Luke Bryan may have won the CMA Awards’ top prize for entertainer of the year, but
a soulful outsider swept many of the night’s most significant trophies.
Chris Stapleton was the big winner of the latter half of the Country Music
Assn. Awards, winning for album of the year for “Traveller” and male
vocalist of the year. SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter >>
Following
an impressive duet with Justin Timberlake and a win for new artist, the
awards codified Stapleton as both a major new star and one of the
genre’s most artistically significant newcomers. Stapleton accepted his awards with humility. “Two years
ago I lost my dad,” he said. “He would have liked to have seen this.
It’s an unbelievable thing. I’m not going to take it lightly.”
Even Bryan, accepting the night’s top prize on the strength of his
LP "Kill the Lights," had to hand it to him: “Watching Chris Stapleton
have this night is so uplifting,” Bryan said.
Little Big Town
continued its winning streak with a prize for vocal group of the year,
underlining the prowess of their inescapable single, “Girl Crush.”
While
some of the show’s latter nods went to upbeat, more radio-minded
performers (like Florida Georgia Line, the bro-country staple that took
home vocal duo of the year), others came with darker undertones.
Miranda Lambert, accepting the prize for female vocalist of the year, subtly alluded to her breakup with Blake Shelton.
“I needed a bright spot this year,” she said. “I’m going to go home and practice.”
Bryan proved his mettle with a strong performance of his relatively racy cut “Strip It Down,” as did co-host Carrie Underwood with her hard-bitten “Smoke Break” and Dierks Bentley with “Riser.”
But
the show’s most unlikely pairing came when the pop-punk band Fall Out
Boy teamed with Thomas Rhett for a combo of their singles “Crash and
Burn” and “Uma Thurman.” The songs’ brashness, especially "Uma
Thurman's" spy-flick guitar lines, made for an unexpected but refreshing
mélange.
Later,
Reba McEntire joined Brooks & Dunn for a revisit of their
respective singles “Why Haven’t I” and “Play Something Country,” which
implied that the night’s experimentalists couldn’t wander too far
without a riposte from country’s roots.
Yet even an artist as
mainstream as Bryan had to acknowledge that at the 2015 CMA Awards,
songs like “Girl Crush” and Stapleton carried the night. Sometimes
ambition can be a winning bet as well.
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