This one would probably hit too close to home to allow a performance like this these days…
We’re just under two weeks away from the 2026 CMA Awards, with the first round of performers being announced today including Cody Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Ella Langley and Zach Top. It’s a strong starting lineup for an awards show that struggled in ratings for a while, a struggle that country fans have largely blamed on the show’s insistence on bringing in artists from outside the genre in a misguided attempt to attract new viewers.
Credit where it’s due though, the past couple years it seems that the show has made an effort to get back to its roots – and back to country music – given the shift we’ve seen at country radio the past few years.
And I already know what the comments are going to be: Country radio is still trash and it’s all pop and rap these days. But objectively, that’s just not true. Ella Langley currently has the longest-running #1 in history with “Choosin’ Texas,” a song that’s as stone-cold country as anything else we’ve heard in recent memory. Cody Johnson is the reigning Entertainer of the Year at the CMA Awards, and Zach Top is another artist who’s having massive success with his traditional country sound.
Of course the argument over what’s country and what’s not is far from a new one, dating back as far as the 1950s when the “Nashville sound” brought smooth strings and pop elements to country music in an attempt to compete with rock and roll.
And in 1999, George Strait and Alan Jackson took to the stage at the CMA Awards to call out country radio for straying too far away from country music with a pointed performance of their duet “Murder On Music Row.”
Originally written by Larry Cordle and Larry Shell, and recorded by Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, it was a lament of the death of traditional country music. George and Alan performed it at the 1999 CMA Awards, and recorded the tune for Strait’s 2000 Latest Greatest Straitest Hits album.
Although it was never formally released as a single, it ended up reaching #38 on the charts and went on to win Song of the Year at the CMA Awards the following year.
“For the steel guitars no longer cry
And the fiddles barely play
But drums and rock ‘n’ roll guitars
Are mixed up in your face
Ol’ Hank wouldn’t have a chance
On today’s radio
Since they committed murder
Down on music row…”
Of course it’s hard to imagine the CMAs allowing an artist to perform such a pointed rebuke of country music on the show these days, when the awards have largely tried to steer clear of controversy and focus on unifying the industry. And looking back, it’s funny to see how much worse things got after George and Alan lamented the state of country radio.
Luckily it seems like things are getting better, but the song still rings true for much of what we hear coming out of 16th Avenue, 27 years after this legendary performance.
