Last night’s Country Music Association Awards may have been dominated by awkward jokes about the split between stars Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton, and Lambert did accept a record sixth consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year award.
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Star Trek and Star Wars meet country music Carrie Underwood dressing up as “Princess Carrie Fisher” and Paisley as “Guitar Solo” for a Star Wars-themed opening sketch. Superstar Luke Bryan picked up the biggest prize for entertainer of the year with a gracious speech that gave a shout-out to Stapleton, who co-wrote one of his recent hit songs, “Drink a Beer”.
Stapleton teamed up with pop-singer Justin Timberlake to deliver an awe-inspiring performance of George Jones’ “Tennessee Whiskey” and and bluesy version of Timberlake’s “Drink You Away” (watch below). Little Big Town, who also earned applause for their performance of “Girl Crush”, won the first award of the live telecast for single of the year for their No. 1 hit.
Other country artists took to their social media accounts to praise their fellow musician and congratulate him on his incredible achievements. However, Stapleton swept the night and won all three of the categories he was nominated for.
Lambert and Shelton announced they were divorced in July, and hours before the CMAs aired, Shelton and Gwen Stefani confirmed they were a couple. That is because this past May Little Big Town performed it at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards alongside Faith Hill. “I called him up with no thought of him agreeing to it and he was ready to start planning it right then”, said Stapleton. “I’m going to go home and practice”.
“All of them were a surprise”, Stapleton, a popular songwriter, said of his nominations.
At the end of Wednesday night’s (Nov. 4) CMA Awards, the entertainer of the year – Luke Bryan – came backstage to talk about, well, everyone but himself.
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From looking around at other blogs and predictions, Sam Hunt seemed to be the favorite for Best New Artist, while anybody other than Stapleton was predicted to win Male Vocalist of the Year. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images) Singer-songwriter Eric Church performs onstage at the 49th annual CMA Awards and also wins Event of the Year: Raise ‘Em Up with Keith Urban.
