Commercial country music is about money. The more money it makes, the more money can be ploughed into stage shows, A&R (finding and developing acts and matching them with the right songs) and promoting the genre around the world. The UK music industry has the BRIT Awards, the USA has the GRAMMY Awards and the country music world has the Country Music Association Awards.
Instead of guessing which act will pick up a trophy on Wednesday night, which is actually a result of many backstage machinations and back-scratching, I will attempt to chart the history of country music via ten-year intervals. Starting in 1973, which was the seventh ceremony, I will see what Nashville was trying to project to country fans as ‘the best’. What did country music sound like in ’73, ’83, ’93, 2003 and 2013 and today, 2023?
1973
Entertainer – Roy Clark Male – Charlie Rich
Female – Loretta Lynn
Song – Behind Closed Doors
Tulsa-born Roy Clark hosted the variety show Hee Haw, so was one of the era’s visible faces of country music. He is one of a few dozen people who became both Opry members and Country Music Hall of Famers. Loretta Lynn is another, although it took Roy until 2009 to be awarded the latter honour.
The song that sums up country in 1973 is a sex jam sung by Charlie Rich in his deep rumble about how his beloved ‘makes me glad that I’m a man’. It was a top 20 hit in the UK the following year, proving that country ballads were also a hit in the working men’s clubs where the showbands played.
1983
Entertainer – Alabama
Male – Lee Greenwood
Female – Janie Fricke
Newcomer – John Anderson
Song – Always On My Mind
Dolly and Kenny took Islands in the Stream to number one in the American pop charts in 1983. It was written by the brothers Gibb, who were Not Of Nashville. Perhaps this is why Nashville opted to turned in on itself in 1983 and for the next 15 or 20 years. This is why Garth Brooks didn’t have a Hot 100 hit until he invented Chris Gaines.
John Anderson’s high lonesome sound was displayed on the Single of the Year (and Song of the Year nominee) Swingin’. It put him in the traditional mould of Alabama, the top country group of the era who are due a full appreciation today and, having played CMA Fest this summer, are also due a UK visit. The latest girl singer off the Music Row production line was Janie Fricke, who was the Chosen One between 1981 and 1986; Dolly was before her, Reba was after her, then Shania, then Faith, then Carrie, then Miranda, and now Lainey. In 2023, though, nobody plays any of Janie’s number ones today. Ditto Lee Greenwood, who had two number ones in 1983 and would release God Bless The USA the following year.
They do play Always on my Mind, though. The Song of the Year was a top five hit for Willie Nelson and won the GRAMMY Song of the Year as well. Some readers may know that it had also won the 1982 award for CMA Song of the Year, which must have irritated a lot of songwriters who were in with a shot in ’83. Indeed, one of the runners-up was Thom Schuyler’s 16th Avenue, a song about songwriters.
Nowadays, you can get nominated for a song written in 1988 (Fast Car), although there is an 80% chance that a seventh woman will take the award home this year. Renee Blair (Wait in the Truck), Megan Moroney (Tennessee Orange), Trannie Anderson and Lainey Wilson (Heart Like a Truck) might well lose out to the reclusive Tracy Chapman herself. I’d bet on Wait in the Truck.
1993
Entertainer & Male – Vince Gill
Female – Mary Chapin Carpenter
Newcomer – Mark Chesnutt
Song – I Still Believe In You
The year of Vince, perhaps to give people a break from Garth and to give another Okie his due. The Song of the Year was another wedding song where our narrator wants ‘the chance to prove’ he can be a good guy, putting the woman on a pedestal. It was Vince’s third Song of the Year in a row, and he had to beat four songs which are still on rotation in 2023: Chattahoochee, Boot Scootin’ Boogie, Seminole Wind and Ain’t That Lonely Yet.
In 1993, Mary Chapin Carpenter was nominated for Song of the Year and also won Female of the Year. Passionate Kisses did gatecrash the Hot 100, peaking at 57, so perhaps name recognition helped her out. Mark Chesnutt was actually nominated for Newcomer in 1991, but he was still new enough to win in the year three of his eight number one songs came out; the eighth was the country version of I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, which you do still hear today.
2003
Entertainer & Male – Alan Jackson
Female – Martina McBride
Newcomer – Joe Nichols
International Artist – Dixie Chicks
Song – Three Wooden Crosses
International Broadcaster – Pat Geary, Johnnie Walker and John Laws (shared)
I note the international broadcaster for two reasons: 1) yes, that is the former pirate DJ and Radio 2 host Johnnie Walker and 2) the Country Music Association had finally woken up to the rest of the world. The same year that the Dixie Chicks were pulled from radio, they won a CMA Award for their ticket sales overseas.
Randy Travis took Song of the Year with the tale of the dead farmer, teacher and preacher (and the surviving fourth victim of the crash). I reckon Brad Paisley didn’t even both preparing a speech in case Celebrity won, although the Darryl Worley song Have You Forgotten would have been an equally worthy winner in a post-9/11 world.
Hot, sexy Joe Nichols was enjoying radio success with Brokenheartsville throughout 2003 and he kept having hits for another decade. Martina McBride won the third of four Female prizes, beating Dolly Parton and Patty Loveless, both of whom are now in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Alan Jackson has been a Hall of Famer since 2017, befitting his status as a man who looked back while pushing forward, although he still holds a grudge against the UK. Come back Alan, all is forgiven! After his stream of consciousness Where Were You took Song of the Year in 2002 when he also won Entertainer for the second time, Alan went to Jimmy Buffett for help with one of the finest songs about nothing ever written. It was inevitable that Mr 5 O’Clock Somewhere would take the top prize, beating a great field that included Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Brooks & Dunn. Toby Keith too, but that wouldn’t have been good for the brand given his antagonism towards the Dixie Chicks.
Thanks to his gargantuan ticket sales, Chesney would win Entertainer of the Year in four of the next five years.
2013
Entertainer – George Strait
Male – Blake Shelton
Female – Miranda Lambert
Newcomer – Kacey Musgraves
International Artist – Taylor Swift
Song – I Drive Your Truck
International Broadcaster – Bob Harris
The same year that Taylor Swift had a Hot 100 number one from her pop album Red, she won a CMA Award for her ticket sales overseas. She had won Entertainer in 2009 and 2011 and, rather awkwardly, remains the last woman to win the award despite Carrie Underwood being nominated five times. If you want an easy win, bet on Carrie to make it sixth time lucky this week thanks to her Vegas residency. I am sure Combs and Wallen will win elsewhere, and it’ll be good PR for the CMA to give it to Carrie, who hosted the ceremony for so many years.
Blake and Miranda were selling magazines and having hits, and Miranda won her fourth of seven Female Vocalist awards in 2013; two years later their marriage ended. George Strait came back with a bang and it looked good for country music to reward him with the big prize the year he officially retired (until he un-retired). Nominated 19 times for the Entertainer award, he had only won twice (1989 and 1990) and this might have been the CMA’s last chance to chuck him the award.
I Drive Your Truck, one of the most uplifting songs in all of country music, beat two fluffy songs (Pontoon and Wagon Wheel) and two songs written by Kacey Musgraves, Merry Go Round and Mama’s Broken Heart. Perhaps as a sop to her, as well as rewarding her brilliant debut album, Kacey won the Newcomer prize. Her biggest UK fan took International Broadcaster, coincidentally the same year that he was MC for the first Country2Country.
Conclusions
What conclusions can we draw from all this? Good taste, for one: not one act didn’t deserve their award. In every year ending in a 3, the Song of the Year has been a ballad; indeed, so are all five nominees for the 2023 award. (Humorously, two of them are about trucks and one is about a fast car.) The Newcomer isn’t necessarily brand new; indeed, of this year’s quintet only Megan Moroney can call herself that. (Put money on Jelly Roll, who has moved across to country after a decade in the rap sphere, although it would be the story of the year if Zach Bryan, a man who said he doesn’t want to be considered for a CMA Award, takes the prize.)
The Entertainer of the Year is a live act award, while International Act is a sort of ambassadorial one; thanks to their UK shows Combs, Wallen and Kip Moore are in with a shot for the latter one this year. And good luck to Ricky Ross, who is up for International Broadcaster and won it in 2014.
Using these five years ending in a 3 as a sample, I think the CMA Awards are about country music showing its face to the world, whether to celebrate traditional values like having fiddles in the band (Alabama) or putting on a terrific live show with a crack band (Alan Jackson). In some cases, they seem to reward crossover success (Mary Chapin Carpenter, Taylor Swift) or a song that is better than any of this year’s crop (Always On My Mind). In the case of Vince Gill, it must be because you are Vince Gill, the pilot light of Nashville and unofficial Mayor of Music City.
Bill Anderson won’t be around forever and the CMA realised early on that they had a man who could be their fella, their totem pole. Vince, lest we forget, travelled to the UK to play in that first Country2Country festival. The headliner on the Sunday that year? Carrie Underwood.
Give her the damn prize.
The 2023 Country Music Association Awards take place on Wednesday evening and a digest of them airs at 9pm on Thursday night on BBC Radio 2. Highlights of this year’s CMA Fest are available on BBC Sounds now.
A Country Way of Life 