Saloon Review for 11/03/07

As we make our way into the month of November, its a great time to be a country music fan! There are lot of great new albums on the sales racks and the 41st Anuual CMA Awards are coming up this Wednesday. I gave my picks on the Saloon show Saturday but in case you weren't tuned in I'll give you a rundown of my picks. Video of the Year-"Online" Brad Paisley, Musical Event of the Year-"Find Out Who Your Frineds Are" Tracy Lawrence featuring Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney, Song of the Year-"Lost in This Moment" Big & Rich, Album of the Year-"5th Gear"Brad Paisley on Arista Nashville, Single of the Year-"Lost In This Moment" Big & Rich, Vocal Duo of the Year-Big & Rich, Horizon Award-Taylor Swift, Male Vocalist of the Year-Josh Turner, Female Vocalist of the Year Carrie Underwood, and last but certainly not least....drumroll please.....Entertainer of the Year-George Strait. Now with all that being said, those are my "picks" not my predictions, meaning if I am giving out the awards that is who I would give the award to.

As expected, Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride dominates the Billboard charts this week. With sales of more than 500,000 copies, as tallied by Nielsen SoundScan, the CD tops both the country and all-genre listings. In addition, it zooms to No. 1 on the top digital albums ranking with first-week sales of nearly 45,000 units. Kenny Chesney's "Don't Blink" continues as the reigning country song for the third consecutive week. There are two other new country albums in this week's Top 5: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand at No. 2 and Gary Allan's Living Hard at No. 3. They are followed, in order, by Rascal Flatts' Still Feels Good and Reba McEntire's Reba Duets. Making their debut farther down on the album chart are Dwight Yoakam's Dwight Sings Buck (No. 11), Shooter Jennings' The Wolf (No. 12), Rissi Palmer's self-titled collection (No. 56) and Slidawg and the Redneck Ramblers' A Blue Collar Christmas (No. 71). The multi-artist albums Hear Something Country: Christmas and Three Wooden Crosses return at No. 72 and No. 74, respectively. Debuting on the song chart are Whiskey Falls' "Load Up the Bases (The Baseball Song)" (No. 55), Brooks & Dunn's "God Must Be Busy" (No. 57) and Crossin Dixon's "Make You Mine" (No. 60). James Otto's "Just Got Started Lovin' You," which dropped off after only one week on the chart, has bounced back at No. 54.Garth Brooks' record-setting "More Than a Memory" has slugged its way back into the spotlight, moving up from No. 6 to No. 4. The remaining Top 5 songs are Dierks Bentley's "Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)" (No. 2), Underwood's "So Small" (No. 3) and Tim McGraw's "If You're Reading This" (No. 5). Predictably, Underwood's new album also bumped up the sales of her first CD, Some Hearts. Last week -- its 101st week out -- it sold 9,772 copies. This week, sales soared to 13,449.

Even though Carrie Underwood is tearing up the charts with her new album, the album pick this week is Josh Turners "Everything Is Fine". The album is unapologetically country, so for a true country music fan it is an album that you will thoroughly enjoy! Also the new album from The Eagles "Long Road Out Of Eden" would be a nice add to your music collection.

Be sure to tune in Saturday night to the Saloon on WXCC, we will be having a special CMA Review program this Saturday and you can find out how wrong I am with my picks. Until then

Uncle Rock

--"if you wanna make it, you can't fake it...you gotta LIVE IT!!!"