A queen move, honestly.
The 58th Annual CMA Awards show is tonight at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be hosted by Lainey Wilson, Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning.
Morgan Wallen leads the pack with seven nominations in total, and Chris Stapleton and Cody Johnson are right behind him with five each. Reigning entertainer of the year Lainey has four, tying with Post Malone who received his first-ever CMA nods.
There will be a tight race for the coveted Entertainer of the Year Award too, as Lainey Wilson is nominated again alongside Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen. Deeper Well, Fathers & Sons, Higher, Whitsitt Chapel and Leather will compete for album of the year (if you don’t see one of your favorites on the list, it might be because it missed the eligibility period for this years show).
I think the highlight of the night will be George Strait being very deservedly honored with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, which is a prestigious honor that goes to an iconic artist as one of the highest degrees of recognition in country music, as well as the star-studded tribute for the King by Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton and more.
And as always when these big shows roll around, we like to look back at some of the biggest moments that have happened at the show in years past.
One of my favorites which I always love to bring up is when Shania Twain took the stage to perform her hit “Any Man Of Mine” at the 1995 CMA Awards. The pop country queen made sure to stop and see some of the biggest names in country music on her way up to the stage, sitting on the laps of Tim McGraw (pre-Faith Hill), Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart (who seemed to enjoy it more than any of the other guys), as well as flirting with John Michael Montgomery, Tracy Lawrence and the one and only Johnny Cash in the process, as well.
At this show, the song and video were both nominated for awards, and Shania was up for the Horizon Award (now New Artist of the Year), against David Ball, Johnny Berry, Faith Hill and Alison Krauss, which ultimately went to Krauss.
Of course, during Shania’s flirty performance, most of the guys seemed to at least get the humor of it and laughed it off (duh), even if they might’ve been a little uncomfortable, though I have a sneaking suspicion that they probably didn’t have any real problem with it at all.
For me, when Shania walked up and tousled the hair of the Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash, I was truly inspired by her boldness and complete unabashed confidence… like, that’s something I can’t imagine any other young female artist doing, especially in this type of setting on national TV, and I love it.
It was certainly a daring choice from a young lady who’d already been receiving her fair share of criticism leading up to the show because of her musical style, and she was way ahead of her time, and that is quite obvious just from this whole video alone.
It’s a supremely underrated performance in my humble opinion, and if you’ve never seen it before, today is your lucky day:
The show airs tonight at 8PM EST.
“Any Man Of Mine”
