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Kenny Chesney Nabs 7 CMA Nominations
Chesney was also nominated for entertainer of the year again, a category he has won for the past two years. Other nominees for the award included Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, George Strait and Sugarland. The latter two each received five nominations, including single of the year – Strait for “I Saw God Today” and Sugarland for “Stay.”
Other multiple nominees included Paisley, Urban, Carrie Underwood and Alan Jackson.
Underwood’s Carnival Ride, Chesney’s Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates, and Jackson’s Good Time were nominated for album of the year along with Strait’s Troubadour and Brooks & Dunn’s Cowboy Town.
Other CMA nominees included Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts, who were on hand to reveal the some of nominees during a live announcement on Wednesday’s ABC’s “Good Morning America” in New York. The 18-year-old Swift, who last year won CMA’s Horizon award for upcoming acts, giggled excitedly when her name was read as a nominee for female vocalist of the year, a category that included Alison Krauss, Miranda Lambert, Martina McBride and Underwood, who won the award last year.
“I can’t believe it!” Swift said. “I’m having a really good morning.”
Swift was one of several nominees who picked up trophies at last year’s ceremony. Nominees for male vocalist of the year included Chesney, Jackson, Strait, Urban, and Paisley, last year’s winner. Rascal Flatts was nominated for vocal group of the year, an award they claimed last year. Other nominees in that category included the Eagles, Emerson Drive, Lady Antebellum, and Little Big Town.
The bulk of the nominees were announced in Nashville on the CMT network. The CMA awards are set for Nov. 12, and will air on ABC.