Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy, gave an exclusive interview with MusicRow about the decision to bring the GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live!! to Nashville earlier this year. This is the first time the event has ever taken place outside of Los Angeles.

MR: What went into the decision to move the concert from LA to Nashville?
PORTNOW: The way I’ve been explaining it is that it begins with a business management principle, which I embrace and I encourage our staff and our elected leaders to embrace, which is if asked the question “Why do we do this?” If the answer is simply “Because we’ve always done it this way,” that’s really not an acceptable or smart approach to what you might be doing at any given time.

What that informs is a constant re-evaluation in taking a look at things to make sure that however we’re doing it that it’s the right way, it’s an interesting way, it’s unique and it really represents the values and the missions of the academy.

That’s a basic principle to this particular project and it’s fairly new one, it’s something we conceived of five or six years ago, after years of traditional press conferences to announce the nominations. I always thought that was okay, but it’s cruel and unusual punishment for artists to be up at seven in the morning to do that and then frankly at some point it gets a little bit dull and a little predictable. We realized if we’re going to celebrate music then let’s do it in a venue and an environment that really speaks to that celebration and let’s have some music. So that led us to moving from a press conference in a hotel ballroom to a music venue. That kind of inspired, “Well if we’re in this space where music is played, let’s play some music and let’s put it on TV. Let’s have this as a way to really set up and introduce Grammy season in a way that is very involving and empowering for the fans.”

When we got to the five-year mark of that adventure, it was time to take another look to see if there’s anything about it that we might change. We have been changing the content and format a little bit, we’ve been out to a few different venues in LA and so the next thing to consider was “what about somewhere other than LA?” And that’s what got us thinking about this and down this path.

MR: So why Nashville?
PORTNOW: First of all, Nashville has a lot of intersection with the Academy. The first one as basic as that when the Academy was formed 55 years ago, one the concepts was that it have the ability to incorporate the diversity that’s found in music centers around the country and not try to have one size fits all, programmatically or even culturally. One of the very early chapters, aside from Los Angeles and New York, is Nashville and we have a long history there as an organization and we have a very successful vibrant chapter, one of our largest memberships comes from that region.

Number two, to the credit of Mayor Dean and the whole team in Nashville they wisely recognize, and I applaud them for it and support them in it, that creativity and the arts are key components to a broad and enlightened culture, and specifically music is a key element to the success of Nashville on so many levels.

I’d met with the mayor for quite a few years and was very familiar with his desire and the community’s desire to ramp up, to spread the word, to paint Nashville beyond a country music city, but just music city with the diversity and the great music population that’s there. So that became a factor.

Additionally, our current chairman of the board of the academy is George Flanigen. George is in the last lap of the first chair to ever have a 4-year term and so having our chair on the ground and being part of the community really opened a conduit of information and enthusiasm for getting this done.

MR: Do you see the concert moving around the country? Returning to LA? Staying in Nashville?
PORTNOW: The great thing for us is that we view most of what we do as an artist would view a fresh canvas. So we have fresh canvas to paint on on an annual basis. I like that fact that we have no restrictions or requirements that can’t be evaluated regularly. This is the first move for this particular project and we’ll see how it goes. I’m hopeful that it’s going to be a major homerun and a great experience. So afterwards we’ll come back and take a look at it and see what makes sense for the following year.

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The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live!! — Countdown To Music’s Biggest Night airs tonight (12/5) on CBS live from the Bridgestone Area at 9 p.m. CT. For details on tonight’s event, click here.

Fans of Blake Shelton and NBC’s The Voice are well aware of this entertainer’s hilarious wit and endearing charm. Shelton brought his brand of slightly off-color Christmas spirit to primetime television with NBC’s Blake Shelton’s Not-So-Family Christmas special Monday night (12/3). The singer-songwriter blended comedy, guest star appearances and performances of tunes from his album Cheers, It’s Christmas.

After an opening skit featuring Shelton performing “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire” while wearing an elf costume, he performed a solo rendition of “Let It Snow” (trading the costume for a sleek suit jacket and jeans). He welcomed Kelly Clarkson for a comedic skit, where the former American Idol winner seemed to think Shelton’s holiday special was a singing competition. “It’s 2012, people are singing, it’s a competition,” quipped Clarkson. After Clarkson showed off some of her powerhouse vocal riffs, she and Shelton performed their holiday duet, “There’s A New Kid in Town.”

Shelton’s fellow The Voice coach Christina Aguilera made a brief appearance to play a fake The Voice commercial in which Shelton tries to sell a “Just-Like-The-Voice” chair–a duct-taped chair adorned with a bell, a knockoff version of his coach’s chair from the hit reality singing competition.

Shelton welcomed his mother Dorothy Shackleford and they sang “Time For Me To Come Home,” an appropriate tune about going to see your mother at Christmas.

In perhaps the most hilarious skit of the program, Shelton and Larry The Cable Guy were in the claymation style of classic Christmas shows including Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer and Frosty The Snowman. What started as a hunting trip goes sour when the pair ultimately killed nearly every beloved Christmas character. Even Shelton later admitted the scene was a little dark.

Reba, who looked regal in a stunning red gown, appeared to present Shelton with an early Christmas present–the original hand-written lyrics to “Heartbreak Hotel,” penned by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden, and recorded by Elvis Presley. Shelton’s gift to Reba? One of his “Just-Like-The-Voice” chairs. Quick-witted Reba tried to decline the gift by explaining that she didn’t have room for the present in her car. The pair then performed “Let’s Have An Oklahoma Christmas.”

Shelton’s final special guest of the evening was wife Miranda Lambert, who joined him on a Christmas version of “Home,” the Michael Buble classic which Shelton remade into a No. 1 song. “I thought there needed to be one serious moment. I’m the wife that’s what I’m here for,” Lambert said jokingly before sharing how special the song is for the couple. “We don’t get to spend that much time at home as a family.”

All of the evening’s performers then joined each other onstage to thank the live audience for its support. All in all, the special hit the right blend of humor, musicality and heartfelt emotion.

Following a two-hour semifinals broadcast of The Voice, the 10 p.m. ET holiday special pulled in an average of 8.96 million viewers, according to hitfix.com.

Lady Antebellum announced a new charitable effort, LadyAID, on Monday (Dec. 3) to bring awareness to and generate support for children in need on a local, national and global level.

The organization will benefit children in the state of Tennessee through supporting Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Nationally, LadyAID will support Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and on a global level, myLIFEspeaks and The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee will provide administrative services for the organization.

“All these organizations are connected,” Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood said during a press conference held at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center. “We recognize we have a platform and we want to speak up and have an organization that can wave the flag for kids. We want to raise our voice for people in need.”

The trio also announced an upcoming event to support LadyAID. The inaugural fundraising event Ping Pong & Songs, inspired by the trio’s love of playing ping pong while on tour, will take place in early 2013.

Radio personality Gerry House (formerly of Nashville radio station WSIX), Nashville mayor Karl Dean and the Country Music Association’s CEO Steve Moore were on hand for the press conference. To honor the trio’s charitable efforts, Moore presented Lady Antebellum with the CMA International Artist Achievement Award.

Donations to LadyAID can be made by visiting www.ladyAID.org.

Divas onstage.

Lovesick Blues—episode 107

Whether the fur is flying or they are just tolerating each other—Nashville is at its best when Juliette and Rayna share the screen. On Wednesday night’s episode (11/28), the dueling divas were forced to perform a duet at the EdgeHill Republic Records 25th anniversary concert. Claws came out when they couldn’t agree on what song to sing, so they teamed up to write one. The result was a sassy uptempo, ironically called “Wrong Song,” and actually penned by Marv Green, Sonya Isaacs, and Jimmy Yeary. Juliette and Rayna’s performance of the song at the end of the episode was a high point of the season thus far, with the mulit-Platinum upstart and the respected superstar strutting around the Ryman stage in sizzling hot dresses. Seeing Buddy Miller as band leader was an added bonus.

The episode offered plenty of juicy, plot-propelling bombshells. Trying to get over Avery, Scarlett hit the honky-tonks with Gunnar and his girlfriend. A few tequila shots later she was jamming onstage with The Cadillac Black singing “Ring of Fire,” and Gunnar’s romantic feelings for his co-writer were obvious. But she bolted from the bar and took a cab to her ex Avery’s house, just in time to walk in on him and his manager Marilyn—who was topless.

The cougar-manager is equally adept at making moves on the business front as she is in the bedroom. She landed Avery a big, headling gig at the Tequila Cowboy on Broadway and introduced him to Atlanta-based label head Dominic (Wyclef Jean).

It’s no-more-Mr.-nice-guy for Coleman after he was arrested for drugs during a traffic stop orchestrated by Lamar, so he is threatening to leak damaging photos of Teddy if he doesn’t drop out of the mayoral race. But Lamar has plenty more tricks up his Brooks Brothers sleeve to keep his son-in-law in the race.

In less shocking show moments, the romance heated up between Juliette and her football player beau Sean, and Deacon played sad songs at Bluebird, including the David Rawlings, Gillian Welch and David Lee Murphy tune “Papa Writes to Johnny.”

Actors Clare Bowen (“Scarlett”) and Sam Palladio (“Gunnar”) made their Grand Ole Opry debut Sat., Nov. 17 at the historic Ryman Auditorium. They sang “Fade Into You” and “If I Didn’t Know Better,” which will be featured on the soundtrack for “Nashville” to be released by Big Machine Records on Dec. 11. Photo: Joel Dennis, Hollo Photographics