Aside from the biggest award of the night – Entertainer of the Year – going to Garth Brooks, the biggest winners at the 53rd CMA Awards were Luke Combs and Kacey Musgraves, the only artists to win two trophies. Luke’s were for Male Vocalist and Song of the Year for “Beautiful Crazy.” Kacey’s were for Female Vocalist and Video of the Year for “Rainbow.”
Other notable wins, on a night that paid tribute to the women of country music, past and present, include Jenee Fleenor, who became the first woman to ever win the trophy for Musician of the Year, and it’s about dang time! And for the second year in a row, a woman grabbed the Album of the Year win – it was Maren Morris and her album Girl, who follows last year’s winner, Kacey Musgraves. And Ashley McBryde became the first woman to win New Artist of the Year since Maren did it in 2016. (Since 2008, only three solo women have won New Artist, the third being Kacey Musgraves in 2013 – are you seeing a pattern here? Anybody wanna predict Ashley McBryde for next year’s female vocalist and/or album winner?)
Garth’s win for Entertainer was his seventh, the first time being in 1991, just a year after he won what was then called the Horizon Award (now it’s New Artist). And it was cool that he used his time to point out great performances from other artists that night – Reba’s three-costume change performance of “Fancy,” Kelsea Ballerini’s “Homecoming Queen,” and he said Luke Combs would be holding that EOTY trophy someday.
If you want to hear more stories, highlights, winner reactions, and the songs that were performed, check out our CMAs 2019 station here.