Okay, so the idea was that I was going to blog at the same time as Holly and it would give the readers a kind of back and forth perspective of GMA Week and the Doves. Well, now I’ve seen what Holly has done and frankly, I can’t compete. She has provided some great timely coverage - better than anything CMC has done in the past. So I will take the lazy route and recuse myself and let you all enjoy her 2007 GMA Week and Dove Award coverage. Nice job, Holly!

Oh one more thing… Nancy has started uploading some of her photos to our Flickr site. You can see them by going here:

http://flickr.com/photos/cmcphotos/tags/gospelmusicweek2007

www.flickr.com cmcentral’s GMA Week 2007 photoset

Okay, so I just now put up the pink front page graphic that I created for this week because I forgot to do it yesterday.  I didn’t do it on Monday because I hadn’t had a chance to blog very much at that time yet, but now I think there’s plenty here to read!

Just so you know, there are more videos coming… LOTS actually! It will take me the rest of this week and possibly longer to get them all edited, but I will continue to add them here to the blog and also to the front page video player as they become available. So keep checking back! If you want to bookmark this location, it’s http://blog.cmcentral.com.

It’s very late now though, and I’m totally envious of Nancy and her sister who are already asleep. We just got back from a middle-of-the-night run to White Castle and McDonald’s, much to the chagrin of our friend Reese. By the time we left the Opry House, it was after midnight and we realized most restaurants were closed, despite the protests of our growling stomachs. We tried to go several other places, but ended up with the White Castle/Mickey D’s route, which actually makes it two years in a row for me and Nancy to hit up White Castle after the Doves.

So anyway, it’s sleepytime now…

Chris said that he knows at the end of the day that none of these awards will impress God… it’s about how he treated people and lived his life and keeping the favor of God with him. He says that these songs aren’t “stepping stones” as someone from a radio station asked him, but he just wants to continue to write songs to give people a voice to worship God.

I just noticed that his publicist who was accompanying him into the press room had some boxes that looked like CD cases boxes (the kind that hold 30 cds). I didn’t know what was in them until Chris put the two Dove statuettes that he was holding into a box… they were two boxes full of Dove Awards! He pretty much cleaned up tonight, winning a total of SIX Doves Awards!

Mark Hall and Casting Crowns are backstage…. one note - he predicts Leeland’s song, “Tears of the Saints” to be the Song of the Year next year.

Okay, in case you’re wondering about a category I missed… here is a complete listing of who won all of the awards tonight:

http://www.doveawards.com/categories/

This summer he’s working on the follow-up CD to “Welcome Home.” He’s currently on the “Glory Revealed” tour with Mac Powell right now. The song he sang earlier with SCC and Mark Hall was called “By His Wounds.” This summer they are releasing a new Backstreet Boys CD. He received a Presidental Volunteers Award yesterday from MWS for the “Brian Littrell Healthy Hearts Club for kids.” He was born with a congenital heart problem, so when he was 23 years old, he underwent open heart surgery. The club gets kids out from in front of the TV and gets them dancing (BSB moves), teaches them about healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. The surgical assistance program helps families that have to uproot their lives to travel across country to get heart surgery, and was founded in 1999.

Zach is a 14-year-old author and modern day abolitionist. He spoke during the show about “The Amazing Change” and the “Amazing Grace” movie about William Wilberforce. His book is called Be The Change.

I was right about Female Vocalist of the Year. Natalie Grant shared that she cannot imagine life without her babies, but she does remember life before her babies… and it was a good life… but she’d never trade this life now for anything.

Leeland is here now… they were nominated for 4 Dove Awards, but I don’t think they won ANY of them. :-\ They are going on a fall tour, starting Sept. 27th. They said they had an awesome GMA this year. Last year they were pretty unknown and didn’t have a record out yet. They said they spent most of last year’s GMA in bed, but this year they really enjoyed it.

I’m still bummed they didn’t win anything.

MWS & Brenda Lee are backstage now… there has to be at least 18 inches, if not more, of a height difference between them. She BARELY reaches his shoulder.

Record #20 will be a Christmas album recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and a Boy’s Choir. He’s REALLY excited about that opportunity.

He thinks there is another movie in the future for him, but he can’t say anything more. He talked about Seabourne Pictures and a new movie he’s helped with (produced?) called Kabel24 (sp?).

Ian Eskelin is backstage and he says it took him 10 years to win a “klingon weapon” and now all the press wants to talk about is All Star United!  Love & Radiation releases May 29th. Ian won the Dove for Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year     •    “Me And Jesus”; We Can’t Stand Sitting Down; Stellar Kart; Adam Agee, Ian Eskelin; Word Records

(Did I already report on that song winning?)