country music.”

Seen as an effort to boost country music in a decidedly
un-country city, the show attracted attention due to the
“obvious incongruity of it all,” said Chris Willman, author of
“Rednecks & Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music.”

“Having steers walk up and down Broadway is a
‘man-bites-dog’ kind of story, and they’re getting a lot of
publicity out of it,” he said.

A few New Yorkers were cynical, including a critic in The
New York Times who wrote “when country music comes to New York
City … it’s a publicity stunt.” But most were welcoming,
Willman said. “They view it as exotic, much in the way they
would if Chinese acrobats came to town.”

The Country Music Association said it hoped moving the show
to New York will attract a younger, more diverse audience.

While New York is one of the top markets for country music
sales, its last country music station switched to a Spanish
language top-40 format three years ago.

There are more country radio stations in America — some
2,000 — than any other format, according to industry
statistics.

“If you are listening to music that doesn’t touch you, that
doesn’t mean anything to you, tune into your country music
station,” Womack told the television audience.

Playing in New York also plays to the advertising industry,
which doles out millions of dollars in endorsements and
sponsorships.

The release this month of a movie about star Johnny Cash,
“Walk the Line,” is expected to help whet Americans’ appetite
for the country sound.

Veteran Glen Campbell, known for hits like “Rhinestone
Cowboy” and “Wichita Lineman,” was inducted into the Country
Music Hall of Fame along with harmonica player and Grand Ole
Opry star DeFord Bailey and musical group Alabama.

Song of the Year went to “Whiskey Lullaby,” written by Bill
Anderson and Jon Randall, Music Video of the Year went to Toby
Keith’s “As Good as I Once Was,” and the Musician of the Year
award went to dobro player Jerry Douglas.