Jeff Neira/CBSOut of four country categories at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards in New York City, it turned out there were only two winners: Chris Stapleton and Little Big Town.
Chris took home trophies each time he was nominated, winning Best Country Solo Performance for “Either Way,” Best Country Song for his current single, “Broken Halos,” and Best Country Album for From A Room: Volume 1.
“It’s a real joy to get to make music,” the Kentucky native said as he accepted the award for the first of two records he released in 2017.
Little Big Town snagged Best Country Duo/Group Performance for the Taylor-Swift-penned “Better Man,” performing the ballad on a stunning set built to replicate a NYC rooftop.
Country artists provided two of the most moving moments at the 60th Annual Grammys. Stapleton and Lifetime-Achievement-honoree Emmylou Harris sang Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” during the night’s In Memoriam segment, while Eric Church, Maren Morris and Brothers Osborne remembered the music fans lost last year.
Eric recalled the worst mass shooting in modern American history, at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.
“On October 1,” he said, “all of country music was reminded in the most tragic way the connection we share with our fans, and the healing power music will always provide.”
Maren continued, remembering the victims of violence at the Ariana Grande concert.
“A few months earlier and a continent away, the same was true in Manchester, England,” she said. “The painful truth is that this year and just in those two events, 81 music lovers just like us went out to enjoy a night of music and never came back home, with many more injuries still healing…”
“May they all rest in peace…” TJ Osborne added, before the three acts covered Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.”
Reba McEntire added to her collection of Grammys this year, winning Best Roots Gospel Album for her inspirational double set, Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope.
She was also one of two country stars at the center of a couple of high-profile Grammy commercials: KFC rolled out Reba’s spot as the new Colonel Sanders, while Target premiered Maren’s high-tech video for “The Middle” with deejay/producer Zedd.
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
