Bucky Covington, Sawyer Brown and Love & Theft at Vanderbilt, Billboard update coming soon and more (updated)

Bucky Covington on stage in West Palm Beach; many thanks to the very generous Judy Lang for this striking concert photo.

Bucky Covington's day was a very special one indeed, as revealed by the Twitter feed of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville; he, labelmates Love and Theft and Sawyer Brown played a very special show for the patients there on Monday afternoon. (We'll have more news about that show as it becomes available--in the meantime, huge kudos to all the country stars and hospital staff, and our best to that beautiful audience!)

Buckytown USA featured excellent concert shots from IndyBCFan and Judy Lang today, and your next chances to see and hear Bucky and his band rock the house this year are coming up fast. Catch them at Harlow's Casino Resort and Hotel in Greenville, MS on December 5th (call 1-866-524-5825 tickets and info), at the KUBL's Low Dough Christmas Show in Salt Lake City, UT on Wednesday, December 9th (tickets, $10, available online via Smith's Tix), and at the KSON Carols by Candlelight benefit concerts in Escondido, CA on December 11th and 12th (tickets available via the Carols by Candlelight site.)

We've got just two dates listed so far for 2010: a hot night at the 8 Seconds Saloon in Indianapolis on January 15th (tickets on sale tomorrow, Tuesday, 11/24, at Ticketmaster) and the LHS Country Showdown at Liberal High School in Liberal, KS on Saturday, January 23 (tickets available locally at Crazy House in Garden City). If you haven't had a chance to see Bucky during his very extended 2009 tour, these'll be opportunities you won't want to miss. (Are the guys going to take some well-deserved time off the road in 2010? We'll see--stay tuned...)

There is no such thing as time off the radio, though--not if we can help it! "Gotta Be Somebody" is a bright single that deserves a big ol' listening audience. I know I'm preaching to the choir here at Buckymania, but if you're checking out this blog, chances are you've got a friend/co-worker/family member/sweetheart who loves country radio and is willing to join us on the request lines and on the video voting ballots at GAC's Top 20 Country Countdown and CMT's Pure 12-Pack. (The more the merrier--and the excitement of building a hit week by week is even sweeter when it's shared. We ought to know...)

The new Billboard update came to our inbox as a corrupted file this evening--with any luck, we'll have the chart news for you here later tonight. For now, please give your syndicated star of choice a ring:

Lia: 1-800-577-7LIA
The Big Time w/Whitney Allen: 1-877-494-4863
After MidNite: 1-800-722-6483
CMT Radio Live w/Cody Alan: 1-866-877-4CMT
2nd Shift w/Alan Kabel: 1-888-96NIGHT

We'll be back with chart info here soon, tech willing--enjoy the evening!

Updated: Billboard is still working on their technical issues, but Country Aircheck's weekly charts are in: "Gotta Be Somebody" suffered a superstar pole-vault on the main chart (it's #50 for the week, from #46 last week), but held steady at #44 on the Activator rankings. More soon...