Country

Post Malone didn’t have much time to chill in his Bridgestone Arena seat at the 2024 Country Music Association Awards in Nashville Wednesday night (Nov. 20). After opening the show 90 minutes earlier with a run through “California Sober” with multiple CMA-winner Chris Stapleton, Posty was back all by his lonesome later in the broadcast for a moving performance of his daddy-daughter dedication song “Yours.”

The sweet closing track from the singer’s debut country album, F-1 Trillion, brought a hush over the star-studded crowd of luminaries in the house as Malone crooned the lyrics about a father’s stern, but gentle warning to the man in his daughter’s life about who will always come first.

“I don’t know who you are/ But one day, I’m goin’ to/ And it’s gonna break my heart/ When she gives hers to you,” he sang with an ache in his voice as he closed his eyes tight and emoted over gentle accompaniment from an acoustic guitar and fiddle. Wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a blue Nudie-style jacket and cowboy hat, Posty leaned into the heartbreak chorus, “And she might be wearin’ white/ But her first dress, it was pink/ She might be your better half/ Yeah, but she’s my everything/ We’ll both love her forever/ But I loved her long before.”

His voice rising to a cracked crescendo by the end, Malone followed the final “buddy that don’t mean she’s yours” with a seeming shout-out to his 2-year-old daughter, “We love you, DD”; People reported in 2022 that the “DDP” tattoo across the singer’s forehead are his baby girl’s initials. The musician also told the magazine when he released the “Yours” music video in July that the song was inspired by his thoughts about daughter’s future wedding, calling the track “very special to me.”

Malone went into Wednesday night’s event with four nominations — his first ever at the CMAs — including song of the year, single of the year, music video of the year and musical event of the year for his Morgan Wallen collaboration “I Had Some Help.”

For a couple minutes there, Jelly Roll and Brooks & Dunn turned the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville into a church with a spiritual performance of “Believe” at the 2024 Country Music Association Awards Wednesday (Nov. 20).

With Kix Brooks on piano and Ronnie Dunn sharing lead vocals with the “Son of a Sinner” singer, the trio took the stage in front of a full orchestra to perform their version of the track, which appears on the “Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You” duo’s 2024 LP, Reboot II. With the emotional density of the track increasing in tandem with the power of Dunn and Jelly’s raw voices, the musicians’ peers in the audience started raising their hands and wiping away tears as the spirit took over the room.

“I can’t quote the book/ Don’t know the chapter or the verse,” Jelly sang, trading lines with Dunn on the song’s bridge.

“You can’t tell me this all ends/ In a slow ride in a hearse,” jumped in Dunn.

As the song faded away, the “Need a Favor” musician — who pointed up at the sky — said into the microphone, “I love you, Lord.”

Hosted this year by Peyton Manning, Luke Bryan and Lainey Wilson, the CMAs are back to honor some of the biggest names, songs and moments in country music over the past year. Both Jelly and Brooks & Dunn scored nominations in 2024, with the former competing for entertainer of the year and male vocalist of the year, and the latter up for vocal duo of the year.

Jelly was also in the running for album of the year thanks to his 2023 breakout LP, Whitsitt Chapel. The prize ended up going to Cody Johnson’s Leather.

Shaboozey proved that there are way more colors in his musical palette than “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” when he took the stage at the 2024 Country Music Association Awards on Wednesday (Nov. 20). The singer, whose signature song has straddled the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for 18 weeks so far — snagging the title for the longest-running No. 1 on the chart this decade and second place all time — dipped into his bag for the pensive “Highway,” the latest single from his smash Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going LP.

Seated on a stool on a smoke-shrouded set made up to look like the outside of a country honky tonk, the singer cut a striking figure in jeans and a lime green fringed jacket with bedazzled lapels and accents. “I see dead ends, but we’re still goin’ strong/ We’ve been headin’ down a one-way street, but it feel like it’s wrong/ Movin’ like a freight train, gettin’ tired of chuggin’ alone,” he sang over acoustic guitars and a lonesome fiddle.

As he leaned into the foreboding chorus — “I might die on the highway/ With all my regrets/ I’ve been driving for miles and miles and miles, I can’t see where it ends” — the singer, who was up for new artist of the year and single of the year for “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” gave the crowd what they came for mid-song when he made a hard turn into his signature hit.

“CMAs can we turn this place into the greatest dive bar in the world tonight?” he asked as the crowd began to clap and sing along, with many jumping to their feet as a group of line dancers filled the stage and the ubiquitous chorus came around. Keith Urban was not immune, as the cameras caught him mouthing along to the line about the party down of Fifth Street.

The celebration just kept amping up, with a cowboy pulling off impressive moves with his lariat and a dancer doing a back round-off as the song came to a close, and Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena crowd couldn’t help but raise their glasses to one of the genre’s rising superstars.