Miranda Lambert’s home state is about to celebrate her. The singer will be honored with the Texas Medal of the Arts Award in February.

Given by the Texas Cultural Trust, the honor celebrates “Texas leaders and luminaries who have achieved excellence through their creative talents, as well as those whose generosity has opened doors to artistic opportunity for Texas of all ages.”

Other Texas natives being honored in February include actor Luke Wilson, “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan, musician Christopher Cross and more.

Source: CMT

Vince Gill was feted this week by his colleagues for the new special “CMT Giants” which airs tomorrow night at 9 pm, and he admits he’s not fond of being subject of such honors.

“Slightly uncomfortable,” he tells “Entertainment Tonight,” when asked how it feels to be honored by his friends. “I’m not a guy who enjoys the limelight that much,” adding it’s a “great night to see old friends and they’re going to have to sing my songs whether they like it or not.” As for the impact he thinks he made on country music, he simply noted, “I hope I was kind.”

Vince’s wife Amy Grant couldn’t be on hand for the ceremony because she’s still recovering from a bike accident and he gave fans an update on how she’s doing.

• “She’s doing great,” he said. “She’s pretty torn up that she couldn’t be here tonight but with her accident and all of that, they kind of deemed that the best thing for her to do is just be still.” He adds, “That’s hard for her because she is very active. She knows that she is well thought of, well loved and represented tonight, so it’s all good.”
• ONE MORE THING! At the event Vince was awarded a plaque in honor of the 30th anniversary of his album “I Still Believe in You.” The album includes four number one singles, “I Still Believe In You,” “No Future In The Past,” “Tryin’ To Get Over You,” and “One More Last Chance.”

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.”

You know the joke that all actors really want to direct? Well, apparently that’s true for Taylor Swift as well.

The singer was at the Toronto Film Festival for an “In Conversation With…” appearance where she discussed directing her short film “All To Well,” and she spilled the beans on her bigger behind-the-camera aspirations.

“If it were the right thing, it would be such a privilege and honor,” she shares of directing, “I will always want to tell human stories about human emotion.” She adds,  “It’s really beautiful that we’re in a place where the idea of a female filmmaker doesn’t make you roll your eyes or think as skeptically as it once was,” mentioning influences like Nora Ephron, Chloe Zhao and Greta Gerwig.

• Meanwhile, anyone who knows the song “All Too Well,” or the short film, knows that Taylor’s red scarf plays a big role. While most people have taken the lyric about the scarf literally, with many thinking she was singing about leaving it at one-time boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal’s sister Maggie’s house, Taylor now says it’s really just a metaphor.

“Basically, the scarf is a metaphor and we turned it red because red is a very important color in this album, which is called Red,” she shares. “And, I think when I say it’s a metaphor … I’m just going to stop.”

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Trace Adkins’ new country music series “Monarch” debuts Sunday at 8 pm on Fox and in a new interview he says filming the show during COVID wasn’t exactly easy.

The series started shooting over a year ago, and he says in one instance he thought he may have killed his co-star Susan Sarandon, who plays his wife. While they took COVID tests Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they didn’t get results back until the next day, which was the source of the problem.

“Tuesday morning, the first thing I did that morning I was kissing Susan Sarandon,” Adkins said. “And I was kissing Susan Sarandon when they burst into the room and told me that I had COVID. I said, ‘Oh my God, I’ve killed Susan Sarandon.’”

But Trace notes, “She’s had like eight vaccinations, so she didn’t even get sick,” adding, “I got a little sick for a couple of days, but I oh my God, I feel so bad. I thought I’d killed Susan Sarandon.”

Source: CMT