Country music on a comeback with holiday sales surge

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- With help from Oklahomans Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Toby Keith and Ronnie Dunn country music sales are starting to rebound.<br/><br/>As of December eleventh

Friday, December 23rd 2005, 6:09 am

By: News On 6

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- With help from Oklahomans Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Toby Keith and Ronnie Dunn country music sales are starting to rebound.

As of December eleventh country music had sold just more than 64-million units. That's down 3 percent from the same time last year but much better than just a few months ago when sales were off by 10 percent.

Record labels often have their biggest releases during the end of the year and the holidays account for 30 percent or more of the entire year's sales.

Albums by Underwood, Brooks and McEntire are among those released during the holidays this year. Recent albums by Keith and the duo Brooks and Dunn also sold well even though they didn't match previous releases.