UPDATED: Paisley took more Buckles, but CMT Awards belonged to Taylor Swift *Opening link fixed

Taylor Swift performing at the CMT Awards/photo by Frank

Now that the parties are over, I've taken my out-of-town guest to the airport and settled down for the first time since Tuesday night's CMT Music Awards, here's a quick wrap-up of the show.

While Brad Paisley walked away with three of the four CMT Buckles he was nominated for, the highly anticipated night clearly belonged to country cutie, Taylor Swift. Taylor's much-mentioned dreams continued to come true earlier this week; from the show's open to its final number, thanks to a very creative and cameo-heavy opening sequence, two knock-out performances, four costume changes and two Buckles of her own.

With the help of the show's emcee, Bill Engvall, a cleverly edited scene from the box office smash, Star Trek, The Tennessee Titans, rap star, T-Pain, Taylor's mom, Andrea and BFF Kellie Pickler, Taylor's dream sequence opened the show and set the tone for a fun-filled entertaining awards show; a rarity among the multitude of boorish self-congratulating ceremonies flooding the airwaves these days. The CMT Music Awards is fan-voted, and judging from the near-capacity crowd at Nashville's Sommet Center on Tuesday night, heavily fan-attended.

THE PRESENTERS:
Bill Engvall quickly poked fun at several nominees and guest presenters and pointed out that the fans are the ones who decide the winners. This lead to an intro of a duo who know a lot about fan-voted accolades, Kellie Pickler, dressed like a million bucks, and Randy Jackson, who was wearing a tie that was too short, and a rediculous bejewelled skull belt buckle.  Kellie, a former American Idol contestant and Idol judge Randy were on hand to present the Buckle for USA Weekend Breakthrough Video. If you are wondering why Randy Jackson? Keep in mind CMT and Idol's producers, Fremantle Media are teaming up again this year for a second season of the CMT competition series, Can You Duet.

Engvall then announced the five final nominees in the Video of The Year category and reminded viewers they still had a chance to vote on this category, as it would be presented at the close of the show.

Billy Currington, Rodney Atkins and Julianne Hough presented Duo Video of The Year. There was a little schtick about Billy and Rodney teaming up for a duo, but a clever line by Julianne had Billy quickly dissing Rodney for the Dancing With The Stars babe-turned-country-crooner. Just before the took to the stage, I saw Julianne, who's dresslooked like a distant relative of Big Bird, slip and nearly fall on the stairs adjacent to the celeb audience seating.

Toby Keith and T-Pain painfully teamed up to present the Wide Open Country Buckle. Their banter revolved around T-Pain suggesting Toby pick a rap name. The censors were hurting for something to bleep when Toby gave himself a rather crude moniker, but the country star managed to recover quickly by decided to stick with his long-time nickname, Big Dog Daddy.  T-Pain then offered the obligatory advice to spell Dog, D-A-W-G. 

Kid Rock, ever lacking a modicum of class and refrain appeared to be a tad bit wasted--Shocking, I know--while he accepted the Wide Open Country honor, mistakenly identifying his record label as Atlanta Records, instead of the actual Atlantic Records.  He then came back to the stage as a presenter of  Group Video alongside Karolina Kurkova. He or course mispronounced her name. When he said the Czech-born Victoria's Secret model's name, it sound like that of the home state of fictional sheriff Andy Taylor.

My friends, and CMT's own Katie Cook, wearing another of the prettier dresses of the night, and Lance Smith, who had just hosted the pre-show red carpet,  were up next. They took a minute to remind viewers of the Saturday premiere of Can You Duet, which Lance is now hosting. Then they acknowledged Trey Fanjoy as the recipient of the Buckle for Video Director of The Year. I found it odd that during an awards show that honors music videos, the one given to the creative force behind the videos was relegated to a shot of the winner in the audience. The CMT duo then presented Performance of the Year.

Dancing With The Stars' current champs, Mark Ballas and Shawn Johnson were on-hand to present Female Video of The Year. In a bit of cue-card drivel, Shawn quipped that she thought they should all share the award. Mark then asked her how she would have felt had DWTS been a tie. Ok, so there's a reason the dancer and the former olympian aren't known for their acting skills.

In yet another plug for the upcoming Can You Duet, series judge, Mama Judd joined controversial commentator Bill O'Reilly onstage to introduce Trace Adkins' performance. In typical Naomi-style, the elder Judd baited Fox TV's antagonist to speak southern. Going off-script, he chose instead to get their bit over with as quickly as possible. Before I get any Mama Judd loving-Jonathan-hating letters, I realize the silly interaction should be blamed mostly on the show's writers, but, in their defense, you work with what you've got. While Naomi is a lovely woman, the sicky-sweet down-home southern belle act should have been gone with the wind decades ago.

Bill Engvall took a moment to remind viewers of the CMT One Country initiative. It's CMT's way of giving back. This year, in lieu of elaborate gifts for the stars, CMT opted to make a donation to Second Harvest Food Bank's BackPack program. BackPack provides meals for area Middle Tennessee school children in need. CLICK HERE to learn more.

In one of the oddest pairings of presenters, American's Got Talent winner, ventriloquist Terry Fator and his over-sexed cougar puppet, Vicky handed out the buckle for Collaborative Video. Vicky made reference to being at home with all the other cougars in the celebrity audience, which didn't make sense, since most of the female artist in attendance were relative young. While in the audience, I thought the bit was funny, but I didn't realize until I got home later that night and watched the show again on TiVo that her comments provided the censors another opportunity to hit the buzzer when she added, "There are so many cougars here, they could open up a heavy-petting zoo." Really? They bleeped out heavy-petting? Talk about making the audience think they missed something.

Funniest acceptance came when Brad Paisley and Keith Urban won the award presented by Terry Fator and Vicky, when Brad looked at Vicky and said, "Martina's shorter than I thought."

Things just got weirder when guitar god-turned hunter, Ted Nugent was teamed with Allison Krauss to present Male Video of the Year. A little insider info: Ted is slated to star in an upcoming reality survivalist series for CMT.

In still more shameless promotion, Melissa Peterman, who's country version of The Singing Bee debuted immediately after the awards show, joined Dierks Bentley onstage for probably the nights funniest interaction. Dierks kindly plugged her show, then dared her to try a little karaoke right then and there. She sang, and as only the hysterically funny lady can, made the most of the bit, by dancing, gyrating and having a great time on-stage, much to the audiences delight. She then brought the Taylor Swift/dream reference full circle by saying, "Taylor, you are right, Dreams do come true. And speaking of dreams..." with that the comedian turned to her co-presenter and laid one on him.

Martina McBride and Luke Wilson presented the final award, to Taylor of course.

THE PERFORMANCES:
After they rolled Taylor's pre-taped show open, Dierks Bentley took to the stage for a rousing performance of Sideways, complete with hip-hop back-up dancers. An impressive list of performers continued as Darius Rucker rocked the crowd with his hit, All I Need.

Lady Antebellum recreated the look of their nominated video, Lookin' For A Good Time, the group's female vocalist, Hillary Scott even wore the same gorgeous light blue beaded gown for the performance. Engvall reminded the audience of Brad Paisley's record setting 10 #1's in a row as the singer turned in one of the best vocal performances of the night with I Thought I Loved You Then.

Next was Taylor Swift's cute take on her latest hit, You Belong With Me, which began with a bespectacled Taylor sitting on a bed dressed in a white bathrobe--cleverly bedazzled with the word Fearless--the title of her current CD. As she sang, she stood at a prop window, removed the glasses and bathrobe to reveal her third look of the night, a cocktail-length blue sheath style dress.

Keith Urban was the next main-stage star, as he sang and played guitar on Sweet Thing. About halfway through his number, Keith leapt off the stage and ran up to the audience seating in the upper corner of the Sommet Center, all-the-while playing and singing. The crowd loved it.

At just about the mid-way point in the night, Georgia native, Kristian Bush of Sugarland took to the stage. He played and sang the opening of a song that seemed familiar to the crowd, but it wasn't one of the super duo's own. As Jennifer Nettles joined him on stage, it became clear. They were doing a cover of the uber-popular 80s hit, Love Shack, which in itself was a very cool thing. Leave it to CMT to up the ante as the song's originators, legendary pop-rockers, and fellow-Georgia natives, The B52s emerged to join Sugarland! Lead vocalist Fred Schneider even offered a change in the lyrics for the occasion. During the song's classic hook, when fellow B52'ers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson sing, "Bang, bang, bang on the door baby," Fred's usual response is "Knock a little louder, sugar," but for the CMT crowd, instead he replied, "Knock a little louder, Sugarland."

Trace Adkins, with ambience of a beautiful and simply lit stage, gave another of the night's great performances as he sang his touching and emotionally charged, You're Gonna Miss This. His performance, along with that of the previously mentioned Brad Paisley really stood out. The men really stepped it up this year and proved that, in the midst of a surge of decidedly younger, more pop oriented country, if you've got the chops to back it up, nothing says country like a traditional vocal.

Rascal Flatts' Summer Nights proved to be popular with the crowd. Kellie Pickler shined in more ways than one when she emerged onstage in a cocktail length dress made of hundreds of reflective metallic discs, with disco pumps to match. She sang her hit, Best Days of Your Life. Jason Aldean kept that same energy going with She's Country. Toby Keith, again proving the classic men of country know what they are doing, provided another great moment with God Love Her.

After winning the evening's final award, and while Bill Engvall gave a two-minute wrap-up of the evening, Taylor Swift exited the winner's platform, went underneath the stage into a nearby dressing room and re-emerged in her fourth dress of the night to close the show with her CMT Crossroads pals, Def Leppard for their update of the rock group's Pour Some Sugar On Me. I'll admit, if it was anyone else besides Taylor singing this particular song with men some 30 years her senior, it might come across as a bit creepy, but Taylor is just do dang fun and you can tell she's loving every minute of it, so it totally works.

NEW ARTISTS:
In a great way to feature new talent, CMT set up a side stage with a corporate sponsorship to play as the live show went to commercial. Joey and Rory, who finished third in last year's Can You Duet were the first to take the smaller sponsor-driven stage, as they played their Top 40 hit, Cheater, Cheater into the break. Throughout the night, other up-and-coming acts such as The Carter Twins, Justin Moore, Jason Michael Carroll, Gloriana and The Eli Young Band also performed before the breaks.

CMT MUSIC AWARDS OPENING:

CMT MUSIC AWARDS
Winner and Nominees (Winners in BOLD)

USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year
Zac Brown Band/Chicken Fried
Julianne Hough/That Song In My Head
Jamey Johnson/In Color
Lady Antebellum/Lookin For A Good Time

Duo of the Year Video
Sugarland/All I Want To Do
Sugarland/Already Gone
Brooks & Dunn/Put A Girl In It
Montgomery Gentry/Roll With Me

Wide Open Country Video of the Year presented by Toby Keith and T-Pain
Kid Rock/All Summer Long
Def Leppard & Taylor Swift/Photograph
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss/Please Read The Letter
Rehab feat. Hank Williams Jr./Bartender Song

Group Video of the Year
Rascal Flatts/Every Day
Rascal Flatts/Bob That Head
Lady Antebellum/Lookin' For A Good Time
The Zac Brown Band/Chicken Fried

CMT Performance of the Year
Alan Jackson feat. Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley and George Strait/Country Boy from CMT Giants: Alan Jackson
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss/Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) from their CMT Crossroads
Sugarland featuring Little Big Town and Jake Owen/Life In A Northern Town from the 2008 CMT Music Awards
Def Leppard & Taylor Swift/Photograph from their CMT Crossroads

Female Video of the Year
Taylor Swift/Love Story
Miranda Lambert/More Like Her
Martina McBride/Ride
Kellie Pickler/Don't You Know You're Beautiful

Video Director of the Year
Trey Fanjoy
Deaton Flanigen
Roman White
Peter Zavadil

Collaborative Video of the Year
Brad Paisley & Keith Urban/Start A Band
Brooks & Dunn feat. Reba McEntire/Cowgirls Don't Cry
Kenny Chesney feat. The Wailers/Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven
Sugarland feat. Little Big Town and Jake Owen/Life In A Northern Town

Male Video of the Year
Brad Paisley/Waitin' On A Woman
Toby Keith/God Love Her
Keith Urban/Sweet Thing
Trace Adkins/You're Gonna Miss This

Video of the Year
Taylor Swift/Love Story
Trace Adkins/You're Gonna Miss This
Brad Paisley/Waitin' On A Woman
Sugarland/All I Want To Do
Carrie Underwood/Just A Dream