Carrie Underwood Captures Five Billboard Music Awards, Including Album of the Year!

Nashville, TN (Arista Nashville) -– It's been a spectacular and, to say the least, busy couple of days for country darling Carrie Underwood, who wrapped her performance at Sunday's Kennedy Center Honors with a trip to Las Vegas for last night's 2006 Billboard Music Awards, where the recently crowned CMA Female Vocalist of the Year took home five awards, including Female Country Artist and New Country Artist of the Year. Underwood also claimed Album of the Year and Country Album of the Year honors for her 19 Recordings/Arista Nashville debut disc, Some Hearts. Now Quadruple-Platinum, the success of Some Hearts also helped propel Carrie to a fifth award, that of Female Billboard 200 Artist of the Year.

The awards recognize what has truly been an amazing 2006 for the former American Idol winner, whose hits logged a combined, record-breaking 11 weeks atop Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart – the longest that any solo female artist has spent at No 1 in a calendar year in the 62-year history of the Billboard country singles chart.

Over the weekend, Carrie enjoyed a distinction of another kind, performing at Sunday's Kennedy Center Honors in Washington , D.C. , where she joined Kenny Rogers for a duet of ' Islands in the Stream' in tribute to honoree Dolly Parton. And for Carrie, an occasion as grand as this, and amid an audience of celebrities and Washington elite, was something the young woman from Checotah , OK, couldn't help but share with her mom. Attending a White House pre-show reception for performers and honorees, Carrie and mom Carole Underwood found an informal host in the ever-gracious Vince Gill, who escorted them through the party. Two-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks provided a particularly sweet moment for Carole as he came over to introduce himself and his wife to the Underwoods, speaking very humbly and kindly to Carrie as if she, rather than he, were the longtime star that everyone would know. Afterward, Carole looked to her daughter and said, 'Well, how about that?' in a moment that spoke to the whirlwind of Idol and beyond that was enough to make a proud mom get a little misty.
Fans can tune in to see The 29th Annual Kennedy Center Honors, airing December 26 on CBS Television.