The 2020 CMA Awards were odd, but dog lovers did very well.
The 2020 CMA Awards were weird this year due to the pandemic. So that fits the rest of the year, at least. But the dog lovers of country music cleaned up as the night’s big winners on Wednesday, November 11 during the ABC broadcast.
Chief among them were dog-rescue-advocate extraordinaire Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris, who has two dogs named June and Pancake.
Lambert’s song “Bluebird” won Music Video of the Year, while she was nominated for Entertainer of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and “Bluebird” was also nominated for Single of the Year and Song of the Year (this award goes to the songwriters).
Morris claimed the 2020 CMA Awards for Female Vocalist of the Year and Single of the Year for “The Bones,” which also won Song of the Year (going to Morris, Jimmy Robbins and Laura Veltz), while a duet version with Hozier was nominated for Musical Event of the Year.
Lambert’s album Wildcard (which also features her song “How Dare You Love,” which has a god-centric music video) was nominated for Album of the Year, and the Lambert-fronted “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” which also featured Morris and a plethora of other female artists, was a nominee for Musical Event of the Year.
Darius Rucker (who has a small white Toy Group dog named Shula and has guest-starred in the animated series Puppy Dog Pals) and Reba McEntire were the hosts of the 2020 CMA Awards, and they filled their role adequately, though the easy banter of Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, or between Carrie, Reba and Dolly Parton last year, was sorely missed.
Thomas Rhett, who helped with the Scoob soundtrack earlier this summer, was nominated for Male Vocalist of the Year and Musical Event of the Year for a collaboration with Reba, Keith Urban and Christian-radio-staple Chris Tomlin that was titled “Be a Light.”
Urban was also nominated for Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year.
Among the oddities of the night was Justin Bieber performing with Dan and Shay on “10,000 Hours,” though it worked very well.
The best live performances (in my opinion) of the night were Ingrid Andress’s “More Hearts Than Mine,” Lambert with “Settling Down,” Morris with “The Bones” and Urban with “God Whispered Your Name,” though the lack of spectators (and total absence of masks) made for an oddly sloppy atmosphere, much more like a rehearsal that was thrown together at the last second, as several acts scheduled to perform were unable to due to COVID contamination.