In Search of Good Entertainment: 57th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards

For the first time this year’s ACM Awards were live streamed on Prime Video. The venue was the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. You can watch the recording on Prime Video of course.

Here are the high points for me.

Yes, I love and appreciate country music and so I make it a point to watch the Academy of Country Music Awards regularly, as well as the CMA Music Festival. Maybe I will get to one live, someday!!

It is all about the music, so let’s go there.

My favorite part was the surprise (to me) production of Praise the Lord, by ACM’s Breakthrough Artist, Breland. Breland is accompanied on the song by Country singer and songwriter Thomas Rhett.

Two all-time favorites were hits of the night for the audience and viewers: I Will Always Love you and I Hope You Dance.

Kelly Clarkson sang I Will Always Love You, made popular by Dolly Parton, but moved to blockbuster status in Whitney Houston’s rendition. Here’s Kelly’s performance at this year’s ACMs.

One of the evening’s cohosts, Gabby Barret delivered a lovely and flawless rendition of I Hope You Dance. Oh, the guitar player stalking Gabby on stage…that’s her husband, Cade Foehner.

Also, at this year’s ACMs we saw and heard two artists acknowledge two horrific incidents, one international and one domestic.

During the opening of the show, host Dolly Parton dedicated the event to the people of Ukraine. Later in the ACMs Christ Stapleton paid tribute to the victims of the 2017 shootings in Las Vegas at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, performing a song he released in 2020, Watch You Burn.

Let’s close out with the ACM song of the year, If I Didn’t Love You, what I call a “lost love, love song,” performed by country greats Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood.

Check out the show. I recommend viewing with captions to grasp all the lyrics and the HIGHLIGHTs version is excellent.

© Deborah Tompkins Johnson