SONY MUSIC NASHVILLE: Commentary from some of Sony’s 2020 ACM Winners (Video and Audio)
Video and Audio Content courtesy of the ACM Awards and Zack Massey
LUKE COMBS
LC: Country radio, Luke Combs here. I’m in the basement of The Bluebird, Covid safe. Got my distance from everyone. I know it’s been a weird year and we haven’t been able to do the shows but tonight was really incredible for me and a huge milestone for my team and everybody that I work with and without you guys playing the songs, none of that is possible. You guys know how much I love you and know how much my team appreciates everything that you do so thank you guys. I look forward to continue working with you and I can’t wait to have a beer with you at a show real soon.
LC: Yeah, absolutely. The first time that I was ever here was actually, they do a benefit for the entire month of January and me and one of the members of my band, Rob Williford came and we got the last two tickets and it was to see Jesse Alexander and Tom Douglas and Chris Stapleton and Dan Wilson here in the round. We sat there and watched and I remember thinking to myself “Man, we should probably move home because we are totally not these people.” A couple years later I was playing in the round here with Randy Montana and Jonathan Singleton and myself and one of my best friends Ray Fulcher and so to be here tonight and to get to play live for everybody and take a couple of awards home has been a really full circle moment. Just really unbelievable. I believe I played “Even Though I’m Leaving” that night, which at the time was a completely unreleased song that was also a pretty cool full circle moment as well.
LC: I constantly think about how lucky I am and how grateful I am to be in the situation that I am and to get married this year was a really amazing, amazing bright spot in my life, as well as 2020 which has been a really strange year and to have tonight on top of it and to be with a really small concise group of people that I love and people that I enjoy being around has just been amazing. I could have never imagined taking two awards home tonight and I’m just thankful for my team and for my wife and for my family and for the fans. I’m just grateful to be the guy standing here talking to you. That’s all.
LC: Yeah. Performing tonight felt really good. It’s the first time I’ve performed outside of my garage in 6 or 7 months so that was really nice. The tour bus has been parked outside of my house since March and it’s been weird seeing it sit there so to be able to come in town today and play at The Bluebird and things were different than they usually are. It was way different than playing a big arena show but just being able to play and even be with one guy that’s in my band and play some music and get to win some trophies has been really great. You know anybody that’s trying to do a wedding in this crazy year, I would say just go for it. Whether it’s just you and your wife or your husband or whoever that significant other may be just do it for you guys and enjoy it and have fun. Whether you want your parents there or you want nobody there, just do it man, it’s about you guys. Just have fun, just do it and just enjoy each other’s company and get it done.
LC: Yeah, it means a lot you know. This has been a bucket list thing for me. I remember seeing a couple of my heroes win this award and just thinking to myself “Man, if I could put that kind of work in and achieve those kind of things, that could be a dream come true”. It’s a team effort. My producer Scott Moffatt, he pushes me real hard man and at times we have had a contentious relationship but it paid off tonight. The work is worth it and sometimes I think I go in with a maybe a little bit of.. I feel like I’m great at what I do and sometimes I feel like what I do is good enough and he was able, for this album, to push me in the direction that I needed to go. And to my cowriters that pushed me in the writing room and never let me settle for something, thank you to you guys. This is just a huge team effort. I’m just the guy that stood behind the mic and helped write these songs. Without my team and my family and my wife, none of this is possible so I’m just thankful to be a huge part of that.
LC: No she’s heard that one. I wrote that in Boone, NC where I went to college. I usually do a little writing retreat up there every year and we wrote that probably a year and a half ago in Seven Devils, NC. Super, super small place. My wife was there with me and some of my co-writers, Dan Isbell and Randy Montana. We started the song there and then finished out back in Nashville. It was always special and Nicole has been a constant theme throughout the last couple of years of my life, of my music and she keeps me real grounded and provides constant inspiration for songs. I always try to pay a little bit of homage to her and I’m just thankful people are loving this tune and I’m excited for people to get to hear it on the radio and excited to bring something a little more stripped down to the airwaves. Pumped that the ACM’s would let me do that tonight.
MAREN MORRIS
MM: Well I mean the performance itself was so emotional because we were at the Ryman. It had been months since I had gotten to see my band so even though we were performing for no audience, I felt like “Hey, at least we’re getting to play live music for the first time in almost a year”. That felt like we didn’t want the song to end. We could’ve just kept going because it was like “Oh, when are we going to get to see each other next”, so it was emotional. I think just after you have a kid, especially, it’s like you kind of have to fit back into your artist girl shoes and you’re not like just the mom for a second so it was a lot to absorb but I have so much fun up there.
MM: I mean I’m in shock still. I feel like the female vocalist award is just so monumental. The women that have gone before me and won that award, that’s who I really should have thanked. Now I’m just realizing, I completely brain-farted on that one. I was like “Did I miss anyone? Oh like the woman that came before me with this huge award”. Thank you. I am so inspired by every single woman in that category. I’m friends with every nominee in that category, so I know how much we uplift and support each another in this community so it just feels amazing to walk away with that. And to also walk away with Musical Event with Miranda, Caylee, and Tenille and Ashley so it’s just been the night of the ladies.
MM: Well I mean Miranda has clenched it, like 9 or 10 or more years in a row so I always just, you know, she deserves so. I just feel like I never really saw myself wining this and it’s just such a.. I feel like when I vote on that award in year’s past, It’s for not the best singer for the bunch because that’s so objective or subjective but I feel like that goes to someone that your peers think had a massive, monumental year so I am just so humbled that my Nashville community, my industry peeps think that my year has been big because part of it has been in 2020, which has been kind of a shit show, so I feel like someone saying that I had a good year is so much validation.
MM: I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be shocked because I’ve had plenty of trolls come after me before and I can definitely have thick skin when it comes to someone saying “My music is terrible or I’m ruining the sanctity of country music” but for some reason it feels like an extra betrayal when it’s another mother shaming another mother and I just feel like we all need to give each other some grace and I would never do that and I’ve learned to be less judgmental all around just by being a mom because it’s extremely humbling. Yeah, I just think like let’s all love each other and give each other good advice. Even if it’s unsolicited, at least it’s good advice. I would just say like, let’s do better and not put someone down that’s obviously trying their best.
MM: Oh my gosh, I don’t think I have ever received an award that’s been with a collaboration so I am just so thankful to Miranda for inviting us all to be on this song and Jay Joyce for producing it. You know, just kind of getting to meet all of these girls in the process on tour and in the studio that day so that was a gift and no, it takes some of the edge off for the night to already go in as a winner!
OLD DOMINION
OD: Yeah, strange. There’s no other way to say it, I just thought well I’ll just look at the camera and envision everyone at home, but I couldn’t find the camera so it really just was like speaking to a big, empty room. So it felt odd.
OD: Josh Osborne, he’s the guy. We’re known Josh for, gosh I don’t know how long, 15 years, and we just started from the bottom, now we’re here. He’s been apart of the ride the whole time. It’s just awesome that you can have success with your true friends and he is absolutely that. We love Josh as a person, and he just so happens to have single handedly raised the bar of the quality of song that you hear on the radio over the past couple years, so this guy.
OD: It is interesting because we’ve basically lived together, we’ve seen each other more than our own families for 5 or 6 years. So being home for a little bit was an adjustment, and then you find the silver lining, you try to appreciate it. We spent a lot of time with our kids and our family.
It’s like I like these guys [OD] again now it’s weird.
We got together for a rehearsal and it was like Christmas.
OD: That was just a product of that empty room that we were speaking to, usually you’re talking to a giant crowd and you’re looking out at people you know and love, and suddenly I was looking out into this void and that was just the first thing I felt, was these people that were so important to us that aren’t here with us anymore. I just felt their presence and that was really all I could do was acknowledge that.
TENILLE TOWNES
TT: I’m freaking out, I can’t believe it, we won for musical event of the year! To get to celebrate this with all of these girls, you know beautiful humans, incredible voices. I love just how different everybody is and I look up to all of them so much, as artists and creators of music who really stand for something and say something in their songs. It was really special to get to sing that song together. I’ll never forget being a part of this song.
TT: Being a part of “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” was such a dream. I mean, I’ll never forget having the headphones on in the studio and hearing all of those voices come in on the song and going, “am I awake right now? I think I am, this is insane.” It was such an honor to get to sing and be a part of the recording of this song. It was so fun on tour, I’m really grateful that Miranda had us out on the road, watching and learning from her is the best, but to get to sing that song at the end of the show every night was a blast, so we really had a good time getting to do that together.
TT: I feel like it’s really beautiful to still get to come together in these really strange times, and I’m so thankful that the ACMs are pushing through and that the event is still happening. What a cool thing to kind of make some lemonade out of this and be able to wrap some arms around the Nashville historic venues. To be here at the Ryman auditorium is just surreal, there’s angels in this place, and I know there’s the same ones at the Bluebird Café and the Grand Ole Opry House, what a wonderful way to just bring everyone together from the spirit of Nashville this year.
TT: It feels like there is a chair being pulled up to the table of country music and it’s like “hey, come on in.” To feel embraced and believed in by this community that I just respect and admire so much is just the most wonderful thing. I feel like the Academy of Country Music is about history and about the foundations of music that we get to walk on, and I just feel honored to be able to give it a shot, and to give it my very best to hope to add to that because it really feels like such a joy and such an honor to get to be standing here in this moment right now.
TT: So I was sitting down with my laptop in front of me and I was getting ready for a Zoom call interview, which we’ve been doing a lot of those during this pandemic so I was like “cool!” another interview, I get to talk to some sweet folks, this is going to be great. I was just waiting for the screen to pop up and it said like meeting starting soon, and all of a sudden the screen went blank and Keith Urban’s face popped up and I about lost my mind. My hands started shaking I was like, “what is happening? This is Keith Urban why is he calling?” and then he told me the news and I was just, I still can’t even believe it, it feels like, I don’t know, something you just close your eyes and dream about, or think about as a little kid. I’ll never forget hearing about it that way.
ASHVILLE, Tenn. – Sony Music Nashville earned 12 trophies during the 55th ACM Awards Wednesday, the most of any label group, and the most in SMN’s 30-year history.
Luke Combs was named Male Artist of the Year and won Album of the Year for his No. 1, Platinum-selling LP What You See Is What You Get. Combs performed his new single “Better Together” from the winning project at Nashville’s Bluebird Café, as well as his 4x Platinum hit “When It Rains It Pours.”
Maren Morris received her first Female Artist of the Year Award after being an early winner for Music Event of the Year (“Fooled Around and Fell In Love” with Miranda Lambert, Elle King, Ashley McBryde, Tenille Townes, and Caylee Hammack). Morris took the stage at the historic Ryman Auditorium to perform her current single “To Hell & Back.”
Old Dominion nabbed their third consecutive Group of the Year Award and also earned their first-ever Song of the Year Award for their Platinum No. 1 hit “One Man Band.” The group’s Matthew Ramsey, Brad Tursi, and Trevor Rosen earn additional accolades as co-writers on the track. The quintet performed a medley of No. 1 hits from the Ryman Auditorium that included “One Man Band,” “Written in the Sand,” “No Such Thing as a Broken Heart,” “Snapback,” “Break Up with Him,” “Song for Another Time,” and “Make It Sweet.”
Tenille Townes was also an early winner, earning New Female Artist of the Year and Music Event of the Year accolades. She performed her debut single “Somebody’s Daughter” from the Ryman Auditorium.
Miranda Lambert extended her streak as ACM’s most decorated artist ever with her win for Music Event of the Year. She performed her No. 1 smash hit “Bluebird” with co-writers Natalie Hemby and Luke Dick at the Bluebird Café.
Kane Brown performed his unifying single “Worldwide Beautiful” from the Grand Ole Opry House stage with members of the Belmont University Chorale.
For more information, visit sonymusicnashville.com.
About Sony Music Nashville: Sony Music Nashville includes its three country label operations – Arista Nashville, Columbia Nashville and RCA Nashville – and Provident Entertainment.