Maverick Country Music Magazine

1 October 2020

Normally at this time of the year, we would have gotten back from Nashville from the CMA Awards and would still processing what happened at country music’s biggest night, which never fails to deliver. This year was no exception, with the dust still settling from the awards as people debate who got what and who missed out on what. The conversation has been very welcome and as always, it’s been intriguing to see people’s views on the matter. For me personally, the most surprising thing of the night was the lack of recognition Miranda Lambert got, winning just one of the seven awards that she was nominated for – had she walked away with three or more, including Entertainer of the Year, it’s unlikely many eyelids would’ve been batted. Carrie Underwood fans have also had their say on the Entertainer of the Year award given that she missed out again, with many of her fans feeling as if she has now been robbed for two years straight. Equally, Eric Church fans are delighted that he managed to win the award given that they felt that he should have won it last year, only to be beaten by Garth Brooks. One of the beauties of music is how subjective it is and awards nights always seem to highlight that, which you can read about more in detail for our awards review on page eight. We do have some CMA Award winners in this issue, one of which winning on the night – though of course, he wasn’t to know that then. Lee Brice is a man with the Midas touch at present and spoke to us about his new album, ‘Hey World’. That feature is on page 22. Brothers Osborne performed at the event this year too and have taken home their fair share of awards themselves – they too have released a new album recently in ‘Skeletons’ and in TJ’s words, it’s the most complete sounding record they’ve released. You can find that article on page 20. Meanwhile, UK duo Ward Thomas also have been recognised with a CMA Award, with the pair picking up the Jeff Walker Global Artist Award back in 2019. The twins were very busy over lockdown and have a new project to show for that too, which you can discover on page 16.