Vegas goes country with ACAs, Merle Haggard, LeAnn Rimes, others

Country music likes to celebrate many things - America, pickup trucks, women who wield firearms - chief among them, itself.

There's a quartet of big country awards shows, so what distinguishes the America Country Awards, which return to Las Vegas on Monday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center?

Well, its most novel trait is that the winners are chosen by the fans themselves via online voting.

This year, Luke Bryan leads with seven nominations, followed by Lady Antebellum and the Zac Brown Band with six apiece and Jason Aldean, Eric Church and Taylor Swift with five.

Aldean, Bryan and Lady Antebellum will perform at the event, along with Rascal Flatts, Dierks Bentley, Kip Moore, Little Big Town and Jake Owen.

The unlikely pair of telephone-pole-tall Trace Adkins and chirpy Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth, who Adkins could fit in his back pocket, return as hosts of the ACAs, which will be broadcast on Fox.

Having the public select the ACA victors puts a slightly different spin on the show, now in its third year, although the result is largely the same: one big blowout concert with the awards taking a back seat to the party.

With the ACAs and the National Finals Rodeo in town, a slew of other country shows takes place in the next week.

Here's a rundown:

■ Merle Haggard, today and Saturday, Golden Nugget Showroom. He's become country's music Father Time, an outlaw, a pioneer, a living history lesson. At 75, Haggard is still making compelling albums, such as last year's "Working in Tennessee," a leisurely, affecting recording where Haggard plays the blues, reflects on his life a bit and speaks on the joys of reefer. After all these years, The Hag's still smokin'.

■ Rodney Atkins, Saturday, House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. Atkins seems like a dude who stepped right out of a Bruce Springsteen tune. He favors a romantic, sentimental view of America, singing about the joys of tearing down country back roads in a Chevrolet and chasing farmers' daughters. His sound is evocative of Springsteen's, earthy and hard driving, with guitars that howl like a lonely hound dog. Baby, he was born to run.

■ Charlie Daniels Band, Sunday and Monday, Golden Nugget Showroom. You could call him a jingoist, and Charlie Daniels would probably take it as a complement. Patriotic and determined to let you know about it, Daniels doesn't mince words and doesn't have to: The fiddle master, now 76, has earned the soapbox on which he stands. He's Nashville's flared nostrils, as defiant as that devil he came to fame singing about decades ago.

■ The Oak Ridge Boys, Tuesday and Wednesday, Golden Nugget Showroom. Initially founded in the early '40s, the Oak Ridge Boys are a country music constant even if the same can't be said of their actual lineup, which has evolved heavily over the years. One thing has stayed the same, however, and that's those distinctive, gospel-tinged, multipart harmonies as distinctive as singer William Lee Golden's snow-white beard, the envy of every garden gnome.

■ LeAnn Rimes, Thursday, LVH. When Rimes became a star in the mid-'90s at the wide-eyed age of 13 with her hit "Blue," she was frequently characterized as Patsy Cline's spiritual heir with her similarly expressive, smoldering vocal style that was equally beatific and bewitching. Since then, Rimes has gone pop, then back to country, and now straddles the two with a light, easy-going repertoire tailored for the radio, regardless of format.

■ Randy Travis, Thursday and Dec. 14, Golden Nugget Showroom. Heard any good jokes recently? Yeah, Travis has been the butt of more than a few punch lines of late after a trio of arrests this year, all related to public intoxication. But hey, Travis has earned the right to walk into a convenience store naked in search of cigarettes, right? The man has built up plenty of goodwill over the years. His voice is one of country's most distinctive, a stirring baritone rich in grace and gravitas, and for the past decade and a half, he's focused primarily on gospel music, his catalog posited on uplift. Perhaps he needs to listen to some of his own records and take heed.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@
reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow on Twitter @JasonBracelin.