Very quick Thursday news: Power Picks win, CMT Music Awards nominations and more...

By request, Bucky Covington strolls the stage at the KNCI Country in the Park concert in Sacramento in a terrific shot by Minnie, who shares more of her gorgeous images from the performance in her must-see Photobucket gallery. Thanks again, Minnie!

While the first version of this post of this post was being written, the news of the CMT Music Awards final nominees came over the wires. It's always fun to have to revise a whole post to say "whoohoo!" Congratulations to Bucky and to Trey Fanjoy for the first of many accolades for their beautiful video collaboration on "A Different World". The voting for the awards has resumed, and you can find the ballot here: one vote per logged-in CMT member. Vote now, and get ready to pass that link to everyone you know!
And even more congratulations are in order--Bucky and "It's Good to Be Us" won today's CMT Power Picks challenge over Jason Aldean's "Johnny Cash" with 60% of the vote. Nice goin'!

Here's a quick look at the rest of today's happenings:

Chart news: Bucky's fantastic tune is #16 on both the Mediabase weighted and Top 500 charts, as of the 3/6 4:10 PST update--this will be a weekend of fierce competition on the charts, with "It's Good to Be Us" in a multi-song fight for the Top 10. Can we do it this week? Keep requesting and voting, and our prospects will look better and better...

Upcoming shows: No news to report here, so we'll just share a reminder about the current slate of concerts. Bucky and his rockin' band will play the Buffalo Bar in St. Joseph, MO on Friday, March 21. Only 500 tickets are being made available--get yours soon at Biggins Sports Bar & Grill (816 232-4450) or Buffalo Bar at (816) 390-8444. The Throttle Wide Open tourgets rolling again on Thursday, 3/13 with a show at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach ; general admission tickets can be purchased at Ticketmaster. Tickets for most of Dierks Bentley's Throttle Wide Open dates are available now at Ticketmaster--check Dierks' official website for details on non-Ticketmaster events. Seats for the Jackson, TN Dierks Bentley concert on April 3rd are available at the City of Jackson site.



On the tube and around the net: Enjoy a great Greensboro audition photo of Bucky and a sweet Opry shot of Rocky Covington at The Covington Times today, alomg with a link to one of our all time favorite "Sweet Home Alabama" videos. (Love that one!)

On the tube, catch Bucky's video for "It's Good to Be Us" at 2:08 PM ET on GAC, enjoy some retro goodness with "A Different World" at 6:11 PM ET, and catch Bucky's newest music video once more at 11:33 PM. OAnd on Saturday, enjoy Bucky Covington's 1/12 performance on Grand Ole Opry Live at 8:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, 3/8, with several repeats following.

Vote for Bucky: We'll wrap up a busy morning with the handy video voting links--show "It's Good to Be Us" some love at GAC Top 20 Country Countdown, at CMT's Top 20 Countdown and at CMT's Pure Country Pure 12-Pack.

Then, if you haven't already, run, don't walk to the 2008 CMT Music Awards ballot and give Bucky a very important thumbs up. Register at CMT and vote now---and recruit as many friends, co-workers and neighbors as you can!