With three wins, including Male Video of the Year, Jelly Roll was the top winner Sunday night at the CMT Awards in Austin, Texas.
The 38-year-old’s “Son of a Sinner” also earned him Male Breakthrough Video the Year and the CMT Digital-First Performance of the Year.
“You can be whatever you want to be. I promise you that,” said Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason DeFord. “I told them that I wanted to be a country singer and I am standing here at the CMT Awards with the male video of the year, baby.”
It was also a truckin’ good night for Lainey Wilson, whose “Heart Like a Truck” was named Female Video of the Year and “Wait in the Truck” – the HARDY track on which she is featured – won Collaborative Video of the Year.
Group/Duo Video of the Year went to “Out in the Middle” by Zac Brown Band and the Female Breakthrough Video winner was “Tennessee Orange” by Megan Moroney. The CMT Performance of the Year award went to Cody Johnson for “’Til You Can’t” from last year’s show.
The night’s biggest award, Video of the Year, went to “Thank God” by Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown.
“This is all so new to me and when we recorded this song a year ago I never in my life would think that this was ever going to happen,” Katelyn said. “This is so special.”
Canadian superstar Shania Twain, honoured with the CMT Equal Play Award, was introduced by Megan Thee Stallion. Twain promised: “I will continue to champion the many outstanding country artists that are not currently played, they are not currently streamed, toured, signed or awarded at the level they deserve. I believe in an all-inclusive country music.”
Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown hosted the show, which began with the former reading the names of the six people killed in last week’s school shooting in Nashville. Later in the show, Ballerini was joined on stage by drag queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race for a performance of “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too).”
There were also performances by Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, Tyler Hubbard, LeAnn Rimes, Keith Urban and Darius Rucker with The Black Crowes.
Gwen Stefani and Carly Pearce performed the No Doubt hit “Just a Girl,” Wynonna Judd and Ashley McBryde teamed up for a cover of Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” and Canada’s Alanis Morissette was joined by Wilson, Ingrid Andress, Madeline Edwards and Morgan Wade for “You Oughta Know.”
Gary Clark Jr. did a tribute to the late Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lynyrd Skynyrd was honoured with a show-closing performance by Paul Rodgers, Cody Johnson, Slash, Rimes, Judd, and the Allman Brothers members Warren Haynes and Chuck Leavell.