CMT special focuses on Vegas with all-star tribute
CMT promised its 2017 Artists of the Year special would be a night devoted to country music fans.
The network — along with 2017 honorees Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Chris Stapleton and Florida Georgia Line — turned the 90-minute program typically dedicated to celebrating year-end success into a multigenre love letter.
Wednesday night’s live telecast kicked off from Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center with a powerful collaboration between Andra Day and Little Big Town on Day’s Rise Up. They were joined by Lee Ann Womack, Common and Danielle Bradbery to sing Day’s inspiring Stand Up For Something.
“I wrote it last year … but who knew how timely it would be, because we do need to stand up?” said famed songwriter Diane Warren, who wrote Stand Up. “When I saw them perform it, I had tears in my eyes. There’s no borders.”
The program’s shift was driven by the Oct. 1 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country-music festival in Las Vegas during which 58 concertgoers died and more than 500 were wounded. Aldean was onstage in Las Vegas when the shooting started and he was joined onstage Wednesday by his fellow CMT honorees to talk about music’s power to unite and overcome.
“From Las Vegas to Puerto Rico … to Charlottesville to California, the entire nation is trying to process these devastating events,” Stapleton said. “On this night, when we usually use this opportunity to celebrate the year in music, we also want to celebrate a year of incredible human spirit that we see in our fans every night.”
Aldean dedicated the night to anyone who has recently experienced loss or tragedy.
“We’ve been tested beyond our worst nightmares the past few months,” Aldean said. “‘Heartbroken’ doesn’t even begin to describe how some of us feel. But we have proven time and again in this country that we have the power to overcome anything that threatens our way of life or our freedom.”
Amy Grant led a powerful segment that remembered members of the music community who passed away this year, including Don Williams, Tom Petty and Troy Gentry. At the end, the names of the fans killed in Las Vegas scrolled across the screen in front of a photo of a memorial.
The special included memorable performances by and in honor of the year’s honorees. Stapleton appropriately delivered a moving version of his song Broken Halos. The Backstreet Boys covered Florida Georgia Line’s hit H.O.L.Y. Bryan sang his sentimental Fast, and Urban crooned through his smash Blue Ain’t Your Color.
The show ended with Bryan paying tribute to his close friend Aldean, explaining “it could have been any one of us” onstage in Las Vegas.
“It’s a nightmare nobody should have had to face,” Bryan said. “Jason Aldean has responded with dignity, care, respect and in some ways defiance. We are all proud of him, especially me.”
Bryan’s comments received a standing ovation.
The show ended with Aldean, Urban, Stapleton and Little Big Town onstage singing Petty’s I Won’t Back Down, which Aldean performed on Saturday Night Live the week after the killings and the singer’s death.