The DM Zone with Host Dianemarie (DM) Collins was fortunate to cover the 50th Annual Country Music Association Awards, commonly known as CMA 50 or the 50th CMA Awards, were held on November 2, 2016 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The ceremony recognizes some of the best country music released during the eligibility period (between July 1, 2015 and July 20, 2016). It is the eleventh ceremony to be held at the Arena, the seventeenth to be held in November and the ninth night to be co-hosted by country stars Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. The ceremony was directed by Paul Miller.
As it was the 50th anniversary of the awards, the Country Music Association ran an extensive promotional campaign and CMA Executive Producer Robert Deaton stated that the aim of the ceremony was to include a lot of “heritage artists” and honor the history of country music, stressing that there would be less of a focus on artists promoting their current singles as is usually the case so that greater time could be spent including “exciting throwbacks”.
About Carrie Underwood
Carrie Marie Underwood (born March 10, 1983) is an American singer, songwriter, fashion designer and actress. She rose to fame as the winner of the fourth season of American Idol in 2005. Her debut single, “Inside Your Heaven”, made her the only country artist to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the only solo country artist in the 2000s to have a number-one song on the Hot 100. Her debut album, Some Hearts, was released in 2005. Bolstered by the huge crossover success of the singles “Jesus, Take the Wheel” and “Before He Cheats”, it became the best-selling solo female debut album in country music history, the fastest-selling debut country album in Nielsen SoundScan history and the best-selling country album of the last 16 years. Underwood won three Grammy Awards for the album, including Best New Artist.
Her second album, Carnival Ride, followed in 2007. It had one of the biggest opening weeks of all time by a female artist and won two Grammy Awards. Her next album, 2009’s Play On, was a commercial success led by the single “Cowboy Casanova”. Underwood’s fourth album, Blown Away (2012), earned her a Grammy Award and was that year’s second best-selling release by a female artist. Her first compilation album (2014), a chart and sales success, spawned the Grammy Award-winning crossover single “Something in the Water”. Her fifth album, Storyteller (2015), made her the only country artist to have all first five studio albums reach either numbers one or two on the Billboard 200 chart. With her sixth album, Cry Pretty (2018), she became the only woman to top the Billboard 200 with four country albums, and had both the biggest week for any album by a woman in 2018 and the best-selling solo female album of the year.
One of the most successful music artists, Underwood has sold 70 million records worldwide. She is the seventh highest-certified female artist of all time on the RIAA’s Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking and the highest-certified country album artist to debut in the 21st century. Underwood is also the woman with most number-one singles on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, with 15. Her awards and accolades include seven Grammy Awards, 11 Billboard Music Awards, 13 American Music Awards, a Guinness World Record, 14 ACM Awards and nine CMA Awards.
About Brad Paisley
Brad Douglas Paisley (born October 28, 1972) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Starting with his 1999 debut album Who Needs Pictures, he has released eleven studio albums and a Christmas compilation on the Arista Nashville label, with all of his albums certified Gold or higher by the RIAA. He has scored 32 Top 10 singles on the US Billboard Country Airplay chart, 19 of which have reached number 1. He set a new record in 2009 for the most consecutive singles (10) reaching the top spot on that chart.
Paisley has sold over 11 million albums and has won three Grammy Awards, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, 14 Country Music Association Awards, and two American Music Awards.
