Tomorrow night will be one of the biggest nights in country music, and this year the CMA Awards is going to be extra special as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of the awards. It’s sure to be a program any and all country music fans will want to tune into ABC TV to watch.
All with all the special moments and amazing stars that will make the night special, the night will truly unforgettable for the nominees, like Maren Morris, Old Dominion, Cam, Chris Young, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood.
The leading female nominee Maren Morris racks up 5 nominations in the categories of Female Vocalist Of The Year, Album Of The Year (HERO), Single Of The Year (“My Church”), Song Of The Year (“My Church”), and New Artist.
Maren Morris talks about her song “My Church” (:35)
“My song ‘My Church’ has, I mean where do I even begin, it’s just, it’s changed my life in so many ways because you know I’m a new artist getting to hear their song on the radio. I’m getting to see the reaction of the audience when I start that first chord of it, and you know, it’s given me a job basically, it’s given me a career, and a platform, and I feel like I’ve gotten to reach so many more people because of the emotional resonance of that song, and so it’s changed my life in so many ways.”
Maren Morris talks about growing as an artist, and the sounds that influenced her album, Hero. (:30)
“One of my favorite things to do is just be in the studio. I think the last few years, just being a songwriter and being in studios to do demos I have learned a lot from the best players in town just, you know, the sounds that I love over the last few years, and also just being a music lover myself I definitely was inspired by a lot of like classic rock, and country, and R&B sounds. We tried to find a happy medium to weave all of these different influences.”
Maren Morris shares what she would say to someone if they are about to listen to her album Hero for the first time. (:40)
“If I’m handing my music to someone is never heard me before, I would just say…I’ve put every part of me into this album. I’ve written every song, I co-produced it, it really is everything about me. Genre wise you really can’t lock anything down on this album, it’s cohesive but it’s also all over the place, and it’s just a diverse piece of art, and I feel like there really is something for everyone on it. So, if you love country, if you love pop, if you love soul, you will enjoy this record I hope.”
Cam has nominations for Song Of The Year (“Burning House”), and Video Of The Year (“Burning House”).
Cam says that “Burning House” is an emotional song for her to sing. (:41)
“This song is definitely one of the songs in the set that will adjust my mood, as I’m singing it. It makes me very sad to sing this song, ’cause vocals are such an emotional thing. It’s very hard to get through singing it as you’re recording it, and then when I was finished, I actually sent it to the guy who it’s about, and he (laughs) joked, he said, ‘Oh, so I die in the song?’ (laughs) He was, like, less than pleased that he died in the song. But also, it’s just such a weird thing to show someone a song about them and about us and what happened. So that part, that also adds to the heaviness of it.”
Cam couldn’t believe a song that she had a dream about became a video for everyone to see. (:59)
“I think the scariest thing was, I felt like I needed to act, and I’m I’m not an actress. This is the other thing that’s like so funny, all you want to do is sit in a studio and make music all day, and all of a sudden your expected to be like fashionable, and an actress, and all these other things that don’t really relate. But, so I was really nervous, and the night before actually was the worst of it, and I went over to the director’s house Trey Fanjoy, and she was so sweet. She said “yeah, come on over,” and she had her little handheld camera, and we practiced like emotions that my face should make. (laugh) Then the next day we got there, and there’s just a crew, and there’s a fire truck, and there’s a house that’s about to get burned down, and there’s trailers, and everybody’s there because I had this dream, and wrote the song. And it’s kind of overwhelming that something I dreamt now everyone is about to see. Not only hear about but visually everyone’s about to see like literally what I dreamt which is really insane”
Cam talks about being on the set of her “Burning House” video. (:18)
“There’s flame bars that are kind of gas, and then there’s…you can rub kind of like a glue a rubber cement and you light that, and that’ll go on fire for like 20 seconds. So, in the beginning everyone talked about the safety precautions and where to get out if it’s too hot. And there was only one time I had to yell ‘too hot!’ and everyone kind of grabbed me and got me out.”
Miranda Lambert has a nomination in the Female Vocalist Of The Year category.
Miranda Lambert says that life experience makes you a better artist. (:22)
“I think I know myself way better than I did 10 years ago. But I think in 10 years, I’ll say, ‘Gosh, I know know myself way better than I did 10 years ago!’ You know? You just learn so much about who you are, and life experience does that for you. But the unknown is also what makes for good stories and songwriting and for more experiences to come that teach you lessons.”
Old Dominion notched two nominations in the Vocal Group Of The Year, and New Artist.
Even with all the success, Matthew from Old Dominion says that at the heart of it, the band is just about 5 friends getting to play music together. (:21)
“We’re five friends that have known each other for a long time. Some of us grew up together, went to college together, and just kind of naturally formed a band, just from playin’ our songs out in Nashville and playin’ around the country in a van, and been a band for about eight years now. So, it’s been really fun to be on the road with your friends and experience what we’re experiencing right now.”
Chris Young along with Cassadee Pope are nominated in the Musical Event Of The Year category for their number-one hit “Think Of You.”
Chris Young talks about having a true male/female duet on one of his albums, and knowing that Cassadee Pope is the perfect choice to join him on “Think Of You.” (:36)
“I never on one of my records done a duet before, like a true duet, a male female duet. I was playing an acoustic show with Cassadee Pope and the minute she opened her mouth, like I knew she was a great singer but it just hadn’t clicked at that point, and we were right in the beginning stages of going ‘who do we get to do this’ and I turned left and I was like ‘I’m asking her right when I get off this stage. She’s awesome.’ I’m so glad she said yes to come do that because that was my first choice, and I’ve been into it since the day we wrote it and having her voice on there, having Cassidy Pope on that song just really completes it.”
Chris Young says that he’d never sung with Cassadee Pope before they recorded their duet, “Think of You.” (:24)
“I think the one thing that was really cool is we actually cut this in the studio, together. Really, the best part about it was we’d never sung anything together before she showed up. Like, I sent her the song, said, ‘Do you like the song?’ She goes, ‘Yes!’ ‘I love the song,’ it was like, ‘I’d love for you to be on it.’ She said, ‘Okay,’ came in, and we had no idea if our voices were gonna really blend together well or not — and luckily they did, and it’s one of my favorite tracks on the record.”
Carrie Underwood will not only have co-hosting duties with Brad Paisley for the 9th consecutive year at tomorrow night’s CMA Awards, but she’ll also be a multiple nominee, as she is up for Female Vocalist Of The Year, Musical Event Of The Year with Keith Urban for their song “The Fighter,” Album Of The Year (Storyteller), and Entertainer Of The Year.
Carrie Underwood talks about coming up with the name for her album, Storyteller. (:42)
“Well, I was having a hard time finding like some thread that really went through the entire album like I feel like things sound sound like they belong together, but I mean naming an album is hard. I was like what are the common themes? So, I started writing down, and I kinda noticed that either things were my story, you know very personal things, or we were literally like telling stories with made up characters and you had to listen to the end find out what happened to them. It’s kinda like as soon as I said out loud ‘Storyteller,’ everybody was like ‘oh my gosh, yeah that’s it.’”
Carrie Underwood talks about picking songs, and the fans reacting to her music. (:24)
“I feel like I have a good instinct on what I want to sing and what I want to say, and it’s just such a wonderful experience, and I’m so glad that people have responded to it like they have. And when somebody comes up to me and tells me some story about a song that I not only sang, but I was a writer on, it just makes it that much more powerful and that much more important and special to me.”
Tune in tomorrow night to The 50th Annual CMA Awards on ABC coming to you live from Nashville, Tennessee.