On November 9, 2022, the 56th CMA Awards went live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. It was the first CMA broadcast since Loretta Lynn died at her home on October 4, at the age of 90. Everyone knew the night would begin with her. What surprised a lot of viewers was how it began. Before Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert or Reba McEntire sang a note, the show handed the microphone back to Loretta herself.
The clip from 1972
The screen filled with old footage from the 1972 CMA Awards. Minnie Pearl had just announced the Entertainer of the Year, and the name was Loretta Lynn. No woman had ever won the CMA’s top prize before. Loretta had been nominated the year before and lost, so she did not come in expecting a speech.
She told the crowd it was an award she had been nominated for but never got. She said she was happy. Then she added the line that made people in 2022 laugh and tear up at the same time:
“I’m kinda sad about it because my husband is gone hunting.”
He couldn’t make it back in time to share it with her, she explained. That husband was Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn, the man she married as a teenager and stayed with for 48 years, until his death in 1996. It was such a Loretta moment: the biggest honor in country music, and she was standing there telling the whole room her husband was out in the woods.
For six years after that night, Loretta Lynn was the only woman who had ever won Entertainer of the Year. Dolly Parton became the second in 1978.
Carrie opens, Miranda follows
The clip ended, and Carrie Underwood took the stage with “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” Loretta’s 1966 hit. Photos of Loretta appeared on the screen behind her as she sang.
Miranda Lambert came next with “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” the song that gave Loretta her first No. 1. Miranda had her own history with Loretta. Loretta Lynn’s final CMA nomination, in 2011 for Musical Event of the Year, was shared with Miranda Lambert and Sheryl Crow for their recording of “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
Reba’s entrance
When the opening chords of “You’re Lookin’ at Country” started and Reba McEntire walked out to join the others, the arena roared. It was not a given that she would be in full voice that night. Only weeks earlier, she had been forced to postpone shows to rest her voice.
Near the end of the song, Reba made a small change of her own. She ad-libbed a line that tied the title straight back to the woman being honored:
“If you were lookin’ at Loretta, you’re lookin’ at country.”
One song, three voices
The finale was the song everyone was waiting for. Loretta Lynn’s signature, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” was split among all three women. Miranda Lambert took the first verse, Reba McEntire the second, Carrie Underwood the third, and they kept passing it around in that order. Images of Loretta were projected behind them, and people in the audience sang along.
Only on the very last line did the three of them sing together. After a medley built on one voice handing the song to the next, that final line in unison was the moment the whole tribute had been building toward.
The award waiting at the end of the night
There was one more detail that gave the opening real weight. That same night, Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert were both nominated for Entertainer of the Year, the exact award Loretta had won 50 years earlier in the clip that opened the show. They were up against Luke Combs, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen.
No woman had won the category since Taylor Swift in 2011. Of the three women who sang for Loretta, only Reba McEntire had ever taken home the trophy, back in 1986.
At the end of the three-hour broadcast, Luke Combs was named Entertainer of the Year for the second year in a row. Neither Carrie nor Miranda broke the streak that night. But the show had already made its point at the top of the night. It began with the first woman who ever won that award, smiling about a husband who went hunting. Then three women who came up after her sang her songs back to her.
Did you watch that opening when it aired? If you could have added one more Loretta Lynn song to that medley, which one would it have been?