The 55th Annual CMA Awards take place on Wednesday, November 10th, and UMG Nashville will be represented in many of the night’s categories, including Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist, Album, Group, Duo, Single, Song, Musical Event and New Artist.
With 30 CMA Awards nominations already under his belt, reigning Entertainer of the Year Eric Church scores five additional nominations this year, bringing his total to 35 nominations and four previous wins. In addition to a nod in the Entertainer of the Year category again this year, he claims his eighth nomination in the Male Vocalist of the Year category and fifth nomination in the Album (Heart), Single (“Hell Of A View”) and Song of the Year (“Hell Of A View”) categories. Heart was produced by Joyce and mixed by Hall and Joyce. “Hell Of A View” was written by Casey Beathard, Church and Monty Criswell, and was also produced by Joyce and mixed by Hall and Joyce.
Bringing his total nominations to 26, Chris Stapleton adds five CMA Awards nominations to his previous 21 in five categories – Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year(Starting Over), Single of the Year (“Starting Over”) and Song of the Year (“Starting Over”), including producer credits in both the Album and Single categories. This brings his total nominations in the Entertainer category to five and tallies his seventh nomination in the Male Vocalist category, which he’s won four times. Starting Over was produced by Dave Cobb and Stapleton and mixed by Vance Powell. “Starting Over” was written by Mike Henderson and Stapleton, produced by Cobb and Stapleton and mixed by Powell. Stapleton is a 10-time CMA Awards winner.
Brothers Osborne scores three CMA nominations. The pair return to this year’s ballot in the Vocal Duo of the Year category for the seventh consecutive year – a trophy they’ve claimed three times. This marks the brothers’ first nomination in the Album of the Year category, a nod they receive for Skeletons, while they collect their third nomination in the Music Video of the Year category for “Younger Me.” The “Younger Me” video was directed by Reid Long. Skeletons was produced by Joyce and mixed by Hall and Joyce.
Dierks Bentley gets a pair of nods as Male Vocalist of the Year and Music Video of the Year for “Gone.”
Carrie Underwood returns to the Entertainer of the Year category, while Little Big Town is nominated for Group of the Year. Maddie and Tae are nominated in the Duo of the Year category.
— Maddie & Tae (@MaddieandTae) September 9, 2021
Jordan Davis scores his very first CMA nomination in the Musical Event category for “Buy Dirt” featuring Luke Bryan.
Thanks to everyone who voted for this song…and a big thanks to my buddy @lukebryan for hopping on this with me. This song means a lot to me and its a huge honor to see it nominated #CMAawards @CountryMusic pic.twitter.com/6kTaN6fPTS
— Jordan Davis Music (@JordanCWDavis) September 9, 2021
Mickey Guyton also scores her first CMA nod in the New Artist of the Year category.
Can’t believe this is real 🤍🤍🤍 #CMAawards https://t.co/Ywz0tp1RX1
— Mickey Guyton (@MickeyGuyton) September 9, 2021
The 55th Annual CMA Awards will be broadcast live on Wednesday (November 10th) at 8pm ET on ABC.
NOMINATIONS:
ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR
- Eric Church
- Luke Combs
- Miranda Lambert
- Chris Stapleton
- Carrie Underwood
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Award goes to Artist and Producer(s)
- 29 – Carly Pearce
Producers: Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne and Jimmy Robbins
Mix Engineer: Ryan Gore - Dangerous: The Double Album – Morgan Wallen
Producers: Dave Cohen, Matt Dragstrem, Jacob Durrett, Charlie Handsome and Joey Moi
Mix Engineer: Joey Moi - Heart – Eric Church
Producer: Jay Joyce
Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce - Skeletons – Brothers Osborne
Producer: Jay Joyce
Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce - Starting Over – Chris Stapleton
Producers: Dave Cobb, Chris Stapleton
Mix Engineer: Vance Powell
FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
- Gabby Barrett
- Miranda Lambert
- Ashley McBryde
- Maren Morris
- Carly Pearce
MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
- Dierks Bentley
- Eric Church
- Luke Combs
- Thomas Rhett
- Chris Stapleton
VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR
- Lady A
- Little Big Town
- Midland
- Old Dominion
- Zac Brown Band
VOCAL DUO OF THE YEAR
- Brooks & Dunn
- Brothers Osborne
- Dan + Shay
- Florida Georgia Line
- Maddie & Tae
SINGLE OF THE YEAR
Award goes to Artist(s), Producer(s) and Mix Engineer
- “Famous Friends” – Chris Young with Kane Brown
Producers: Corey Crowder, Chris Young
Mix Engineer: Sean Moffitt - “The Good Ones” – Gabby Barrett
Producers: Ross Copperman, Zach Kale
Mix Engineers: Chris Galland, Manny Marroquin - “Hell Of A View” – Eric Church
Producer: Jay Joyce
Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce - “One Night Standards” – Ashley McBryde
Producer: Jay Joyce
Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce - “Starting Over” – Chris Stapleton
Producers: Dave Cobb, Chris Stapleton
Mix Engineer: Vance Powell
SONG OF THE YEAR
Award goes to Songwriters
- “Forever After All”
Songwriters: Luke Combs, Drew Parker, Robert Williford - “The Good Ones”
Songwriters: Gabby Barrett, Zach Kale, Emily Landis, Jim McCormick - “Hell Of A View”
Songwriters: Casey Beathard, Eric Church, Monty Criswell - “One Night Standards”
Songwriters: Nicolette Hayford, Shane McAnally, Ashley McBryde - “Starting Over”
Songwriters: Mike Henderson, Chris Stapleton
MUSICAL EVENT OF THE YEAR
Award goes to Artists and Producer(s)
- “Buy Dirt” – Jordan Davis and Luke Bryan
Producer: Paul DiGiovanni - “Chasing After You” – Ryan Hurd with Maren Morris
Producers: Aaron Eshuis, Teddy Reimer - “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)” – Elle King & Miranda Lambert
Producer: Martin Johnson - “Famous Friends” – Chris Young with Kane Brown
Producers: Corey Crowder, Chris Young - “half of my hometown” – Kelsea Ballerini (featuring Kenny Chesney)
Producers: Kelsea Ballerini, Ross Copperman, Jimmy Robbins
MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR
Award goes to Artist(s) and Director
- “Chasing After You” – Ryan Hurd with Maren Morris
Director: TK McKamy - “Famous Friends” – Chris Young with Kane Brown
Director: Peter Zavadil - “Gone” – Dierks Bentley
Directors: Wes Edwards, Travis Nicholson, Ed Pryor, Running Bear, Sam Siske - “half of my hometown” – Kelsea Ballerini (featuring Kenny Chesney)
Director: Patrick Tracy - “Younger Me” – Brothers Osborne
Director: Reid Long
NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR
- Jimmie Allen
- Ingrid Andress
- Gabby Barrett
- Mickey Guyton
- HARDY
MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR
- Jenee Fleenor, Fiddle
- Paul Franklin, Steel Guitar
- Aaron Sterling, Drums
- Ilya Toshinskiy, Banjo
- Derek Wells, Guitar
Audio / Chris Stapleton, who is up for two awards at Wednesday night’s CMA Awards, including Male Vocalist and Music Video of the Year, says he’s always grateful for the moment of recognition.
DownloadChris Stapleton (grateful for awards) OC: …grateful for the moment. :30
“Well I’ll take ’em home with me I guess once they send ’em Yeah I guess you have to at some point, but it still is a very… I’m thankful for it and it’s very nice and there’s a lot of great people doing a lot of great things making a lot of great music and working really hard and so when you get this kind of a thing going, I don’t think anybody deserves it. It’s a lot of luck and a lot of stars lining up so, I’m grateful for the moment.”
Audio / Eric Church talks about writing his CMA-nominated Hell of a View.
DownloadEric Church (writing HOAV) OC: …biggest ones. 1:11
“Writing ‘Hell of a View,’ we were in North Carolina. We were in the mountains, and actually that song, I’d went out for a jog one day. We had a pretty good weather day and Casey Beatherd, one of the writers on the song, had been with Monty Criswell earlier. They had kind of worked on some of the song and hadn’t played it for me yet. I went out to jog and I came back in, and Casey was kind of standing up looking out the window and I can tell he’s playing. And when I opened the door, he looked up at me and he said, ‘Don’t say anything. You’ve got to hear this. This is really good.’ He immediately started playing the first part of the song. [One] verse or so, I was hooked. I was in. I loved the way he had the line, ‘caught your wings on fire/when I smoked my Bronco tires out of town,’ and I just thought that was such a great line, and I was smitten with it at that point of time. So, we finished it that night, later that day/night and then recorded it, and it came out great. I knew it was pretty special when it went down. It was always a song that I knew was a big hit, but at the same time it has that timeless quality to it and it’s gonna be one of our biggest ones.”
Audio / BROTHERS OSBORNE’S JOHN OSBORNE EXPLAINS WHY THE DUO MADE THE ALBUM, SKELETONS.
DownloadBrothers Osborne (how Skeletons was made) OC: …came about. 1:02
“Skeletons is a record that was essentially brought on because we wanted to play more new songs live. So going into this record T.J. and I decided let’s make a record that no matter what song we just cherry pick out of the record we can do it during our show. And that is how we decided the songs that we ended up on the record. And we started with just like every other artist, 30, 40 plus songs. We started whittling them down, ‘well we might be able to play that. I don’t know if we would be able to play that.’ And that’s how we ended up with Skeletons. And it was really birthed from just playing live shows. One of the cool things about this record is that this is the first record where our entire band is playing on it. Previous records our drummer Adam and our bass player Pete they were playing, but this one has our other guitar player Jason and our keys player Billy Justin now. And it made a huge difference because for the first time we all got in the studio after playing hundreds of shows together, we put the headphones on and started playing and it was like oh it’s just the guys. We’re jamming with the dudes. And that’s how the record came about.”
Audio / JORDAN DAVIS EXPLAINS HOW LUKE BRYAN ENDED UP ON HIS SONG, “BUY DIRT.”
DownloadJordan Davis (Luke Bryan on Buy Dirt) OC: …my songs now. 1:13
“I met Luke three or four years ago at an awards show after party, and got to hang with him, but I really kind of got to sit and talk with him after a round of golf one day, and we just really talked about everything under the sun aside from music. Luke kind of embodies what that song is. You know a lot of people get to see Luke on American Idol or on stage, but Luke Bryan really is a great guy. I sent him a message one day, a text message actually attached with the song, and I was like, ‘Hey Luke, I wrote this. It means a lot to me. You came to mind whenever I was thinking about it, through the writing process, and this song just kind of says what you’re about, and if you want to sing on it, great, no pressure. Don’t even feel the need to text me back or whatever. Just listen to it and let me know.’ And he got right back with me. He’s like, ‘Man I love the song. Let me live with it for a couple of days.’ And he called me back four or five days later and was like, ‘When do you want me singing on this thing?’ That was a pretty cool moment. I’m such a big fan of Luke, and he’s been a huge influence on me since I moved to Nashville, and pretty cool to have him on one of my songs now.”
