Shania Twain was among the winners at last night’s (2) 2023 CMT Awards, receiving the Equal Play Award, given to artists who use their platform to advocate for change in the music industry. Country rapper Jelly Roll won three awards, while husband and wife team Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown won the coveted Video of the Year title for “Thank God.”
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“I believe in an all-inclusive country music,” said Twain in her acceptance speech. “This is a genre of music with a rich history that raised and nurtured my own songwriting and performance and recording career from childhood. Currently, the industry standard does a real disservice to this.” She promised to “continue to champion the many outstanding country artists that are not currently played…streamed, toured or awarded at the level they deserve.”
The ceremony, held at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, was hosted by Brown and Kelsea Ballerini, and included tributes to both Stevie Ray Vaughan and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The latter featured Wynonna Judd, LeAnn Rimes, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Guns N’ Roses’ Slash, Cody Johnson, the Allman Brothers’ Warren Haynes and Chuck Leavell, and Free/Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers.
Lainey Wilson won Female Video of the Year at the fan-voted awards for her “Heart Like A Truck” clip, while Jelly Roll took Male Video and Breakthrough Male Video for “Son Of A Sinner” and the Digital-First Performance of the song from CMT All Access. Gwen Stefani teamed with Carly Pearce to sing Stefani’s hit with No Doubt, “Just A Girl,” and Judd and Ashley McBryde covered Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
Other performers on the night included Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and Alanis Morissette, and the Black Crowes and Darius Rucker combined for “She Talks to Angels.” “Wait In The Truck” by HARDY featuring Lainey Wilson was Collaborative Video of the Year, and Cody Johnson’s “‘Til You Can’t,” from the 2022 CMT Music Awards, was CMT Performance of the Year. Breakthrough female video of the year was Megan Moroney’s “Tennessee Orange,” while the Zac Brown Band won Group/Duo Video for “Out In The Middle.”
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