11/11 At C.M.A. Awards, Nashville Shake-Up Goes On

Music Review
At C.M.A. Awards, Nashville Shake-Up Goes On
By JON CARAMANICA
Published: November 11, 2010

When Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert met in 2005, she was a Nashville reality show survivor with one critically acclaimed album and he was a grinning goofball who even in his best moments had the feel of a country music journeyman made good.

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Brad Paisley accepted the Entertainer of the
Year award at the 44th annual Country Music Association Awards in Nashville. More Photos »

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Miranda Lambert won three music awards,
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In May, they were engaged, and Wednesday night, at the 44th edition of the Country Music Association Awards, which were broadcast on ABC from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, they became country music’s unlikely new first couple.

Ms. Lambert, a pleasantly unvarnished singer in the 1970s mold, won three awards, including Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year (for “Revolution”), and one of her singles, “The House That Built Me,” won Song of the Year. Mr. Shelton, an ambassador of country music’s emergent frat wing, won a pair of awards, including Male Vocalist of the Year. His other win, for Musical Event of the Year, was for “Hillbilly Bone,” his rural-pride duet with Trace Adkins.

Their victories continued, in a smaller way, the disruption to the Nashville pecking order that was so blatant at last year’s CMAs, when the teenage star Taylor Swift won four awards, including Album of the Year, and Darius Rucker won New Artist of the Year, the first black artist so honored.

Those victories — upsets, really — were only some of the signs that Nashville was coming to terms with a new establishment. The rise of Mr. Shelton and Ms. Lambert, who was nominated nine times in seven categories, and who has had to survive in the long shadows of Ms. Swift and Carrie Underwood in recent years, is a repudiation of some of the bigness that came to define country music in the late 1980s and 1990s and that spilled over into the last decade in the form of stars like George Strait, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire and more. The same is true for Lady Antebellum, whose soft-rock take on country harmonies earned a pair of awards, for Single of the Year (the sublime “Need You Now”) and Vocal Group of the Year.

As ever, the show was efficient, with only nine televised award presentations (three more were handed out before the show) squeezed in between more than twice as many performances. There were strong turns by Sugarland, which won Vocal Duo of the Year for the fourth year running — the closest this year’s awards came to predictability — Kenny Chesney on his football memoir “The Boys of Fall,” and Ms. Swift, with a purposefully low-key rendition of “Back to December,” during which she never got up from behind her piano. Ms. McEntire’s cover of Beyoncé’s “If I Were A Boy” was forceful, but Mr. Strait, the night’s other representative of the old guard, sounded noticeably frail and tentative in his performance of “The Breath You Take.”
The show also featured several pairings of younger artists with more established singers — there is new blood in Nashville, though many of those singers are less seasoned, and less gifted, than the veterans they’re unseating.

The Zac Brown Band, which won New Artist of the Year, was joined by Alan Jackson on their duet “As She’s Walking Away,” with Mr. Jackson achieving more with the barest of effort than Mr. Brown, whose huffing and puffing had real limitations. “Don’t You Wanna Say,” a duet by Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson, one of the most powerful singers in any genre, initially appeared like a mismatch, but Mr. Aldean made the most of his insistent, grizzled tone.
That Gwyneth Paltrow was joined by Vince Gill for the live premiere of “Country Strong,” the title track of the forthcoming film in which she plays a country star bouncing back from addiction, wasn’t a surprise. The surprise was that she didn’t need his steadying hand nearly as much as some of the night’s other performers.

“It takes a lot to come to our town and get up here and sing on our stage,” Ms. Underwood said to Ms. Paltrow at the beginning of the night, a compliment that sounded somehow sinister.
As it was last year, the ceremony was hosted by Brad Paisley and Ms. Underwood, who may prove to be a durable pair. In the spirit of Billy Crystal, but in tune, they opened with a mildly jabbing musical number, referring to the BP oil spill and the sexual peccadilloes of Tiger Woods and Brett Favre, and noting, “Nashville had a flood, and we barely made the news.”

Mr. Paisley won Entertainer of the Year, the night’s top prize, but by the time it was announced it was something of an afterthought, his tearful speech notwithstanding. He also used the show to unveil a new song, “This Is Country Music,” a savvy advertisement for the genre that nodded to hits of yesteryear.

But while Mr. Paisley is preparing for his spot as a part of the next old guard, he’s not afraid of a little mischief. He didn’t shy away from working blue — albeit very, very light blue. “After the night that Blake and Miranda are having,” he said, “I think we can expect a baby in about nine months.”

A version of this review appeared in print on November 11, 2010, on page A24 of the New York edition.