The 15th annual ACM Honors, hosted by Carly Pearce, went down last month at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and last night fans got to see what they missed. Fox aired a two-hour special of the event, and honors handed out include:
- ACM TRIPLE CROWN AWARD – Miranda Lambert
- ACM ICON AWARD – Connie Bradley
- ACM MILESTONE AWARD – Morgan Wallen
- ACM SPIRIT AWARD – Chris Stapleton
- ACM POET’S AWARD – Sonny Throckmorton and Shania Twain
- ACM FILM AWARD – “Yellowstone”
- ACM SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD – HARDY
Among the tributes:
- Miranda was honored with the ACM Triple Crown Award, an honor previously given to only seven other artists. She was celebrated by Brooks & Dunn, who performed her hit “Kerosene,” and Little Big Town, who performed “The House That Built Me.”
- “At 19, I was trying to set everything on fire and firing my pistols on all cylinders,” she said in her speech, “and now I see the girls my age bringing their daughters to my show and I hope we continue that for years to come, because this stage is what it was all built on, this building and this town and this industry. Thank y’all for loving country music.”
- Shania was honored with the ACM Poets Award, and was celebrated with several performances including Tiera Kennedy, who performed “From This Moment On,” Avril Lavigne, who sang “No One Needs To Know, and Kelsea Ballerini, who donned a short dress, top hat and cape to perform “Man! I Feel Like A Woman.” Earlier in the evening Kelsea wore the white dress Shania wore to the 1999 GRAMMYs on the red carpet.
- Shania gave a 10-minute speech in which she talked about the challenges of being a songwriter. “The unique challenge in songwriting really is in the world of storytelling is the amount of time you have to tell a complete story,” she said. “But the hardest part is signing it away and sharing it with the world and that is what our industry and all the teams around us make happen for all of us songwriters.”
- Morgan, honored with the Milestone Award, garnered a huge amount of applause and cheers from the crowd, with HARDY and Ernest performing his hits “Sand in My Boots,” “Wasted on You” and “More Than My Hometown” in his honor. Eric Church presented Morgan with the award, acknowledging his troubled year, noting, “I’ve seen him go through some things. I’ve seen him mature as an artist, I’ve seen him mature as a man. I can tell you this: We are very lucky to have him in country music.”
- Morgan also seemed to acknowledge the controversy surrounding him in his speech, noting, “Me and God, we’ve had some interesting do-si-do’s I guess you could say,” adding, “It’s been an incredible year. Awards are awesome, but my true measure of success is my fans [who] I get to see every single night out on the road. Thank you guys for supporting me.”
- Other performances included: Vince Gill celebrated ACM Spirit Award Recipient Chris Stapleton with a performance of “You Don’t Want To Love A Man Like Me,” a song they co-wrote but didn’t record, Dan + Shay performed “Glad You Exist,” Wynonna performed “Why Not Me,” in honor of songwriter Sonny Throckmorton, Morgan performed “The Rock,” to pay tribute to Hardy; and host Carly Pearce performed her track “What He Didn’t Do.”
