Hosted by Reba McIntire and Darius Rucker, the 54th annual Country Music Awards filmed live in Nashville and aired November 11th on ABC Live and is currently streaming via Hulu. The highlights including 9 Music awards and 4 heartfelt tributes are listed below.
The show kicked off the night with a powerful tribute to the late Charlie Daniels, who passed away back in July. Dierks Bentley kicked off the night followed by The Brother Osborne who continued the groove into Ashley McBryde who took the stage leading into the Charlie Daniels Band with Jason Aldean who brought down the house with “The Devil Came Down to Georgia”.
Single of the year was the first award handed out by Country singer, Bobby Bones as Maren Morris took that award for her song “The Bones”.
Morgan Wallen charmed the audiences with his song, “More than My Hometown”.
Victoria Secret Model and actress Taylor Hill awarded song of the year to Maren Morris’ “The Bones”.
Gabby Barrett performed “I Hope” with Charlie Puth and Eric Church performed his “Hell of a View” to a socially distanced audience.
Darius Rucker stepped out of his cohosting role to sing his song, “Beers and Sunshine” and Ashley McBryde sang “One Night Standards”.
New York Times Bestseller, Lauren Akins awarded New artist of the year to Morgan Wallen.
Dan and Shay performed “10 Thousand Hours” with Justin Bieber for the first time live at the Hollywood Bowl.
Luke Combs brought down the house with “Cold like You” and John Pardi paid tribute to Joe Diffie, who also passed away this year due to Covid-19 complications, with his 90’s hit, “Pick Up Man”.
Carly Pearce sings “I Hope Your Happy Now” with Charles Kelley.
Dierks Bentley presented Duo of the Year to Dan and Shay.
Gospel singer, CeCe Winans introduced Reba McIntire and Darius Rucker as they dueted the song, “In the Ghetto”, written by the late Mac Davis in tribute.
Miranda Lambert performed “Settling Down”.
Jimmy Allen sang his “Best Shot” before introducing Charley Pride as this year’s recipient for The Willie Nelson lifetime achievement award and performed “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” with Jimmy Allen accompanying him.
Morgan and Chris Stapleton performed “Starting Over”.
Lauren Alena and Actor Patrick Schwarzenegger presented Vocal group of the year to Old Dominion.
Ingrid Andress performed her single, “More Hearts Than Mine” and Thomas Rhett with Reba McIntire and Chriss Tomlin performed a song of inspiration, “Be The Light.”
Jake Owen presented the Album of the Year award to Luke Combs for “What You See Is What You Get.”
Little Big Town performed a special tribute, “Sweet Music Man”, to the late great Kenny Rogers, who as well passed away this year.
Brothers Osborne rocked the stage with “All Night”.
Crown Royal, the purple package project, honored Kathleen Louis, founder of Package From Home, with the 1 millionth bag, filled with thank you letters from most of the veterans that she helped.
Old Dominion performed “Looking for Love” in special tribute to the 40 year anniversary of Urban Cowboy.
Maren Morris performed her hit song, “The Bones” and Keith Urban performed live from Australia, “God Whispered Your Name.”
Charles Esten presented Female Vocalist of the Year to Maren Morris.
Sara Evans presented Male Vocalist of the Year to Luke Combs.
Kelsey Ballerini performed her “drinking song”, “Hole In the bottle” prior to the most coveted award of the night presented, “Entertainer of the Year”.
Reba McIntire and Darius Rucker presented Entertainer of the Year to Eric Church.
