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Sunday night the stars were shining bright at the Ryman Auditorium downtown Nashville, and I’m not talking about the twinklin night sky.  Brad Paisley headlined the star-studded event with some help from Keith Urban, Dierks Bentley, Kellie Pickler, Martina McBride, Sheryl Crow, Lady Antebellum, and more.  Brad’s better-half, Kimberly Williams Paisley and Desperate Housewive’s Plumber, James Denton, hosted the sold-out event.

Obviously the Ryman is known for it’s stellar acoustics, but the performances of the night really were at another level.  Lady Antebellum performed a sad and sultry, and probably the most beautiful arrangement I’ve ever heard of, “Need You Now.”  Martina belted-out awe-inspiring “Anyway” and a tear-jerking “Over the Rainbow,”  and Brad Paisley kicked-off, what really turned-out to be a celebration of Tennessee’s heart and volunteerism with “Welcome to the Future”.

Dierks Bentley performed some very scaled-back version’s of “Heart Shaped Locket” and “You Hold Me Together”.  While Keith Urban performed “Help” and “Better Life” bringing the crowd to their feet with applause.

Even though the evening was peppered with the devastating images of the flood from 2 weeks ago, it really was more of a celebration.  It was because of the hard-ship and loss that was suffered, that people were able to really see the love and compassion Middle Tennesseans have when banding together to help our neighbors.

Backstage, we were able to talk to some of the artists first-hand about the benefit and the loss the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee has suffered.  Through the tales of loss were also tales of heroism.  But each had an underlying theme of a new beginning and pride to be part of something so great.  Yes…great.  Tennesseans handled the disaster with such grace, the flood literally wasn’t newsworthy.  Chaos and crime makes the news.  But, there was to luting…only neighbors helping neighbors.  Make sure to check back to CMTT later for our press conference interviews during the show.

In true telethon style, many of the artists who appeared lent their voices to the phone lines to take peoples generous gifts.  Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman stepped from stage to phone.  Keillie Pickler spent a majority of her evening on the phone.  Sheryl Crow, Josh Thompson, James Otto, Dierks Bentley, and many more also took phone calls.  People donated their hard-earned money and prayers to flood victims.

Not just the common-folk donated…corporations big and small opened their wallets to help Nashville.  Scott Borchetta and Big Machine records donated $100,000, Humana, Comcast, and even the Academy of Country Music handed-over giant checks to help bring the grand total to over $1.7 MILLION.

The entire night was awe-inspiring, and made us here at CMTT proud to say “We Are Nashville.”  You can view all of our pictures from the evening on our Flickr page:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/countrymusictattletale/sets/

Got some country music gossip and don’t wanna be a tattle tale? Email me, Tawny Tucker, Tawny@countrymusictattletale.com