Taylor Swift has been shown by Carrie Underwood who the country music queen really is. Underwood score two big victories at the CMT Music Awards on Wednesday. The former “American Idol” champion prevailed in the public voting. Underwood’s video “Cowboy Casanova” won the top award and her “Temporary Home” rendition on CMT’s program “Invitation Only” took the performance prize.

Going into the night Taylor Swift had three nominations, including female video and video of the year for her song “You Belong to Me.” Both of those awards were won last year by Swift for her song “Love Story.” Swift’s “Our Song” won in 2008. Underwood and Swift lost to Miranda Lambert in the female video category. Her song “White Liar” earned Lambert her very first CMT award. Swift also lost out in the category collaborative video. Her video “Best Days of Your Life” with Kellie Pickler lost out to Trace Adkins and Blake Shelton for “Hillbilly Bone.”

Carrie Underwood three years ago won female video and video of the year awards for her song “Before He Cheats.” These awards have been given out for nine years. Four performers have won twice. Keith Urban (2006: “Better Life”; 2005: “Days Go By”), Toby Keith (2004: “American Soldier,” 2003: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”) were also multiple winners. For the very first time Urban was awarded best male video for his song “Til Summer Comes Around.” Keith lost top video for his song “American Ride.”

The group video award was won by Lady Antebellum for the very first time for their song “Need You Now.” Brooks & Dunn, which will be splitting up soon, won duo video award. It was the first time the pair had won the award since “Indian Summer” in 2002. The breakthrough video award went to Luke Bryan for “Do I.” Shaun Silva’s body of work was honored.

The nominees and winners were determined by online fan votes for eight out of nine of the categories. Video of the Year voting was different. Ten semifinalists were pared down to five. They were announced at the beginning of the award’s ceremony broadcast live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on CMT. During the broadcast votes were cast via text messaging and online. Underwood beat out Swift, Lambert, Lady Antebellum and Keith.

Carrie Underwood made music history, becoming the first woman artist to win the Academy of Country Music’s Entertainer of the Year award twice.

Former winner of American Idol, the twenty seven year old Underwood also won Entertainer of the Year in 2009 and this year won a triple crown prize. During her career Underwood has won for Best Newcomer, Best Female Vocalist and Entertainer of the Year.

Lady Antebellum won five awards. Taylor Swift, despite her five nominations, was sent home empty handed.

Underwood was competing against Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney, among others.

While accepting her award for Entertainer of the Year, Underwood said I just got my make-up on Brad Paisley I think. She added, praise the Lord and thank you God.

Lady Antebellum, whose recent “Need You Now” album is Number One on Billboard’s 200 album chart, was the winner of five awards, including the prize for Best Vocal Group. That brought an end to the seven year run of Rascal Flatts winning for that category.

“Need You Now,” Lady Antebellum’s crossover hit, also won Single of the Year and Best Song. The song is in the Number Two spot on the Singles US chart.

Charles Kelley, Lady Antebellum singer said, this is wild, man. You just don’t ever know what one song can bring. Tonight is our career pinnacle.

Miranda Lambert received three awards. She beat out Underwood for Best Female Vocalist.

It’s time for the music award season to begin. On Monday the eligibility time period for the Grammy Awards of 2010 ends. Today it was announced that Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood will be returning to host the Country Music Association Awards for 2009. On November 11 the CMA show will be airing live on ABC in the East Coast time zone.

Underwood is the current “Entertainer of the Year” at Academy of Country Music Awards, the rival of CMA. She broke the lock Kenny Chesney had held on that category. Underwood has also been recognized as Female Vocalist of the Year all three years running at the CMA. The male title has been owned by Paisley for the past two years. In total Underwood has five CMA trophies and Paisley has eleven.

The public is welcome at the CMAs. On September 19 tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster. The ticket prices start at $110 and max out at $382.50, not including any surcharges. Once again the CMAs will be held in Nashville at Sommet Center. By mid September the 2009 award nominations will be announced. According to a spokesman details still need to finalized before any nomination date is announced.

Although country music does have two major awards that are specifically dedicated to that genre, a bigger Nashville presence is expected to be felt during the full 2009-10 season of music awards. Taylor Swift, the young country star, could end up having the top selling album of 2009 with “Fearless.” She has also become one of MTV’s major players in their newest branding campaign they have launched for their upcoming show, the Video Music Awards.

These days country music stars are making their presence felt on the musical charts. This week the No. 1 album spot is held by Reba McEntire for “Keep On Loving You”; while last week it was “Twang,” by George Strait that held the top spot. This week it’s the No. 2 album. Another factor is that this year the Recording Academy seems to be doing a lot more outreach than they had in past years with their Grammy Award. In Nashville on September 8 the group will be staging “Grammy Salute to Country Music,” their first ever, to honor Vince Gill.

Carrie Underwood, country singer from Oklahoma, has been awarded the American Idol crown for the 4th season’s American Idol talent show on Fox TV.

In addition to being awarded with the title of “American Idol,” Underwood also received a recording contract along with private jet access and a car.

Bice, a rock singer from Alabama, won a car as well. All three previous runner ups on American Idol have all been given record deals also.

All of the top ten finalists from this year’s American Idol, including Underwood, Bice, Nadia Turner, Nikko Smith, Jessica Sierra, Anwar Robinson, Vonzell Solomon, Scott Savol, Constantine Maroulis and Anthony Federov will be hitting the road this summer and play on a U.S. Arena tour of 30 plus cities called “American Idols Live.”

On July 12 the tour will kick off in Florida. It will run through September 10.

A press release issued states that the shows will be featuring both ensemble as well as individual performances along with songs from the compilation album for American Idol called “Showstoppers.”

Previous years winners of American Idol include Kelly Clarkson (2002), Ruben Studdard (2003) and Fantasia Barrino (2004).