Chart news and sales stats, and celebrating the next level (corrected 3/6)

By request (again!) two classic concert images taken by one talented photographer. Bucky Covington gets lost in the music (top) and gets up close and personal (scroll down) in this pair of excellent shots taken at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville by our good friend Trish. Thanks so much, Trish! (Click the images to view them full size.)

It's been a wild week on the charts, and nothing underscores that more than today's weekly chart update--talk about twists and turns! Bucky Covington's bright and bouncy single "It's Good to Be Us" moved up on the Radio & Records 3/7 country singles charts to #15 (it was #18 last week)

Update--this week's Billboard numbers (the 3/15 issue) were posted late last night and "It's Good to Be Us" us is #15 oo this week's Hot Country Songs, too. The number formerly posted in this spot reflected the 3/8 issue--it also reflected a faulty assumption I made during this "anything can happen" chart week. Thanks to Buckyflowers for the R&R info, and to a kind Anon for the Billboard correction. My apologies again--Winnie.


And on the album sales front, Ken Barnes of USA Today reports that Bucky Covington held steady for the second straight week at roughly 1300 sold, for a total so far of 328,000.

As Bucky's said himself, more then once. "you could put out the best music in the world, but if the fans don't dig it, you're sunk." The only way he's going to know for sure that we dig it is if we buy it (done!), request it, vote for it and cheer for it. And from the persistence of that bullet, it looks like that's exactly what's happening...

Yep, it was much simpler when "supporting Bucky" meant marathon dialing sessions on Tuesday nights and arm-twisting friends and family to join in, and when the only "chart" we needed to consider was the "safe" card in Ryan Seacrest's hands. Getting what we wanted--Bucky Covington as a real-life Nashville recording artist with a hit album, hot singles and packed live shows--has involved a lot more hard work on Bucky's part, his excellent management/production team and band's part, and our part, but as anyone who has seen and heard him live this past year can testify, it's been so worth it!

And now it's time to move to the next level.

Bucky Covington sings "Bible and the Belt" in Gainesville on the opening night of the Throttle Wide Open tour; video by the talented FLCathy. Thanks!

The signs are everywhere, y'all. Tomorrow, we find out whether or not Bucky's "A Different World" video made it to the final round of voting for the 2008 CMT Music Awards--an honor which could give his album a tremendous boost in sales and visibility. On Friday, Bucky will take the stage at the New Faces Showcase during CRS. This is the top showcase of the seminar, and it's one that puts Bucky and his musical charms in front of the most important figures in country radio. Bucky's acquired a corporate sponsor (the venerable Zippo company) for a high-profile spring tour with a fellow respected new artist, Luke Bryan, and a young but very well-established country hitmaker, Dierks Bentley.

Bucky Covington on stage at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville, 11/17; photo by Trish. Please click the image to view it full size. Thanks, Trish!

As he winds up the first of those twenty years he's after (time flies when you're having fun!) one thing's perfectly clear--Bucky Covington is in it to win it. As Dierks Bentley put it in a recent interview: "I looked at his tour schedule from last year and he is not kidding around about this. He is going out there and playing every small bar and club he can. He embraces it and he isn’t doing it to be a celebrity. He really loves to sing and be on stage. It’s going to be a lot of fun."

Is it going to be a lot of fun for us for those next twenty years? Absolutely. Granted, watching the charts this week was anything but fun, let's be honest--it was exasperating, frustrating and crazy-making to watch "It's Good to Be Us" bounce around like a pinball from #18 to #15 and wind up at every stop in between. But it is fun to consider that through it all, that sweet red bullet never wavered--in fact, it grew stronger. Enough of us in the "passionate fan" category and in the general public are requesting, voting for and enjoying Bucky's current single to keep it moving up.

This wasn't our first confusing chart week, and unfortunately, it won't be our last. But it already looks as though we've learned how to keep wild weeks in perspective--a sigh here, a vent there, and then back to the phones, the e-request forms, the video voting pages. We are doing this!

So tonight (sneaky links alert!), as we call up Lia, The Big Time with Whitney Allen, After Midnite and our favorite local DJ; as we vote for Bucky's hot music video at GAC's Top 20 Country Countdown, CMT's Top 20 Countdown and at CMT's Pure Country Pure 12-Pack, we can feel confident knowing that we're helping to make that next level a beautiful reality. And tomorrow, when (I hope!) Bucky's name is announced as one of the CMT Music Awards final nominees, we can celebrate yet another milestone in what's shaping up to be quite a joyful career.

Keep the faith!

More soon--Winnie