LITTLE ROCK — It’s always a pleasure to watch married country music superstars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill perform together. They still have that spark even after all these years.
Fans will get the opportunity to see the duo in action again when they perform at the 46th Annual CMA Awards airing from 7 to 10 p.m. today on ABC. Hill, a three-time CMA winner, hasn’t performed on the telecast for six years.
Married since 1996, Mc-Graw and Hill are an old married couple now by showbiz standards, but still sizzle on stage.
Arkansas fans got to see the sizzle when the duo rocked a sold-out (then) Alltel Arena in 2006 during their Soul2Soul II Tour. Those 73 concerts are on record as the biggest moneymaking tour in country music history.
The CMA Awards will air live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., and feature Hill singing her latest single, “American Heart.” Mc-Graw will take the opportunity to debut new music from his forthcoming album.
The couple will return later to team with Lady Antebellum and The Voice’s Blake Shelton for a musical tribute to Willie Nelson.
Brad Paisley, the current CMA Entertainer of the Year, will host the awards along with Carrie Underwood. Those two are a fixture. It’s their fifth time hosting.
Other announced performers are Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, Kelly Clarkson, Eli Young Band, Brantley Gilbert, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Taylor Swift, The Band Perry, Underwood and Zac Brown Band.
Nominees for the prestigious Entertainer of the Year Award are Paisley, Aldean, Shelton, Swift and Chesney.
Female Vocalist of the Year nominees are Clarkson, Lambert, Swift, Underwood and Martina McBride.
Male Vocalist nominees are Aldean, Shelton, Bryan, Church and Keith Urban.
My favorite category is always the rising stars. Nominated for New Artist of the Year are Lee Brice, Brantley Gilbert, Hunter Hayes, Love and Theft, and Thompson Square.
Up for Vocal Group are Eli Young Band, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, The Band Perry and Zac Brown Band.
Finally, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the marvelously mellifluous tones of The Civil Wars in their run for Vocal Duo of the Year. Other competitors are Big & Rich, Love and Theft, Sugarland and Thompson Square.
In case you wondered, the CMA Awards nominees and winners are determined by e-mail votes from the 11,000 members of Country Music Association, which was formed in 1958 as the first trade organization to promote an individual genre of music.
The awards were first broadcast in 1968, making them the longest-running annual music awards program on TV.
LOOKING AHEAD
The TV Column will be off next week, so here are a few reminders of stuff that’s coming our way.
What’s cooking. The Next Iron Chef: Redemption premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday on Food Network. It’s Season 5 for the series and 10 previous Next Iron Chef competitors return for a second chance.
In the first episode, the chefs head to the beach to get their “redemption” ingredients and cook over hot coals. There will be a Secret Ingredient Showdown for the bottom two and only nine chefs will move on.
Top Chef returns. Speaking of chefs, Season 10 of Top Chef debuts at 9 p.m. Wednesday on Bravo with Wolfgang Puck joining as a judge when the show heads to Seattle.
Getting Osama. Cable’s National Geographic Channel will air Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden at 7 p.m. Sunday.
Produced for a theatrical release by Nicolas Chartier, producer of The Hurt Locker, the film is a 90-minute docudrama that purports to tell “the real story behind the manhunt and raid that took down al-Qaeda’s notorious leader.”
Critics say that airing just before Election Day, the film is intended to unjustifiably inflate President Barack Obama’s hero status.
National Geographic Channel president Howard Owens told The Associated Press that the channel “is not political. We are opportunistic from a programming perspective.”
I haven’t seen the film. Decide for yourself. The movie will be available on Netflix on Monday.
Dead magazine. Finally, fans of cult-favorite TV series know they can find blogs, episodes and lots of other ancillary goodies about their favorite series online. The hugely popular The Walking Dead (8 p.m. Sundays on AMC) has gone a step further with an official magazine.
The Walking Dead Magazine hit newsstands last week and if the impressive first edition is any indication, it’s a juicy (if pricey) must-read for fans. Find more information at titanmagazines.com.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
Weekend, Pages 32 on 11/01/2012