The 2024 CMA Awards are in the books.
The big show, held on November 20 at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, was hosted by Luke Bryan, Peyton Manning and Lainey Wilson. (Why Manning? The retired NFL quarterback, who has been co-host since 2022, talked about it here.)
Wilson also entered the winner’s circle and was crowned Female Vocalist of the Year. Other big winners included Chris Stapleton (including Male Vocalist of the Year) and Megan Moroney (New Artist of the Year). Morgan Wallen won Entertainer of the Year but didn’t show up, leaving host Jeff Bridges to awkwardly fill some airtime.
The hosts were Luke Bryan, Lainey Wilson and Peyton Manning. (Astrida Valigorsky/WireImage)
Country legend George Strait won the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award and there was a star-studded tribute to the singer’s discography “All My Ex’s Live In Texas.” He gave his wife of 53 years, Norma, a sweet shout out in his speech.
Kacey Musgraves wasn’t an award winner, but she was on the red carpet.
Here are a few highlights from the country music celebration:
Carrie Underwood was a surprise performer — with Album of the Year winner Cody Johnson (Learn) – and fans seem happy to see her back. She previously hosted the awards show 12 times, most recently in 2019. Underwood and Johnson performed “I’m Gonna Love You,” their collaboration released in September.
Musgraves gave a beautiful performance of ‘The Architect’, from her album Deeper Well, for which she was nominated for Album of the Year. She has said that she wrote the song, along with Shane McAnally and Josh Osbourne, in Nashville “a few weeks after the crazy Covenant School Shooting that happened there, and the community was reeling and it felt so strange and scary… .It led to this very real conversation about life and how confusing it is that there is so much suffering,” which you feel in the words as she sang.
Strait’s tribute featured the best in the business, including Miranda Lambert, Jamey Johnson, Parker McCollum, Wilson and more. But the crowd was thrilled when the star himself took the stage with Stapleton for their “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame,” which took a moment.
Speaking of tributes, they were solo cups for Toby Keith, who died in February.
And Ashley McBryde’s ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ by Kris Kristofferson was another one.
Finally, Jelly Roll was part of two of the best performances of the night. He and Keith Urban sang about addiction with “Liar,” while he played his guitar.
The other was his emotional performance at Brooks & Dunn for their song “Believe.”
