The ACM Awards Should Renew your Faith in Country

posted in: Country • Music News

When “Crazy Girl” by the Eli Young Band won the ACM Song of the Year at the April 1 awards telecast from Las Vegas, my faith in country music was renewed.

Don’t get me wrong”I have nothing against mainstream performers including Blake Shelton, Toby Keith, Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert or their music. They were all celebrated, and rightfully so, at the ACM. They’re great musicians and terrific entertainers. I was one of the first music journalists that had the pleasure of interviewing some of the now big-names in country, and found the majority of them to be down to earth and passionate about their music.

But I’m also one of those fans that thinks it’s something of  a tragedy that so many widely loved and incredibly talented performers”think Willie Nelson, the Avett Brothers, Ricky Skaggs, and countless others”are, let’s say shunned, at these shows. We could go into all the reasons, but why? The bottom line is that they aren’t on the industry shows. I love KISS and LL Cool J and U2’s Bono, but really? They’re featured at the ACM awards?

Yet, just when I’m feeling fairly disillusioned, along comes this award announcement and even though I have nothing at all to do with the band, I am so proud of their success. The Texas quartet’s win”over Dierks Bentley, Vince Gill, Lady Antebellum and Kenny Chesney”was a true Samson and Goliath success story.

“I have dreamed about this moment for my whole life,” said a visibly moved Mike Eli when he and his band mates accepted the award. “For those of you watching on television and thinking ‘I’m dreaming of this moment and want to be here,’ follow your dreams, believe in yourself and do it.”

God knows he’s speaking from personal experience that includes years of poverty and vans and small clubs playing to tiny audiences.

And when his band mate Jon Jones thanked all “our friends back in Texas,” a whoop went up in the audience. Talk about telling. For years, Texas fans were just about the only ones who heard the Eli Young Band. There were, clearly, some of those early believers in the audience.

I remember meeting the band back stage at the 2010 Country Thowdown Tour when it stopped in the Washington, DC area. Country musicians, as you likely suspect, are almost always down to earth but the members of the Eli Young Band just touched my heart. They spoke with such sincerity about their music, their fans and their struggle to be heard.

“That Country Throwdown Tour was the first year we were playing those huge amphitheaters,” Eli told me not too long ago. “Before that we were used to playing clubs and [the Throwdown Tour) was really eye opening. It taught us to play any size venue.”

And, fortunately for all of us, it also exposed mainstream country fans to the musical brilliance that is the Eli Young Band.

And say what you want about Scotty McCreery (who, by the way, is truly an amazing person as well as performer), but he’s a terrific example of an unheralded talent whose fans brought him to national prominence (even if it was on TV’s American Idol). Congratulations to this high school student who won the New Artist Award, and promptly thanked God, paid tribute to the other award nominees and, most of all, his fans.

Eric Church, who sang a moving version of his hot song “Springsteen” during the ceremony, is another example of someone whose fans pushed him into the national spotlight. Church was fairly unknown when he joined the Country Thowdown Tour but had an über loyal fan base. How loyal? Loyal enough to force organizers to move his act from the acoustic to the main stage after one show.

“It’s so cool to watch this,” said Church before that Throwdown show. “It’s like we have a whole army that keeps building.”

And that army”whether they are fans of Church, the Eli Young Band, McCreery or others”is what may well renew the faith of country music fans who want to follow the more traditional path of country music. Not to mention those performers who forge their own musical trails just like country music legends Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner and others did way back when.

What’s that saying about not all those who wander are lost?