CMA 3 Kanye 0

Country Music stood up for their own at the CMA Awards, embracing Taylor Swift with a couple of digs at Kanye West. That set the tone for an entertaining night of 9 televised awards and 21 performances. Taylor Swift was the 15th performance, by the way. Hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood took a cue from Taylor’s SNL performance and sung some of the opening dialogue. Parody renditions of Brooks and Dunn’s impending “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Blue” turned into “Swine Flu” were pretty topical, with the latter creeping to the line of respect for those affected by H1N1 virus. As the heart of American music, country artists showed plenty of respect to the US Military throughout the Veteran’s Day broadcast.

Lyrics were the running theme of the night’s performances. After all, county songs are just so hard to understand, you know. For those tuning in at the beginning, the wild freak out number about boys who do bad things provided little clue that you were about to watch a country award show. But if you looked close enough, past the tight black outfit, and the girl sliding down a dance pole, you saw country’s reining princess, Taylor Swift. Next came a former pop singer. Too bad most of the audience shown around Darius Rucker didn’t seem to know the words to his number one country hit. By the time Miranda Lambert performed “White Liar,” the ‘bad girl’ of country music seemed down-home compared to the princess’ earlier performance. Host Brad Paisley got a slot to sing “Welcome To The Future,” as did Carrie Underwood. She came out to sing the current #1 song “Cowboy Casanova” in an outfit that Brad joked, “gave Little Jimmy Dickens a real good view.” Carrie’s performance with the dance troupe was quite a production number; although it would have seemed to make more sense had she had a troupe of male dancers dressed as hot cowboys around her. But to each their own. With that outfit, it’s doubtful that many eyes even saw that there were dancers around her.

Other performances included Lady Antebellum, “Need You Now;” Daughtry with Vince Gill, “Tennessee Life” (don’t be surprised if Daughtry hits country radio next); Keith Urban, “Til Summer Comes Around;” Sugarland; Brooks and Dunn with Billy Gibbons; Jamey Johnson and Kid Rock, “Somewhere Between Jennings and Jones;” George Strait; Jason Aldean; Reba; Billy Currington’s glitzed-down performance of “People Are Crazy;” and Kenny Chesney with Dave Matthews. Tim McGraw (and Faith Hill) finally made up with the CMA so they could attend, present an award, and let Tim sing his latest single, “Southern Voice.” Martina McBride got a special performance slot for the annual acknowledgement of the Country Music Hall of Fame inductees. She sang a very traditional arrangement of “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool,” and when it came time for the famous “George line,” none other than the “other George,” as in Strait, appeared to sing with Martina! What a performance to honor a thrilled Barbara Mandrell, Charlie McCoy, and Roy Clark. In her acceptance speech, Barbara alluded to her former TV show - which raises the question – “When is the Barbara Mandrell Show going to on DVD?” I digress. The performance of the night belonged to Zac Brown Band. It takes guts to cover a signature tune from the Charlie Daniels Band. But Zac and his talented pickers pulled off a rockin’ version of “The Devil Went Down To Georgia.” If that isn’t a single, the decision makers in Nashville should lose a merit badge.

So who won the awards? What a concept! Awards, on an award show! Overall, it’s nice to see variety that indicates a changing of the guard for the next decade. Here’s the list:

Single of the Year
Lady Antebellum “I Run To You”
Song of the Year
“In Color”
Group of the Year
Lady Antebellum
New Artist of the Year
Darius Rucker
Album of the Year
“Fearless” by Taylor Swift
Vocal Duo of the Year
Sugarland
Male Vocalist of the Year
Brad Paisley
Female Vocalist of the Year
Taylor Swift
Entertainer of the Year
Taylor Swift
Non-televised awards
Musician of the Year
Mac McAnally
Video of the Year
Taylor Swift “Love Story”
Musical Event of the Year
Brad Paisley with Keith Urban “Start A Band”

Makes you wonder what Kenny Chesney whispered in Taylor’s ear when he congratulated her for winning his Entertainer award? With a new decade approaching, the Taylor tornado will only grown stronger.