We now know who at least some of the artists who will be taking the stage at the upcoming ACM Awards. The first round of performers has been announced, with Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson Jelly Roll, Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, Miranda Lambert, Thomas Rhett and Chris Stapleton all part of the lineup for the ceremony taking place on May 16.
Reba McEntire will also perform a new song, serving double-duty as she also hosts the live broadcast solo, marking her 17th time as host of the ACM Awards.
“I am tickled to pieces to get to host the ACM Awards for the 17th time!” McEntire said when the news was announced. “What an honor to have been part of the past, present and now the future of the Academy of Country Music with Amazon Prime Video. I can’t wait to get to Texas and see everybody May 16th!”
Jelly Roll is nominated for four ACM Awards, including the night’s highest honor, Entertainer of the Year. This is the Nashville native’s first year to attend the ACM Awards as a nominee, and no one is more surprised than Jelly Roll to receive so many nominations.
“I didn’t expect to get this many,” Jelly Roll, who won numerous other trophies last year, told People. “Even when I had a shelf built, I had it built for what I won last year thinking that was probably the best year of my life. I don’t know what to do about this thing still running.”
“Not every awards show in America’s giving an opportunity to the guy that’s talking against fentanyl and representing the people I speak about,” he continued. “And to see four nominations just showed me how much my peers and the industry cares about what I think, even my core messages outside of the music.”
Luke Combs leads the list of nominees with eight, followed by Morgan Wallen and Megan Moroney with six nominations. Johnson, Stapleton, and Wilson have five, and Jordan Davis and Jelly Roll have four each.
Jelly Roll shares the Entertainer of the Year nomination with Aldean, Brown, Combs, Johnson, Stapleton, Morgan Wallen and Wilson. At least one of the nominees in the category, namely Brown, feels unworthy of taking home the night’s highest honor.
“I’m a person that looks at everything, so when it’s Entertainer of the Year, of course, it’s amazing to be up there, but I’m the type of person that if I won, I feel like I don’t deserve it right now,” Brown told Country Now. “I mean Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen are killing it. Then I saw Chris Stapleton on the list. Chris has such a good voice and I didn’t realize he was playing stadiums too.”
See a complete list of nominees here.
The ACM Awards will air live on Thursday, May 16, from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. The ceremony will stream live exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. See a list of nominees below. Tickets for the general public are available now, via SeatGeek. More information is available at ACMCountry.com.