To kick off a star-studded night of performances and memorable moments, Lady A was joined by Carly Pearce and Lindsay Ell to perform their latest single “Lady” which rolled right into Chris Stapleton and his wife performing in a gorgeous field in Tennessee.

Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown hosted the event, so thankful to be at a fan voted event, with fans actually in attendance for the first time in over a year. Both hosts took home some hardware, Kane Brown for ‘Collaborative Video of the Year’ with Chris Young for his song “Famous Friends” as well as ‘Male Video of the Year’ for “Worship You” while Ballerini took home ‘CMT Performance of the Year’ for her duet with Halsey of “Other Girl” from the 2020 CMT Awards.

From the brand new Assembly Hall rooftop, Luke Combs performed an electric version of “Cold As You” and Thomas Rhett delighted fans at Bridgestone Arena by performing “Country Again” from his most recent album.

One of the most incredible highlights of the night was Mickey Guyton, Rissi Palmer, Jennifer Nettles, and Rhiannon Giddens honoring and telling Linda Martell’s story before presenting her with the CMT Equal Play Award.

The collaborations were a huge part of the night – Dierks Bentley with Brothers Osborne, Breland with Mickey Guyton, then the legendary Gladys Knight joining Guyton for a high energy performance.

Kelsea Ballerini premiered a new song “I Quit Drinking” with the lead singer of LANY while Ingrid Andress performed with JP Saxe and Carrie Underwood sang with Needtobreathe.

Carrie Underwood took home the big award of the night, ‘Video of the Year’ for her collaboration with John Legend, “Hallelujah”. Overall, the show was buzzing with excitement of finally being able to have the fans who were voting for the nominees to be in attendance at the show. For the full list of winners click here.

To hear more of country music’s best new releases, head to our Playlists Page, and follow The Nash New Releases playlist on Spotify. For the latest in country music news follow The Nash News on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.

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