Another year of the Country Music Awards has come and gone and as we relive the moments today, the one that stands out involves the clear victor at the CMAs: Chris Stapleton.
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The night will also include more paired performances, including Thomas Rhett with Fall Out Boy and Justin Timberlake with Chris Stapleton, who is nominated for album, male vocalist and new artist of the year. Stapleton had a banner night at the CMAs, taking home the prizes for Best New Artist, Male Vocalist and Best Album of the Year.
Stapleton, 37, may be a new solo artist, but he’s been a presence in Nashville for a while. “This is an unbelievable thing to me, and I’m not going to take it lightly”, he told the audience while accepting his final award of the night.
The divorce of country-music heavyweights Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton was the elephant in the room of the awards show.
“And of course we can’t ignore the breakup that rocked our world”, Underwood said, as the camera panned to Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.
Even other winners, the likes of Luke Bryan, gave credit to Stapleton when he accepted his award for Entertainment of the Year.
As anticipated, Paisley and Underwood also poked fun at Shelton and Lambert’s divorce – albeit in a sneaky way.
Vocal Group of the Year winners Phillip Sweet, Karen Fairchild, Jimi Westbrook and Kimberly Schlapman, of Little Big Town win Vocal Group of the Year, Song of the Year (Girl Crush) and Single of the Year (Girl Crush).
$20 tickets to the country musician’s Wonder show on November 12 are sold out, but at the time of this writing, the reseller StubHub has 32 left for six times the price. Liz Rose, who wrote the song with Lori McKenna and Hillary Lindsey, says she was thrilled Little Big Town loved the song because she didn’t think anyone would record it. “Girl” had previously met with controversy over lyrics that a few interpreted as discussing LGBT topics and a few country music radio stations refused to play the song. It was him who introduced Stapleton to outlaw country and classic R&, and was the inspiration to his album “Traveller”.
While awards shows (and TV viewership in general) typically peak during the 9-10PM hour, the middle hour of this year’s show faced competition from FOX’s “Empire”. Also appearing in the montage were Little Big Town, Darius Rucker and Bryan.
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In keeping with their tradition, Carrie and Brad sang a song to kick off the show.
