Garth comes out of retirement, well maybe not all the way; Carrie gets her own TV special on FOX; some country stars celebrate birthdays and Miranda drops while Toby rides to the top spot. Get the scoop on these stories and more inside The Nashville Minute.

Viva La Garth -- Garth Brooks made it official, he will play the Las Vegas Encore Hotel & Casino! It will be a one man show (just Garth and his guitar) for 5 years, 15 weeks/yr and all tickets will be $125. The shows will start during the second weekend of the National Finals Rodeo (December 11th). All shows will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so Garth will be able to remain a major part of his daughters' lives and fulfill a promise to them to be there, at home, until they were all 18 and in college. Tickets go on-sale Saturday, October 24. Steve Wynn, the owner of the Encore Casino, has pledged to take "evasive action" away from ticket scalpers so ticket prices don't get driven to extreme levels.

Taylor Rules -- Taylor Swift leads all artists with six 2009 American Music Awards nominations, including nods in the all-genre category of Artist of the Year and Favorite Album in the Pop/Rock category. Jason Aldean, Darius Rucker, Keith Urban, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Sugarland and Zac Brown Band are also included among the country nominees. See a complete list of nominees here. The AMAs air live Novmber 22nd at 8:00 p.m.ET on ABC-TV.

Country Spotlight -- Martina McBride is one of subjects of the ABC-TV special In The Spotlight. Word around the water cooler is that Tim McGraw and Carrie Underwood will also be featured. Martina's segment will air after Dancing with the Stars on November 10th.

Happy Birthday -- Happy birthday to Alan Jackson, who celebrates his 51st birthday today (Saturday), Josh Gracin celebrates his 29th birthday on Sunday. Also blowing out candles is Little Big Town's Kimberly Schlapman, who turned 40 on Thursday.

And finally,

Toby Rides to #1 -- Toby Keith debuts at number-one on the country album chart with his newest release, American Ride, selling 90-thousand copies. But Luke Bryan's debut at number-two with his sophomore album, Doin' My Thing, really makes news! This is his highest debut yet, and he sold a whopping 58-thousand CDs to get there. Taylor Swift slips a spot from last week, her Fearless lands at number-three on the chart. Miranda Lambert's Revolution slides from one to four and rounding out the Top 5 is Rosanne Cash's newest collection, The List.

And that is the Nashville Minute.

Scott Wynn keeps you up to date with all that is going on in Nashville with the on-air version of my Nashville Minute Blog every weekday morning around 6:40 a.m. and 8:40 a.m. on 94.9 WQMX!

Keep it Real and Keep it Country!

George McFly
comments: george@wqmx.com