NASHVILLE, TN (Lyric Street Records) - American
Music Award's Favorite Group of The Year as well as winner of the T-Mobile Text-In Award as Favorite Artist of the Year
Rascal Flatts has seen hundreds of thousands of fans flock to their concerts in the past few years, wrapping last year's tour with 750,000 fans. Now, at the close of their 'Me And My Gang Tour 2006,' which ended November 3 in Albany , New York , the band has established a new career record with over ONE MILLION fans in attendance in 2006. Gary, Jay and Joe Don played 74 cities to 1,032,332 fans. A total of 61 of those dates were sold out with multiple venue attendance records broken.
In addition, it has been a record award winning year as the band stacked up wins on the 2006 AMA, CMA, ACM and CMT Awards as Vocal Group of the Year. And just out today, Rascal Flatts, along with Mary J. Blige, Nickelback and T.I., lead the nominations for the Billboard Music Awards, Dec. 4, with 5 nods: Artist of the Year, Duo/Group of the Year, Country Artist of the Year, Duo/Group Country Artist of the Year and Country Album of the Year The group also receives a total of 3 nominations at the People 's Choice Awards on Jan. 9, 2007- Favorite Country Song category for 'What Hurts The Most' previously announced as well as 2 additional nods for 'Life Is A Highway' as Favorite Song from a Movie and Favorite Song Remake (go to www.pcavote.com).
The band also has the distinction of completing 2006 with the biggest unit sales debut by selling 722,000 copies of Me And My Gang upon its release in April, besting this weeks album debut of Jay Z with sales of 680,000 and earlier this year the debut of Justin Timberlake's record with sales of 684,000. Me And My Gang has gone on to sell over 3 million copies and spent 13 weeks at No 1 on the 75 Country Albums Chart with 3 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Top 200 Album Sales Chart. Rascal Flatts Me And My Gang is the best selling artist album year to date in all genres. In 2005, Rascal Flatts also closed out the year with the best selling country album with Feels Like Today.
In more award show news, on December 7 Rascal Flatts will participate in the nominations announcement press conference for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, to be held Feb. 11, 2007.
