{"id":83361,"date":"2021-10-16T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-10-16T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/?p=83361"},"modified":"2021-10-14T11:46:28","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T15:46:28","slug":"cmt-honours-artists-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/blogs\/country-music-news\/2021\/10\/cmt-honours-artists-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"CMT Honours Artists Of The Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CMT recognized the year&#8217;s biggest acts in a heartfelt and unforgettable ceremony live from Nashville on Wednesday, October 13th.<\/p>\n<p>The artists honoured as this year\u2019s 2021 &#8220;CMT Artists of the Year&#8221; were Chris Stapleton, Gabby Barrett, Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini and Luke Combs, alongside &#8220;Breakout Artist of the Year&#8221; Mickey Guyton and &#8220;Artist of a Lifetime&#8221; Randy Travis.<\/p>\n<p>The evening kicked off with honoree Luke Combs performing his hit, \u201cForever After All,\u201d and accepting his award from friend Eric Church. Combs thanked the fans and his wife and gave a special call-out to Randy Travis for his enduring influence on the format.<\/p>\n<p>Next, Gabby Barrett was lauded by Grammy award-winning Christian artist Michael W. Smith who introduced a moving performance of her No. 1 hit song, \u201cThe Good Ones,\u201d backed by her husband and guitarist.<\/p>\n<p>Presenter Misty Copeland introduced \u201cBreakout Artist of the Year\u201d Mickey Guyton who, alongside friend and musician, Yola, garnered the first standing ovation of the evening with a powerful world premiere version of Guyton\u2019s song, \u201cRemember Her Name.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode embed-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"610\" height=\"355\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jsAVchfGYKw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The evening\u2019s second standing ovation came when Garth Brooks introduced friend and country legend, Randy Travis, with the highly-coveted \u201cArtist of a Lifetime\u201d Award. Travis and his wife Mary Davis joined Brooks onstage to accept the honour as Davis thanked the fans on Randy\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n<p>Honoree Kane Brown was introduced by friend Nelly before taking the stage to honour Travis by singing one of his biggest hits, \u201cThree Wooden Crosses.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode embed-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"610\" height=\"355\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HCqu9yOITDk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Brown then accepted his own 2021 honour, thanking the fans and remembering his bandmate and drummer who passed away in 2019, days before Brown\u2019s first \u201cArtists of the Year\u201d distinction.<\/p>\n<p>Next, Grammy Award-winning artists Boys II Men, joined by Pentatonix\u2019s Kevin Olusola honoured Chris Stapleton with the first-ever performance of his song, \u201cCold.\u201d Stapleton admitted to being \u201chumbled\u201d by CMT\u2019s honour and acknowledged being moved by all the \u201clove in the room\u201d as he accepted his award from friend Connie Britton.<\/p>\n<p>The final honoree celebrated was Kelsea Ballerini whose husband, country artist Morgan Evans introduced her performance with tourmates Jonas Brothers. Performing \u201cWith a Little Help From My Friends\u201d from their tour stop in Franklin, Tenn., Ballerini accepted her award from Nick Jonas, thanking fans for their support.<\/p>\n<p>The evening concluded with Walker Hayes who got the audience on its feet as he performed his smash viral hit \u201cFancy Like,\u201d a song recognized as one of the most memorable phenomenons this year.<\/p>\n<p>For more on show visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.cmt.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CMT recognized the year&#8217;s biggest acts in a heartfelt and unforgettable ceremony live from Nashville on Wednesday, October 13th.","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":83362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"featured_img_display":"Yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[464],"tags":[702,6491,512,3430,471,480,491,4633,3114],"class_list":["post-83361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-country-music-news","tag-chris-stapleton","tag-cmt-artists-of-the-year","tag-eric-church","tag-gabby-barrett","tag-kane-brown","tag-kelsea-ballerini","tag-luke-combs","tag-mickey-guyton","tag-randy-travis"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 15:47:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"react_link":"https:\/\/cknx.ca\/blogs\/country-music-news\/2021\/10\/cmt-honours-artists-of-the-year\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83363,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83361\/revisions\/83363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/cknxam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}