Josh Turner, Rodney Atkins, Justin Moore, Chris Cagle, Kip Moore, Florida Georgia Line, Lauren Alaina, Greg Bates and Jon Pardi seriously rocked the main stage.  And, the super talented Brooke Eden performed on the side stage along with up and coming artists, the Samantha Russell Band and County Line Road.

There’s something so awesome about seeing live music.  Producers of songs played on the radio, do the best they can to give you the feeling of an artist singing their song, but live…nothing compares!

The ribs were amazing, the crowd was fun (and very drunk!) and the music was crazy good.  Great job, WIRK!  Cannot wait to see what you do next year.

This is my second favorite part, after the artists win their awards, they come backstage and have their picture made by us photographers.  I will say, the difference between me, a lover of Country Music, and most of the other 20 photographers in the room is how enthusiastic and excited I am for these artists to win!  Being a country music fan should be an ACM photography pre-requisite.

I was so excited to see Scotty McCreery win New Artist of the Year, I know how hard he has worked this year!  Then Lee Brice, win an award for Eli Young’s Song of the Year, “Crazy Girl,” which Lee wrote with them.  And how special it must feel to Blake and Miranda to win CMA Male and Female Vocalists of the Year and then ACM Male and Female Vocalists of the Year!

After the Press Room festivities, I was able to catch my friends, Steel Magnolia and Vocal Duo of the Year, Thompson Square perform at the ACM Fan Jam.  And that, all you country music lovers, is a wrap!  Until next year, ACM’s thanks for a wonderful weekend of the best music in the world.

This is by far my favorite part of the weekend!  Getting to see the ladies all dressed up like the superstars that they are, knowing how great they feel walking down that red carpet.  Photographing the men in their fancy duds, shiny shoes, suits and bow ties.  Listening to the fans scream as Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman step out of their limo, “Keith!  Keith!  Keith!”  and then their excitement when Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott, Dave Haywood and Charles Kelly go over to sign guitars, cowboy hats and take a photo or two with the fans.  It’s exhilarating to me as a bystander, I can only imagine what a rush it must be for the artists themselves!

Early morning!  Whew.  After a late night at the Fremont Street Experience, five-thirty a.m. sure came early.  Off to the NRA Shoot Out, hosted by the sarcastic Blake Shelton and GAC’s Storme Warren.

Artists Easton Corbin, Lee Brice, Eden’s Edge, The Band Perry’s Neil and Reid, Craig Campbell and others joined Outdoor Channel’s Tiffany and Lee Lakosky for a celebrity shoot out!  Test your skills at skeet shooting!  Although, I won’t tell you how well I shot, because of course, I wouldn’t want to embarrass the artists. Let’s just say that the clay pigeon me and me were not on speaking terms.

At one point during the day, Blake Shelton turned his iPhone video camera to us photographers and said something like, “See all these paparazzi? Winners like Tiger Woods and me always have this much media following them.”  Not his exact words, but funny.  If you get access to Blake’s cell phone, send me that video, would’ya??!

That day in the dry Nevada desert was memorable and fun to say the least.

Country Weekly asked me to photograph a day in the life of CNN’s HLV News Anchor Robin Meade the day she hosted the Military Concert.  What a great experience!  Robin Meade is probably the nicest lady I’ve ever met.  We spent a few hours “getting ready” in her room. Robin was so cute as she had all her dresses and prompting cards she was studying laid out on the bed.  She posed and joked with me as we watched the Final Four basketball game on TV, talked about news and fashion.

Then together we hit the stage!  Robin introduced the artists; Gaitlin Brothers, Kip Moore, and Lee Brice.  Funny story about Lee Brice; his *creeping to #1 song, “A Woman Like You” is currently one of my favorite songs playing on the radio.  Lee is a funny, great guy and one of the writers of “A Woman Like You” is one of my dear friends, Phil Barton.  I had mentioned this to Robin while we were getting ready together in her room, so she insisted on taking a photo of Lee and I, telling him “Sara is your biggest fan,” which is true!  So, photo credit on the image below goes to Robin Meade :) Everyone go buy “A Woman Like You” on iTunes. Let’s get that song to #1!!!!

The other neat thing that happened that night, while following Robin Meade, was Thompson Square was being awarded Vocal Duo of the Year!  The ACMs have always given the awards out the night of the big show, but this year, in front of 7,000 military honoraries, family and fans, Robin Meade announced Thompson Square as Vocal Duo of the Year, shocking the duo.  Tears were dripping down everyone’s face with the unexpected news, including mine!  What a way to win the first ACM award ever for Thompson Square.

Day 1 – ACM Fremont Street Experience – March 30th, 2012

Fremont Street Experience was next on the concert photography list.  This is THE COOLEST free show ever.  Last year’s 2011 Fremont Street artists included my good friend Sarah Darling, Casey James ….. and others (see blog post::). This 2012 Friday night Fremont Street Experience included the super sweet and New Artist of the Year winner Scotty McCreery, Luke Bryan, Hunter Hayes, Love and Theft, and Brantley Gilbert.  Scotty introduced me to his sister and dad, that had joined him this weekend for the ACM Awards. They are such sweet people, just like him!  I caught a glimpse of Mr. and Mrs. McCreery singing right along to every word of Scotty’s songs as he performed on stage.

Also, ran into friends of mine who play in Blake Shelton’s band backstage, John, Phillip, Rob and Kevin.  Kevin Post has his own album, Intoxicated and Broken-Hearted, that just came out, available on iTunes now!  Check out the photos on his record, by yours truly.

Off to edit my happy little heart away to the wee hours of the morning, with help from my wonderful assistant, back home, Alyssa.

What a great start to the week of the entire ACM Experience.  Friday, April 30th, I started off by meeting Taylor Swift’s dad, president of Swift Trucking.  Mr. Swift is definitely Taylor’s biggest fan and told me story after story of when Taylor first got started, her first video on GAC and a few of the hurdles she’s been through along the way to unparalleled stardom.  He also gave me one of Taylor’s guitar pics, for me to give to my favorite 12 year old, Savannah.

Next, it was off to the Country Showdown stage to photograph the first concert of the weekend, Thomas Rhett.  Thomas Rhett is son of Rhett Attkins, who was in the audience beaming with pride at his son’s performance!  Great dad.  Thomas’s first single, “Something To Do With My Hands,” is getting lots of airplay on SeriusXM’s The Highway and playing on radio stations across the country!  After Rhett played, one of my favorite groups, Eden’s Edge, hit the stage.  Cherrill, Hannah and Dean were introduced by my friend, Bill Cody with WSM Radio and joked with him a bit before performing.  Dean opened with a G rated “what do you call a…” that had something to do with a bicycle and being tired.  It was cute.

After Eden’s Edge’s concert I had about an hour to hit the pool at Mandalay bay with the adorable Meghan Linsey from Steel Magnolia.  We caught up over a few rays of sunshine and yummy pool side lemonade.  Thank you for the new pink sunglasses, Meg!  The ones in this photo she let me “permanently borrow :)”  xoxo

Now I was off to photograph Kip Moore, and one of my favorite new hit songs “Somethin’ ‘Bout A Truck” — there’s just somethin’ ’bout that song that just makes me smile!  Meg joined me in the audience and surprised Kip with her attendance.  After the show, we told him he better show up for Steel Magnolia’s show the next afternoon at 1:30!

Immediately I loved her story, that she just opened up and told me, like we’d known each other for years…She told me how she was from a small town in North Carolina, she was a school teacher and had always sang in Church.  Someone told her she should come to Nashville for CRS week and get to know the industry…without even hearing her music, I was fascinated by her story and told her “we need to do a photoshoot for you!  You need good images to promote you!”  Then after listening to her self-made video on YouTube, I was determined to help her not only with photos, but also have her get to know some people in Nashville that could jump start her career.  I think if this whole photography thing doesn’t work out, I’m definitely getting into Artist Management!  Love promoting this girl.

Quickly becoming best friends we schemed on how to put together a photoshoot on an limited, zero budget :)  Teachers should get paid more, dang it!!  With the assistance of my country-music-loving, 12-year-old friend, Savannah, myself and Danica’s hair and make up expertise we made an amazing photoshoot happen right in my back yard, sand bar in Jupiter, Florida.

Danica also had this vision of creating a burning heart behind her…with the help of my incredibly creative husband and his father, Dave, we put together the coolest image EVER of a burning heart.  The photos of this set up are comical!  And, so you know how “un-photoshopped” this image actually is, I had my mother-in-law filming on my iPhone (thank you, Kathy Kauss!). You HAVE TO WATCH THIS!!  Ring Of Fire Photoshoot

Cannot wait for my friend to be famous!  Check out her YouTube video here and make sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook! And check out her radio interview on WKML 95.7  here!

Lastly, a huge, gigantic thank you for my amazing graphic designer friend, Davis, www.visualwavedesign.com, for creating a logo for Danica — it’s just awesome.

When all was said and done, and it was time to pack up my boots and head back to Florida, I was exhausted, but couldn’t take the smile off of my face.  What a great week it had been here in Nashville, two of my favorite things came together Country Music and photography.  Looking forward for my next adventure at the ACM Awards.  Get ready Vegas!

Alan Jackson rang in day three of CRS with a very personable, intimate, and down-to-earth performance.  That followed with BMI’s song writers round.  Featuring four brilliant female song writers, Matraca Berg, Natalie Hemby, Lori McKenna and Ashley Monroe, performed some of their greatest hits.  For me one of the coolest moments was when Matraca Berg sang her original version of “Strawberry Wine” (co written with Gary Harrison) which is a personal favorite of mine.  To cap the night off there were fabulous performances by Glen Templeton, Sarah Darling, and Due West, on the Black River Stage.  Night three of CRS was so much fun for me to watch.  Glen Templeton, whose upcoming album I photographed for, completely rocked it!  Sarah Darling, one of my best friends, got to perform four of her potential album cuts.  Sarah is working with producer Dan Huff on her album scheduled to be released later this year.  One of her performed songs was “Hey Monday” and co-writer, Phil Barton was in the audience, so for fun, Sarah brought Phil up to sing with her.  It was a blast!  I also ran into the beautiful, Briana Tyson, who’s album and promo photos I photographed a while back on Vince Gill and Amy Grant’s Nashville ranch.