More than 100 acts are set for the nighttime showcases at the Americana Music Festival, ranging from genre trailblazers to rising stars. The event running Oct. 12-15 in select Nashville clubs will feature Foster & Lloyd, JD Souther, Will Hoge, Elizabeth Cook, Marty Stuart, Marshall Chapman, Connie Smith, John Oates, The Civil Wars, Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, Matraca Berg, the North Mississippi Allstars, the Jayhawks and many others.
Festival wristbands will be available at Grimey’s Aug. 23-27 for $40 (a $10 savings courtesy of Nissan). To kick-off this sale, Smith will give a special in-store performance at the record shop tomorrow (8/23) at 6 p.m. to celebrate the release of her Sugar Hill album Long Line of Heartaches.
The Americana Music Festival is part of the organization’s annual conference, which includes daytime panels, networking and educational opportunities. Registration for both is $350 for AMA members, and $450 for non-members. The full registration also includes a ticket to the Americana Honors & Awards Thurs., Oct. 13 at the Ryman Auditorium, and priority access to evening showcases. Conference registration, festival wristbands, and the full line-up is available at americanamusic.org.

A 2011 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York, John Bettis is the only songwriter of his generation who has repeatedly topped the Pop, Country, R&B and Adult Contemporary charts. His biggest Country hits include “Heartland” (George Strait), “Only One Love In My Life” (Ronnie Milsap) and “One Of A Kind Pair Of Fools” (Barbara Mandrell). His successes on the Pop hit parade include “One Moment In Time” (Whitney Houston), “Human Nature” (Michael Jackson) and “Crazy For You” (Madonna). “Top Of The World” topped both charts (Lynn Anderson, The Carpenters), as did his Nashville-written “Slow Hand” (The Pointer Sisters, Conway Twitty), while The Carpenters’ “I Need To Be In Love” and “Yesterday Once More”  topped the AC charts. The California native has been co-writing in Nashville since 1971 and has been a full-time resident since 1996.
Certified by the RIAA as the #1 selling solo artist in US history, Garth Brooks has sold more than 128 million albums and is the only solo artist in RIAA history to have six albums top the 10 million mark. His most recent release The Ultimate Hits has been certified 5x platinum. His body of work includes groundbreaking albums No Fences, Ropin’ The Wind, The Hits and Double Live – all of which helped propel country music as a genre to the front pages of newspapers and magazines worldwide. Since breaking onto the charts in 1989, Brooks has covered a variety of styles, including working class blues, honky tonk, bluegrass and arena rock. As a songwriter his credits include “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” “The Thunder Rolls,” “Unanswered Prayers” and “We Shall Be Free,” to name a few. Brooks has received every accolade the recording industry can bestow on an artist, including  two Grammys®, 17 American Music Awards, 11 Country Music Association Awards, 18 Academy of Country Music Awards, five World Music Awards, 12 People’s Choice Awards, and 36 Billboard Music Awards. He was named Artist of the ‘90s at the 1997 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, received the Artist Achievement Award at the 1997 Billboard Music Awards, was named Artist of the Decade at the American Music Awards in 2000 and the Academy of Country Music Awards in 1999. In 2001, in the midst of one of the most successful careers in music history, Brooks retired and moved back to Oklahoma to raise his children. In 2008, Brooks headlined President Obama’s Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. In 2009, Brooks emerged out of retirement and entered a five-year performing relationship with Las Vegas resort developer, Steve Wynn. He recently finished an astonishing nine concerts to raise $5 million for the flood relief efforts in Nashville, Tennessee.
Alan Jackson’s songs are distinguished by straightforward, honest and back-to-basics Country sincerity. He has written or co-written 24 #1 songs for himself, including “Remember When,” “Good Time,” “Drive (For Daddy Gene),” “Don’t Rock The Jukebox,” “Where I Come From” and the career highlights “Chattahoochee” and “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning).” “Chattahoochee” won a CMA Song of the Year award. “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” won Song of the Year honors from the CMA, the ACM and the Grammys. He was ASCAP’s Country Songwriter of the Year in 1993, 1994 and 1998; Jackson was ASCAP’s Country Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2009; and in 2010 he was honored with the prestigious ASCAP Founders Award. Jackson was NSAI’s Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 1991, 1992, 2002, 2007 and 2008. In addition, he has penned or co-written hits for other artists, notably the #1 songs “A Better Class Of Losers” (Randy Travis) and “If I Could Make A Living” (Clay Walker). The Georgia native is a three-time CMA Entertainer of the Year and a member of the Grand Ole Opry – in fact, he’s one of the most-honored singer-songwriters of the last 20 years, with a total of two Grammys, 16 CMA Awards and 17 ACM Awards to his credit. Jackson’s songs span 13 studio albums, three hits collections, two holiday albums and a critically-acclaimed gospel album with combined global sales of nearly 60-million. He was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2001. One of country music’s most-prolific songwriters, Jackson’s latest hit is “Long Way to Go,” the first single from his forthcoming debut album on EMI Records Nashville and his own ACR (Alan’s Country Records) venture. Recent credits also include “You’d Be Lonesome, Too,” from the new Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams project, spearheaded by Bob Dylan. Jackson completed the song based on original unfinished lyrics by the legend.
During his Nashville career, Bethlehem, PA native Thom Schuyler has worn many hats — A&R executive at RCA; recording artist for Capitol Records (solo) and for MTM Records (as a member of the trios S-K-O [Schuyler, Knobloch & Overstreet] and S-K-B [Schuyler, Knobloch & Bickhardt]) and songwriting instructor at Belmont University. Additionally, he is often credited as a founder of Nashville’s popular “in the round” style of songwriter showcases. After moving to Music City in 1978, Thom was signed to Eddie Rabbitt’s publishing company. In 1982, Thom’s “Love Will Turn You Around” (Kenny Rogers) was named ASCAP Country Song of the Year. Other songwriting credits include “I Don’t Know Where To Start” (Eddie Rabbitt), “A Long Line Of Love” (Michael Martin Murphey), “My Old Yellow Car” (Dan Seals), “I Fell In Love Again Last Night” (The Forester Sisters), “Years After You” (John Conlee) and “Love Out Loud” (Earl Thomas Conley). His “Point of Light” (Randy Travis) was the theme song for President George H.W. Bush’s volunteerism campaign. “16th Avenue” (Lacy J. Dalton) is the unofficial anthem of Music Row’s songwriting community.
Allen Shamblin was born in Tennessee but raised near Houston, Texas. He moved to Music City in 1987. He is noted for heartfelt sentimentality in such hit titles as “He Walked On Water” (Randy Travis), “In This Life” (Collin Raye) and “Life’s A Dance” (John Michael Montgomery), as well as hits such as “Thinkin’ Problem” (David Ball), “Walk On Faith” (Mike Reid) and “We Were In Love” (Toby Keith). His co-written “Don’t Laugh At Me” (Mark Wills) won NSAI’s 1998 Song of the Year. Among his Contemporary Christian cuts is the Dove-Award winner “It’s In God’s Hands Now” (Anointed). His biggest successes have come with Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-nominated Pop rendition of “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and “The House That Built Me” (Miranda Lambert), which was named 2010 Song of the Year by NSAI, the ACM and the CMA.

Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry—award-winning duo Montgomery Gentry—will soon release the duo’s seventh studio album, Rebels on the Run. The new 11 song collection will be available from their new label home Average Joe’s Entertainment, on Oct. 4, 2011.
“In a lot of ways the past year has been has been nothing but hell,” said Eddie Montgomery, whose life was upended with the C-word and D-word late last year. He was blindsided by news of prostate cancer, which was fortunately  caught early, promptly treated it and is now in remission. A short time later, his wife filed for divorce. “Man, without T-Roy and my family, this music, our fans and the Man upstairs, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through it.”
“I don’t know if we would have made the same album if we hadn’t been through everything we’ve been through in the last year,” added Troy. “We’ve always tried to record songs about things we’ve lived or seen, but the depth of all of those experiences really comes out in this album.”
Average Joe’s instructed Eddie, Troy and producer Michael Knox, to “Go in and make some Montgomery Gentry music.” Music that harkened back to the songs that initially brought them to the dance.
“They had gotten away from the music that made people fall in love with them in the beginning,” said Tom Baldrica, President of Average Joe’s Entertainment. “Eddie and Troy know their audience better than anyone, because they are their audience. That made it easy for them figure out what kind of songs they wanted on this album. They have also developed incredible relationships with the best songwriters in the business, which in turn helped them get the absolute best songs.”
As members of the Grand Ole Opry since 2009, Montgomery Gentry will be back in Nashville to play the storied stage on September 13. They are also scheduled to headline the 28^th Annual Love Ride motorcycle rally with Jay Leno outside Los Angeles on Sunday, October 23, 2011.