Taste Of Country

The 2012 CMT Music Awards winners were the stars of the night at the annual ceremony that celebrated the year’s best country music videos. The show, co-hosted by country’s own Toby Keith and actress Kristen Bell, highlighted the best clips of the year while providing an evening full of entertainment with countless live performances from the hottest country acts.

When two of your favorite artists come together, the result is that the sum of their collaboration is greater than the individual parts. That’s what Jake Owen said when he took the stage with ‘Twilight’ star Kristen Greene to present the 2012 CMT Music Award for Best Collaborative Video of the Year.

Toby Keith and actress Kristen Bell eventually took the stage to host the 2012 CMT Music Awards, but if you followed the opening moments of the show, you learned it wasn’t easy for them to get along. The two spent time campaigning to host the show themselves in a pre-taped video segment that featured cameos from President Obama, Mitt Romney, Bon Jovi, Willie Nelson, Mario Lopez and more.

Here’s another reason to tune into the 2012 CMT Music Awards tonight (June 6). Rascal Flatts with get supersized and perform with rock band Journey for the first time ever! That’s quite a shift from their previous collaborator Justin Bieber — with whom they remixed last year — but it’s equally as thrilling.

Francis Scott Key, who was a lawyer and an amateur poet, wrote the lyrics to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in 1814. While nobody is suggesting our national anthem should be replaced, if it was it would probably be done by more of a singer-songwriter type. But which one?

Country legend George Jones has put his Williamson County, Tenn. estate up for auction, as reported by Music Row. The singer and his wife, Nancy, first attempted to sell the home and surrounding land for $15 million in 2011, but later removed the real estate listing.

President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will appear at tonight’s 2012 CMT Music Awards. Each is part of a comedic pre-taped video that will open the show, much the way the President, John McCain and Hillary Clinton did in 2008.

Tim McGraw was on hand Tuesday morning (June 5) in Nashville to help support his younger brother Mark in a special Celebrity Shootout event, benefiting their late father and the Tug McGraw Foundation. Celebrities from all ends of the spectrum were on hand to support the McGraw family, including Brantley Gilbert, Montgomery Gentry, Luke Bryan, Josh Thompson, Jon Pardi, Craig Campbell, Keith Anderso

Every once in awhile, an artist like Miranda Lambert needs to remind the country music community what crazy looks like. All this talk of marriage, babies and puppy dogs could have left some (unwisely) wondering if Nashville’s most explosive firecracker had settled into life as a domestic diva. ‘Fastest Girl in Town’ is Lambert breathing fire again.

For 15 years, Tricia Van Auken has been carrying the same sign to every concert she attends. It reads: “Can I Come Sing w/ You?” — and believe it or not, it has actually worked! Ten months ago, Jake Owen invited Van Auken on stage during a performance at the New York State Fair. Then on Sunday night (June 3), Van Auken’s lucky sign worked again, when Lady Antebellum called her up to sing with them

This summer, plenty of country music fans will both remember and mourn the Indiana State Fair tragedy. In August of 2011, the fair stage collapsed before a Sugarland performance, killing seven people and injuring dozens more. Since the accident, Sugarland’s Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles have been wrapped up in depositions and legal proceedings for a trial that will determine who is responsibl

The 2012 CMT Music Awards are a collection of both superstars and hot, new country talent. This week, stars like Carrie Underwood and Eric Church have been rehearsing their performances, while newcomers like Kip Moore, Jana Kramer and the FARM look to take the stage for the very first time. Scroll through these photos of artists preparing for Wednesday’s (June 6) CMT broadcast.