Looking for a New Garth or Shania

With six nominations apiece, Brooks & Dunn and Toby Keith will have the eyes of the public on them at Wednesday’s Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony. But many in the country music industry will be watching what happens with lower-profile nominees.

One big question is how much of a boost emerging artists may get from the show, which will take place at Universal Amphitheatre, at a time when Nashville is having trouble getting new acts into the upper reaches of the country chart, or keeping them there if they do make it.

Giving newer artists a career boost also is a goal of Tuesday’s Sizzlin’ Country concert, an annual fund-raiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation held at Warner Bros. in Burbank. The lineup this year includes such freshman and sophomore performers as Jamie O’Neal, Trick Pony, Cyndi Thompson, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Blake Shelton, Tammy Cochran and Trace Adkins.

“With the younger acts, we haven’t seen an explosion in sales yet, but there is an optimistic feeling,” says Ron Baird, president of the Country Music Assn., the Nashville counterpart to the L.A.-based Academy of Country Music. “This week there are seven acts in the Top 50 in [the Radio & Records trade journal] that have never been on the charts before, which is a very healthy sign for the industry.”

How to groom a new crop of stars has been the source of considerable hand-wringing in Nashville in recent years.

Most of the multiple nominees in this year’s ACM Awards, from Keith, Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks to Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt and Tim McGraw, are established acts with numerous albums under their belts. Still, there are nominations for newer-generation acts, including Johnson, Cochran, Shelton, Trick Pony, Chris Cagle and Phil Vassar, and they could see sales spike if they win in front of CBS’ national audience (the three-hour telecast starts at 8 p.m.).