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On Sunday night (April 2), Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson and power couple Kane and Katelyn Brown reigned as the biggest winners of the CMT Music Awards, which, for the first time in the awards show’s history, was held outside of Nashville, at Moody Center in Austin, Texas.
First-time nominee Jelly Roll took home the most awards wins of the evening (three accolades, including male video of the year), with Wilson taking home two (including female video of the year). Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown’s romantic video for “Thank God” took home the evening’s highest honor, video of the year.
Kelsea Ballerini and Brown returned as co-hosts, and also turned in powerful performances alongside Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, an all-star tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd and the 10th anniversary of the CMT Next Women of Country Franchise as highlights of the performances throughout the ceremony.
But not all the top moments on the CMT Music Awards are broadcast on television—such as some stars spilling the tea on their all-time favorite music videos (Kane Brown’s is Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel,” Lainey Wilson’s is the Lee Ann Womack classic “I Hope You Dance,” and Jelly Roll points back to the era of music videos created under Master P’s No Limit Records, and under the Ronald “Slim” Williams and Bryan “Birdman” Williams label Cash Money: “It was all just bling and parties,” says Jelly Roll. “They would literally just go to like project buildings, have parties and shoot videos. I miss that era.”)
Here are seven moments from the awards that you didn’t see on TV last night.
Cody Johnson Teases a New Album, Collaborations
Johnson released Human: The Double Album in 2021, and he says he’s already hard at work on a follow-up project.
“We’ve got some duets and some collaborations set for this next album,” Johnson told Billboard backstage — and says one of the artists contending to be on the project is none other than Jelly Roll.
“Jelly Roll is definitely sending flowers, trying to get a spot on the project. Not guaranteed, we’ll see how it goes,” Johnson says. He said watching Jelly Roll take home his first CMT Music Awards honors was among his favorite moments of the evening.
“I loved watching my boy Jelly Roll winning an award in country music — because I’m a big fan of Jelly Roll, even outside of just country music. But what’s he’s done inside country music, to adapt the genre — I think he’s been so respectful, lyrically, and sonically. I think he’s doing great.”
Jelly Roll on Why He Doesn’t Plan to Keep All of His CMT Music Awards Trophies
The temperatures in Austin were still in the 80s, with plenty of humidity, as artists finished up on the CMT Music Awards red carpet and made their way into Moody Center. Add in the heat from the stage lights, and a few artists were glistening as they made their way to backstage media area. One of those was Jelly Roll, who briefly removed his ballcap to wipe his forehead before chatting with media — and was quick to joke that he chalked it up to “liquor, nerves, alcohol and obesity.”
During the CMT Music Awards, Jelly Roll picked up three wins — for breakthrough male video of the year (“Son of a Sinner”), digital-first performance of the year (“Son of a Sinner,” from CMT All Access) and male video of the year (“Son of a Sinner”). He was also joined by a gospel choir to perform his new song “Need a Favor.”
But the singer-songwriter isn’t planning on keeping all three of them — something he learned from Texan Cody Johnson, who picked up two CMT Music Awards trophies in 2022 and this year won CMT performance of the year (from his 2022 CMT Music Awards performance of “’Til You Can’t”).
“I seen this last year when it happened and Cody won,” Jelly Roll told Billboard backstage. “I asked him later what he did [with his award] and he said he gave it to his guitar player. I thought, ‘Man, if I win I wanna do the same thing, man. Maybe me and him, maybe he can start something and I can push it over the edge.”
On June 2, Jelly Roll will release his next album, Whitsitt Chapel, and he says fans can expect a slightly different sound from the new project.
“There’s still a lot of the pain that I sing about, but there’s a lot of redemption on this album,” he added. “There’s a lot of tempo on this album — I’ve never had tempo on an album. I normally stay right in the 76 [beats per minute] range and keep it nice, slow and down the middle. But this is going to be fun.”
Megan Moroney on Her Touring Must-Haves and Making Music Videos
Jelly Roll wasn’t the only one feeling the heat and humidity as he entered the media area.
“There’s boob sweat,” Megan Moroney quipped as she entered the backstage media area at Moody Center, wearing a stunning “Lucky” green dress and matching shoes.
Texas temperatures weren’t the only thing sizzling, as Moroney took home her first CMT Music Award win, the breakthrough female video of the year honor, for her debut video clip “Tennessee Orange.”
“With the discovery of ‘Tennessee Orange,’ we really wanted to play into that with the video,” Moroney told Billboard backstage. “When we met with the director [Jason Lester], I was like, ‘Either we could go to [Knoxville, Tennessee’s] Neyland Stadium and have me wear a Tennessee jersey with a guitar onstage and it’ll look cool, but it’s charting in areas that don’t care about Georgia or Tennessee football, because they are relating to it as a love song, so we leaned more into that . It’s a special video.”
Moroney is also gearing up for the release of her debut album, Lucky, on May 5 and will hit the road again in September on The Lucky Tour, inspired by the album’s title. Moroney also shared a few of her must-haves when she’s on the road.
“I must have Red Bull, and I eat a lot of Doritos. And of course I have to have clip-in extensions — shoutout Cashmere,” she added, running her hands over her long blonde hair. “And boots. Lots of boots.”
Lainey Wilson Talks That Alanis Morissette Collaboration
Lainey Wilson took home collaborative video of the year (for “Wait in the Truck” with HARDY), as well as female video of the year (for “Heart Like a Truck”) at Sunday evening’s CMT Music Awards. But she was also part of a stellar on-stage lineup, as she joined seven-time Grammy winner Alanis Morissette (along with Madeline Edwards, Ingrid Andress and Morgan Wade) for a performance of Morissette’s 1995 hit “You Oughta Know,” to celebrate the 10th anniversary of CMT’s “Next Women of Country” franchise.
“I think all the girls were a little nervous, but super excited,” Wilson told Billboard of the performance while backstage. “We couldn’t believe that we were getting to have the opportunity to share the stage with somebody like her. She’s a bada–, that’s the best word for it. So we were all up there trying to channel our inner bada–es too.”
Wilson also discussed her own favorite music video, Lee Ann Womack’s 2000 clip for “I Hope You Dance.”
“I remember the little girls dancing around, and when I was watching that video as a little girl, it made me feel like I could do anything I set my mind to … and CMT has been a huge part of why I’ve even dreamed of any of this. I remember sitting there in front of the TV, just watching for hours, and it’s crazy. Now they’ve welcomed me right on in.”
HARDY Talks Acting Aspirations
HARDY and Wilson took home the CMT collaborative video of the year, for their video “Wait in the Truck.” Backstage at the CMT Music Awards, HARDY told Billboard that watching Wilson’s acting talent inspired him during the making of the video.
“The first scene we shot for the whole video was her performance shot in the courtroom and I got to see it. After like two takes, I was like, ‘D–n, dude. She’s really good,’ and it inspired me. After that first shot, we really just dug into our own characters, but she really inspired me because she just killed it from the beginning.”
HARDY says he, like his duet partner (and Yellowstone actor) Wilson, would like to give acting a shot one day.
“I would love to,” he tells Billboard. “I’ve always been inspired by Doyle from [the 1996 film] Sling Blade [who was portrayed by country entertainer Dwight Yoakam], a dark, drunk piece of s–t kind of guy. I don’t think I’m that kind of person, but I think that would be a fun person to kind of dig into. But something really redneck would be up my alley too, for sure.”
He names “Typical” by Mutemath as one of his all-time favorite music videos. “They learned to play and sing the song in reverse,” HARDY says. “They filmed the whole music video in reverse so when they edited the music video they just reversed that and played it forward, and it was so unique. To process that is insane.”
Kelsea Ballerini Shows RuPaul’s Drag Race Alumni the Love
Kelsea Ballerini welcomed RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni including Manila Luzon, Kennedy Davenport, Jan Sport and Olivia Lux during her performance of “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too).” But her support for her onstage collaborators didn’t end when the music did.
As they were walking offstage, Ballerini bowed down to the drag queens and then raised her arms to encourage the crowd to cheer louder for the queens as they exited the stage.
Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown Talk Follow-Up to ‘Thank God’
When contemplating a follow-up to their No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit collaboration “Thank God,” Katelyn Brown said there is nothing in the works at the moment.
“For me and Kane, we’re not planners,” she told Billboard backstage. “We didn’t plan out ‘Thank God.’ Everything has be organic — so I think we just gotta get in there, get creative and see what we come up with.”
“It does have to beat ‘Thank God,’ though,” Kane added with a grin.
“We’re gonna have to try and top it,” Katelyn added with a laugh. “It’s like, ‘Okay, the bar’s high. How do we top this?’ It’s all good, I like the challenge.”
Around a dozen years ago, hit country songwriter Shane McAnally had a revelation after seeing his first Broadway show, The Book of Mormon.
“At the end of that show, I just looked at my husband and said, ‘I’m going to do this’ — not even knowing the first thing about how you would do that,” he says. “I feel like I set a dream in motion.”
Similarly, even though revered fellow singer-songwriter and frequent McAnally collaborator Brandy Clark had been raised on musicals (after seeing Oklahoma at an early age) and had “this big, lofty dream at some point of writing a musical,” she tells Billboard, “I thought ‘I can’t do that. I didn’t go to college to do that.’ I thought you had to be super trained.”
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After more than a decade, and a winding road that included abandoning both the original concept and a second attempt — taking a few years off before resuming and then dealing with pandemic delay — McAnally and Clark’s dreams come true Tuesday (April 4) when Shucked opens on Broadway at the Nederlander Theater.
The show, directed by three-time Tony winner Jack O’Brien, features lyrics and music by McAnally and Clark and a book by Robert Horn, who won a Tony for best book of a musical for Tootsie, which he wrote during a break from what ultimately became Shucked.
The musical comedy is a laugh-out-loud “farm-to-fable” about the denizens of a small, rural Midwest community, one of whom heads to the big city — well, Tampa — to figure out why the village’s corn has quit growing. The musical combines the good-natured, fish-out-of-water vibe of The Book of Mormon and the occasional bawdiness of Avenue Q, with a redeemed con man tale reminiscent of The Music Man.
Part of the show’s charm is its effervescent embrace of obvious, often lowbrow, humor: The female lead is named Maizy, who lives with her grandfather and friends in, naturally, Cob County. It pokes fun at rural stereotypes, but always with great affection for its characters and a knowing wink, provided by Storyteller 1 and Storyteller 2, who serve as the in-on-the-joke narrators.
With Horn’s script often focused on laughs, much of the emotional lifting comes from Clark and McAnally’s songs — including poignant, tender ballad “Maybe Love,” resilient mid-tempo track “Somebody Will,” perky empowerment tune “Woman of the World” and audacious anthem (and bonafide showstopper) “Independently Owned.”
“Shucked” writers Shane McAnally (music & lyrics), Robert Horn (book), and Brandy Clark (music & lyrics).
Emilio Madrid
Responsible for such hits (together and separately) as Sam Hunt’s “Body Like a Back Road,” Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart,” Kacey Musgraves’ “Merry-Go-Round” and dozens of others, Clark and McAnally know their way around a country hook. But they didn’t know their way around the structure and timing of crafting a Broadway musical — so they were thrilled when they got a care package from Horn early in the process.
“He sent us CDs, saying, ‘These are opening numbers. There are 11:00 numbers,’” Clark recalls. Hairspray’s bouncy, inviting first tune, ‘Good Morning, Baltimore’ was on the opening numbers CD, while powerful ballads The Wizard of Oz’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and West Side Story’s “Tonight” were examples of 11 o’clock numbers (even if those songs didn’t end their respective projects), meant to demonstrate the pacing and mood of writing for different acts.
“The thing about Robert is he’s a generous collaborator,” Clark says. “He wanted real country songwriters and he was willing to do that work to help us do our homework.”
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Around 10 years ago, Horn was approached by the Opry Entertainment Group to write the book for a musical based on Hee Haw, the hokey variety show that ran from 1969 to 1991 and mixed country music with groan-worthy skits, often set in a cornfield. He asked Clark and McAnally to work with him.
“We loved the idea of doing something associated with Hee Haw. We were the only people who felt that way,” McAnally says with a laugh, sitting with Clark in a second floor lounge in the Nederlander Theater the morning after a sold-out preview.
McAnally and Clark quickly discovered that, while Hee Haw did offer them their first exposure to artists like Buck Owens, Roy Clark and Tammy Wynette as young children watching with their grandparents, “there wasn’t a lot there and some of the humor did not age well,” McAnally says. The idea morphed into the broader-themed Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical, which opened in Dallas in September 2015, and told the story of a small town girl who goes to the big city to be a TV weathergirl.
Feeling that Moonshine wasn’t where it needed to be, after the Dallas run, the trio put the musical on hold. “We stepped away from it and said, ‘Maybe it’s just not going to happen,’” Horn says. “But there was a seed of an idea that we loved.”
A year or two later, as Horn watched America riven by political and ideological conflict, he reached out to Clark and McAnally. ‘“We need to start over,’” he recalls saying. “Let’s write a show about how we find commonality in a country so divided. We can’t fix that, but maybe we can be a part of the healing.”
The show was completely overhauled, with O’Brien now onboard and the theme evolving to “a girl who is underestimated and finds out she has the ability to be a hero inside of her,” Horn says.
Shortly after the producers booked the show for a late 2020 run at the National Theater in Washington, D.C., the pandemic hit and the run was canceled.
“If the show’s successful, I credit it to the pandemic,” Horn says. “We sat down and dug into the show and said, ‘It’s not there yet.’ Had we opened that show, it was still a good show — but it wasn’t the show. We literally rewrote the whole show again.”
Though country songs are renowned for their storytelling, Clark says writing for characters for a musical hits different. “When Alex Newell (Lulu) gets a standing ovation [for ‘Independently Owned’], it feels out of body,” she says. “I remember seeing Miranda Lambert after ‘Mama’s Broken Heart’ had been a hit, and when that part of the show came, being super-excited. This doesn’t feel like that. I forget that these are our songs. They are [the characters’ songs] — and when they feel like their songs, then I know it’s right.”
McAnally adds writing for Shucked is closer to his and Clark’s truest selves. “What’s funny is this actually feels like what we always did. We switched for [Nashville],” he says. “We have to edit [those songs] because we have a much more irreverent sense of humor. We love rhymes that are completely shocking, that people would go, ‘I’d never say that.’ Here we don’t have to do that — because we’re saying what these characters would say and not trying to figure out if Dierks Bentley would say it.”
A few remnants from Moonshine remain — including the rowdy “We Love Jesus (But We Drink a Little),” which opens the second act and serves as the theme of the small-town girl going to the big city and actor Kevin Cahoon, who is the only holdover from the Moonshine cast, where he played an idiot savant named Junior Junior.
In Shucked, Cahoon’s character is now Peanut, the town philosopher — who come across as a bit of a rube, but then spouts profound universal truths. Based on Horn’s husband’s uncle, who was a peanut farmer, Cahoon’s character also runs the radio station, marries and buries people, and is the town clerk.
Kevin Cahoon
Emilio Madrid
As Cahoon researched his part, he discovered the “great tradition of country storytellers, whether it’s Minnie Pearl or Jerry Clower,” he says. “You may have thought [they] were hayseeds, but they are saying things that are connected to you in a simple, pure, honest way. I thought about those great country comedians when I’m playing him.”
BOSNER’S ‘BEAUTIFUL’ EFFECT
The show may have remained dormant after Dallas, if not for Mike Bosner, one of the lead producers on the Tony-winning Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, signing on as lead producer. He heard about Moonshine after the Dallas run and met McAnally through McAnally’s husband, who knew Bosner’s wife, Brittany Schreiber, a booker for Today.
“Shane and I started talking about doing a different show, because I was obsessed about bringing a show to Broadway with country music,” Bosner says. “The fact that [there] hasn’t been one in recent years is a crime.”
Those involved say Bosner’s palpable enthusiasm, connections (he brought in O’Brien) and backing made all the difference. “We’re very happy that he got on board and feels so passionate,” McAnally says. “That relationship was really what put this into high gear.”
Around 2019, as Bosner began lining up other investors — the SEC filing’s range for the show is a minimum of $13 million and a maximum of $16 million — he approached Sandbox Entertainment head Jason Owen, whom he knew through his wife, to become a producer. (Even though artist manager Owen and McAnally are partners in Monument Records, it was Bosner who brought him in.)
Owen then brought in the other lead investor, AEG, which had last invested on Broadway in 2005’s The Color Purple, and whose team, led by Jay Marciano and Gary Gersh, has provided not just money but business acumen. “For the last six or seven months, we’ve had weekly calls with AEG,” Owen says. “They’ve been involved in looking at how we’re marketing in and outside of New York [and] cross-analyzing data on the ticket buyers that are seeing certain shows in and around New York.” AEG has also used its buildings and other venues to provide billboards and other out-of-home marketing.
(Owen further tapped into the music community, recruiting Sony Music Entertainment and clients Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Jimi Westbrook as co-producers.)
Broadway previews began March 8, and given how Shucked is an unproven commodity with no known hit songs and no big names in the cast, the show aggressively discounted preview tickets — with some going for as low as $29, and none higher than $149. According to Broadway News, the gambit worked, with attendance running at (or close to) 100% for the first three weeks of previews. “What we really needed to do was get butts in seats,” Owen says. “We were able to capture an audience that lives on social media and was able to start spreading the word about how great the show is.”
The play is deliberately being marketed as a musical comedy and not a country musical. As the U.S. emerges from COVID and remains mired in political division, the producers are counting on a show with no agenda, other than to make people laugh and accept one another, to have broad appeal.
The promotional ad campaign initially relied on stressing the punny humor, while keeping an air of mystery. One ad had the tagline, “’I saw it 300 times before it even opened’-George Santos.” Another read, “’The musical that has Broadway all a-Twitter’-Elon Husk.”
Despite its rural themes and Clark and McAnally’s pedigrees, the music falls more solidly in the pop range, and the producers didn’t want to risk alienating any attendees by labeling the show “country.” “In a big metropolitan city like New York, saying, ‘Oh, we’re doing a country show’ — the theater elite is [going to be] like, ‘I don’t know if that’s for me,’” Bosner says. “But if you’re selling musical comedy and saying this is a laugh-out-loud hilarious, then a country score or whatever [genre] it is, would be the gift with purchase. From the get-go, I’ve been saying, ‘We need to sell this as the best time out,’ and our goal is to not create any potential pothole that says, ‘That doesn’t sound like a show for me’.”
Owen agrees. “The marketpace on Broadway is currently 90% existing jukebox musicals, whether that’s [MJ the Musical] or Moulin Rouge. You know to some extent what you’re getting,” he says. “If we would have pigeonholed ourselves into a country [box] when it’s really not — it just didn’t feel right to look at it like that.”
Clark and McAnally join a short list of Nashville-based, country music songwriters to open original musicals on Broadway. The most successful of those musicals has been Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with music and lyrics by Roger Miller (“King of the Road”). The Tony winner for best musical originally opened in 1985 and ran for 1,005 performances. Keeping with the Mark Twain works, Don Schlitz (“The Gambler”) wrote the music and lyrics for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which ran for 21 performances in 2001.
More recently, Nashville based Wayne Kirkpatrick (“Change the World”) was nominated for a Tony for best original score for co-writing the words and music for Something Rotten!, which opened in 2015 and played for 708 performances.
Sony Masterworks Broadway will release Shucked’s original cast recording digitally on May 5 and on CD June 9, but there are already thoughts of finding big pop names to possibly reinvent the songs, à la 2016’s The Hamilton Mixtape, featuring Kelly Clarkson and Alicia Keys, or 2017’s The Greatest Showman: Reimagined, which included P!nk, Zac Brown Band and Kesha. “Imagine ‘Independently Owned’ sung by Lizzo,” Clark says. “That’s where our head goes.”
There are also dreams of taking Shucked into corners that Broadway musicals have never ventured before. “AEG has Coachella and Stagecoach. Is there a world where we can do the music of the show at Stagecoach in some way?” Bosner asks. “That’ll be amazing, right? But let’s get the show open on Broadway first.”
Following the passing of Southern rock star Gary Rossington in March, the 2023 CMT Music Awards decided to pay tribute to the late superstar and his impact with Lynyrd Skynyrd on Sunday night (April 2).
Taking to the stage for the evening’s final performance, country singers Cody Johnson, Wynonna Judd and LeAnn Rimes were joined by Guns N’ Roses’ Slash, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers and former Allman Brothers Band members Chuck Leavell and Warren Haynes for a tribute to the late guitarist, performing the band’s iconic tracks “Simple Man” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”
The star-studded group of performers was introduced by British rock star Peter Frampton, who lauded Rossington as a “Southern rock icon,” saying the star “helped define a band’s sound, and he inspired millions of fans and musicians” before joining his fellow bandmates “in rock n’ roll heaven.”
For their performance, the superstar group turned the stage into a Southern swamp of talent, backed by images of murky waters and reeds, as the musicians grooved their way through “Simple Man,” with Johnson and Rodgers trading verses back and forth. Once they finished out the classic track, the supergroup launched into a rollicking performance of “Sweet Home Alabama,” bringing the cheering crowd to its feet for a big finish to the annual ceremony.
Johnson, Judd, Rimes and company were far from the only performers to take to the CMT stage on Sunday. Stars including Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani, Jelly Roll and Carrie Underwood all performed at the awards show, while Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown hosted the telecast and delivered sets of their own.
Carrie Underwood delivered her highly anticipated CMT Music Awards performance on Sunday night (April 2) when she unleashed her Denim & Rhinestones hit “Hate My Heart” onstage in front of the capitol building in Austin.
Fittingly dressed in a Queen of Hearts-inspired blazer, corset and shorts — and holding a heart-encrusted microphone — the country superstar delivered the track as fireworks blasted off behind her. “Hate My Heart” was up for video of the year at this year’s ceremony, though it ultimately lost to Kane and Katelyn Brown’s “Thank God.”
Underwood’s “Ghost Story” was also nominated for female video of the year.
The singer is no stranger to the CMT Music Awards, as she’s taken home 25 total trophies throughout her career. She also has the most video of the year wins and female video of the year wins of any artist.
“I wanted to have fun from the get-go,” the 40-year-old star previously told Billboard of Denim & Rhinestones, which debuted at No. 2 on Billboard‘s Top Country Albums chart. “That was definitely mission No. 1. With some other albums, it took me writing for a while before I figured out where the album’s gonna go. It’s got a lot of vintage sparkle. It’s not solidly throwback, but we have a couple of songs that are a little more ’70s feel and some that are in the ’80s pop world and some ’90s rock stuff, and obviously country. But we wanted to have music that was fun and felt good.”
Honoring ten years of CMT’s “Next Women of Country” series, a quintet of female singer-songwriters delivered Alanis Morissette‘s star-making 1995 post-breakup anthem “You Oughta Know” at the 2023 CMT Music Awards. Morissette was joined by previous honorees Lainey Wilson, Ingrid Andress, Madeline Edwards and Morgan Wade for the performance.
Wearing a sequined shirt over a white tee, Alanis led the All-Star vocal group in a performance of the incendiary Jagged Little Pill classic — with, appropriately enough, an actual blaze going on behind them. The performance was a mostly faithful rendition, albeit with some more complex harmonies added to the chorus, befitting the vocal talents of the singers assembled, and Alanis still stole the show with her piercing “ohhhhhh“s on the song’s wordless bridge.
The performance was the second ’90s alt-rock crossover event of the evening, following Gwen Stefani and Carly Pearce teaming up for a run through “Just a Girl,” originally by the former’s best-selling band No Doubt. Lainey Wilson had previous taken the stage for her ballad “Heart Like a Truck,” and also picked up a pair of awards earlier in the evening: female video of the year (for “Heart Like a Truck”) and collaborative video of the year (for “Wait in the Truck,” along with HARDY).
“You Oughta Know” served as Morissette’s breakout hit in 1995, as the first single pulled from her Jagged Little Pill album, and made her a phenomenon with its furious (and much-debated) lyrics and impassioned delivery. Jagged Little Pill would ultimately go on to be certified diamond by the RIAA, and ranks at No. 7 on Billboard‘s Greatest of All-Time Billboard 200 chart.
When it came time for her performance at the 2023 CMT Music Awards on Sunday night (April 2), Kelsea Ballerini decided to bring a quartet of fabulous drag queens out to help her deliver a poignant message.
Performing her single “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” Ballerini was joined by RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni Manila Luzon, Kennedy Davenport, Jan Sport and Olivia Lux. All dressed in their best 1950s southern drag, Ballerini and the queens strutted around the stage — which was decorated like a white picket-fenced front yard — singing about their ride-or-die friendship with one another.
Eventually, the quintet of performers found its way from the stage to a massive catwalk stretching through the audience. As confetti rained down from above, Ballerini cuddled up with the four queens, belting out the final words to the song: “Our bodies are buried and they’re in the same ditch/ So even if I wanted to, I can’t snitch,” she sang. “Thirty to life would go quicker with you/ So if you go down, I’m goin’ down too.”
The performance came as something of a political statement from the country star, especially as drag has become a target for right-wing legislatures around the country. Most recently, after Tennessee passed its widely criticized public-drag ban, a federal judge blocked the law from taking effect for 14 days on Friday (March 31), claiming that the state failed to make a compelling argument as to why the new law was warranted.
Ballerini wasn’t only performing on Sunday night — the singer served as one of the evening’s hosts alongside Kane Brown. Stars including Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, Gwen Stefani and Tyler Hubbard also shared performances during the event, while Lainey Wilson led nominees at the event with four nominations. Brown, Jelly Roll and Cody Johnson followed with three each.
Check out the full performance below:
Jelly Roll rocked the 2023 CMT Music Awards on Sunday night (April 2) with a performance of his genre-bending hit, “Need a Favor.”
Backed by a full gospel choir, the 38-year-old delivered his sermon for the sinners as church signs featuring the track’s lyrics flashed behind him. “I only talk to God, when I need a favor/ And I only pray, when I ain’t got a prayer,” he belted in the chorus.
Jelly Roll (born Jason DeFord) snagged his first CMT Music Award this year, as he won all three awards he was nominated for. “Son of a Sinner” won digital-first performance of the year, breakthrough male video of the year and male video of the year.
The rising country star made history earlier this year after he surpassed NLE Choppa for most weeks atop Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart, as “Need a Favor” peaked at No. 37 on Hot Country Songs and his most popular track to date, “Son of a Sinner,” peaked at No. 8.
“I think what I think I represent is just a beacon of hope,” the singer previously told Billboard of his success. “I don’t look like the guy that you would’ve assumed would’ve made it [in the music industry]. Sam Hunt’s a really dear friend of mine, and Sam is just a big striking, handsome guy. When you see him, you’re like, ‘Oh, I get it.’ When you see me, you don’t get it initially — then you meet me, and hear the story and hear the music. I just feel like I represent the guy who looks at himself in the mirror every day and goes, ‘Yeah, guys like me don’t make it.’”
Carly Pearce joined Gwen Stefani on stage in Austin at the 2023 CMT Music Awards for a performance of the latter’s first signature song with her ’90s and ’00s band No Doubt, 1995’s “Just a Girl.”
With co-host Kelsea Ballerini teasing a “scream-sing” moment for the old crowd, Stefani took the stage in a throwback sort of punk chic dress to deliver the song’s first verse and chorus. A black-clad Pearce then made her way to the stage to take the second verse and chorus, with Pearce and Stefani trading off vocals on the climactic refrain and singing together on the final “ohhh, I’ve had it up to here”s to loud audience appreciation.
The appearance was Pearce’s second time playing on the evening, having previously performed on her own for her country radio smash “What He Didn’t Do.” Pearce is also nominated for two awards at this year’s ceremonies: female video of the year and CMT performance of the year, both nods for “What He Didn’t Do.” (She lost female video shortly after her and Stefani’s performance, to Lainey Wilson for “Heart Like a Truck.”) Stefani’s husband Blake Shelton previously kicked off the show with his recent single “No Body.”
“Just a Girl” peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early Hot 100, the group’s first top 40 hit. Along with follow-up singles like “Spiderwebs” and “Don’t Speak,” “Girl” helped its parent album Tragic Kingdom become of the best-selling albums of the mid-’90s, earning diamond certification from the RIAA.
Shania Twain proved that she’s still the one on Sunday night (April 2) when accepting the equal play award at the 2023 CMT Awards.
The country icon was presented her award by rap superstar Megan Thee Stallion, who celebrated Twain for being “an outspoken ally against every hate of all kind,” while also celebrating her newfound kinship with the singer. “I don’t wanna cheese this hard because I just met her and that’s my new bestie,” Megan said with a laugh. “She’s hot girl Shania!”
Taking to the stage, Shania immediately proclaimed that one song title in particular appeared to be following her. “When I wrote the phrase, ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman,’ I had no idea at the time that it would be the undercurrent of a decades-long career, and get adopted by an array of fantastic communities around the world, and become a genuine path of power and progress for women in country music,” she said, grinning.
Reflecting on her history at the CMT Music Awards, Twain eventually cut to the heart of the issue, making a vow to keep uplifting “the many outstanding country artists who are not currently played, streamed, signed or awarded at the level they deserve.” She continued, saying “I believe in an all-inclusive country music. We’re a family … let us, the country music industry, do our part to close the gap and provide an equal workspace for all talent. Let’s ensure that all our fellow artists get equal play, regardless of gender, age or race.”
The “That Don’t Impress Me Much” singer was just one among a bevy of attendees on Sunday night — stars such as Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, Gwen Stefani and Tyler Hubbard all performed throughout the telecast. Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown served as the evening’s hosts, while Lainey Wilson led nominees with four nominations. Brown, Jelly Roll and Cody Johnson followed closely behind with three each.
The ultimate country vocal powerhouses came together for a jaw-dropping duet at the 2023 CMT Music Awards on Sunday night (April 2), as Wynonna Judd and Ashley McBryde performed an emotional rendition of Foreigner’s 1984 hit “I Want to Know What Love Is.” The rock hit topped the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart for two weeks in 1985.
In addition to mind-blowing vocal runs and harmonies, the most touching part of the performance was when Judd seemed to address her late mother, Naomi Judd, toward the end of the performance. “Mama, you need to be here tonight,” she sang before the last chorus, as McBryde smiled at her in support. “I miss you and I love you and I don’t understand.”
Naomi, 76, who had battled depression, died by suicide on April 30, 2022, one day before The Judds were set to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Wynonna was nominated twice in the CMT performance of the year category at this year’s ceremony, for The Judds’ “Love Can Build a Bridge” from the 2022 CMT Music Awards, and her Brandi Carlile duet “The Rose” from Naomi Judd: A River of Time Celebration.
McBryde, meanwhile, also has two nominations. Her “Bonfire At Tina’s” collaboration with Caylee Hammack, Brandy Clark and Pillbox Patti is up for video of the year and her “One Way Ticket” CMT Crossroads collaboration with LeAnn Rimes and Carly Pearce is nominated for CMT performance of the year.
