Chris Stapleton And The ‘Marfa Tapes’ Trio’s Performances Carried The CMT Awards

There were a few bright spots at last nights CMT awards last night… like, a few.

I think we all know now how much these types of shows pretty much suck anymore and aren’t really worth watching, but there were at least two notable performances that you should see.

I’ll be honest, I pretty much stopped watching after Miranda, Jack and Jon performed, so if there were any other good ones, I didn’t see them.

Let’s start with Chris Stapleton’s performance of “Arkansas”, from his most recent album Starting Over. He sang alongside his wife, Morgane, at Bonnaroo Farms in Tennessee.

Of course, Chris is one of the absolute best in the business, so it’s no surprise that he gave an excellent performance.

Thankfully, they got him in early:

He also performed with HER later in the broadcast.

Here’s Chris bringing the house down:

And next, we have The Marfa Tapes trio with their performance of “Tequila Does.” I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, that needs to be the next single. It’s become one of my favorite Miranda songs ever because it’s so damn fun.

And their acoustic version around the campfire? Heavenly. How do I get an invite?

Their performance was really a sneak peek into the ‘CMT Campfire Sessions’ episode they’ll be appearing on tonight. In a video package before they started, Miranda said:

“Writing something like ’Tequila Does,’ was kind of like, ’Let’s write a fun one. Let’s write a fun Texas honky tonk song.'”

And that they did.

In my opinion, it really was the best of performance of the whole night. Not that there was much tight competition in this case, but still…

The acoustic version with Jack and Jon coming in on harmony was so raw and refreshing in what’s supposed to be a country music award show that had not much of that otherwise.

They just don’t miss:

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