Over the years, as I have interviewed many CMA Awards show nominees, and country stars love the Entertainer category that is known as the night’s most significant award. Still, many artists are most impressed and want the Album of the Year nomination more than anything else.
As many nominated artists have told me over the years, it’s the ultimate honor for the hard work they put into an album project.
CMA Album of the Year winners over the past six years have been Luke Combs, Growin’ Up (2022), Chris Stapleton, Starting Over (2021), Luke Combs, What You See Is What You Get (2020), Maren Morris, Girl (2019), Kacey Musgraves, Golden Hour (2018), and Chris Stapleton, From A Room Volume 1 (2017).
Stapleton told us of his 2021 CMA Album of the Year Starting Over, “There are a lot of great records that have this theme and this overlying thread that kind of runs through them. Maybe the thread for me is just I’m singing. I wrote the bulk of the songs. It’s the same guys playing all the songs.”
He continued, “If there’s a theme, hopefully, there’s a theme of truth somewhere in it, and what I mean by that is hopefully we’re conveying in the songs some experiences that feel real, and hopefully people can find themselves in those songs, and in the Album. For me, if I’m looking for a theme, it’s that kind of, I don’t know, that thing that binds us all together as humans.”
Musgraves won the Top Album Grammy in all genres for Golden Hour in 2019. She said when she also won the Grammy for Best Country Album the same year, “I never dreamed that this record would be met with such love, such warmth, such positivity. I love country music with everything that I am, and I’m really proud to get to share that with the world. Thank you so much to my family. Thank you to all the fans that have spread nothing but positivity about this Album, and you really gave it wings. It means so much to me; thank you so much.”
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