Best Moments Of CMT Awards 2024: From Jelly Roll's Wins To Trisha Yearwood's New Song
From Jelly Roll's triumphant wins to heartfelt tributes and captivating performances, the 2024 CMT Awards delivered an unforgettable evening celebrating the essence of country music.
The 2024 CMT Awards on Sunday, April 7, celebrated the best of country music by awarding accolades across nine categories to the best of artists in the genre. Jelly Roll was the night’s top winner, taking home all three awards that he was nominated for, making his wins the highlight of the ceremony, especially with those impassioned acceptance speeches.
In other parts of the award show, Brittney Spencer and Parker McCollum sprinkled the fairy dust over the ceremony with a joint performance of Burn It Down. Sam Hunt hit the stage with his new song Locked Up and Trisha Yearwood debuted a new tune, Put It In A Song, in addition to winning the inaugural CMT June Carter Cash Humanitarian Award.
The most moving moment of the night, though, was an emotional tribute to the late Toby Keith, who died of cancer in February.
For those who missed catching the aforementioned top CMT Music Awards moments live, below is an elaborate list for you.
Jelly Roll scores 3/3 — Takes home top honors of the night
The Need a Favor singer, for the said song, scored three accolades tonight, which include the Male Video of the Year Award, Performance of the Year Award, and Video of the Year honor.
In one of his speeches, Jelly Roll emphasized the significance of getting second chances, before giving a shout-out to the at-risk youth, especially those in juvenile detention centers, saying, “I’m cheering y’all boys on.”
Brittney Spencer and Parker McCollum burn the stage down with Burn It Down
The duo performed his song Burn It Down on a smoke-filled and blazing-with-fire CMT Awards stage.
Their fiery performance courted explosive applause from the crowd.
Trisha Yearwood receives CMT June Carter Cash Humanitarian Award — debuts new song
For her philanthropic endeavors like Habitat for Humanity, Carter Work Project, and National Women Build Week, Yearwood was honored by CMT with their new June Carter Cash Humanitarian Award.
The singer delivered a heartfelt speech as she accepted the award, saying, “June Carter Cash was a force, and she was also married to a force.”
She added, “My hope is that we can all learn a little bit from June Carter Cash’s legacy, and be a little more real, be a little bit more vulnerable, be a little bit less about ‘me’ and a little bit more about ‘us.’”
In addition to receiving the honorary award, Yearwood debuted her brand new melody, Put It In A Song.
Sam Hunt channels Johnny Cash in his Locked Up performance
Sam Hunt hit the stage to perform his new song Locked Up, wearing a black suit and white dress shirt. Via his performance, Hunt managed to bring some Johnny Cash Folsom Prison Blues vibes to Austin.
Hunt released Locked Up just last week.
Lainey Wilson, Brooks & Dunn, and Sammy Hagar pay tribute to Toby Keith
Lainey Wilson, Brooks & Dunn, and Sam Hager clubbed together to honor the late Toby Keith, a 30-time CMT Award nominee.
Brooks & Dunn started the tribute with a performance of Should’ve Been a Cowboy, which had the audience singing and swaying along. Then, Sammy Hager put up an I Love This Bar performance while wearing Toby Keith merch underneath his red jacket. Lastly, Lainey Wilson finished out the tribute with How Do You Like Me Now? And she sure had the audience in a trance.
The Toby Keith tribute segment concluded with a Red Solo Cup toast to the fallen country star, where the performers on the stage, as well as the crowd at the venue, raised their cups on baseball pitcher Roger Clemens’ command. Clemens was Toby Keith’s long-standing friend. He teared up while thanking Keith's family for sharing Toby with the world.