Chris Stapleton Lands Eight ACM Award Noms, Reba McEntire Returns As Host
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Chris Stapleton has no fewer than eight nominations for the 53rd ACM (Academy of Country Music) Awards, more than any other artist. It’s also been announced that Reba McEntire will return as host of the event, which takes place on 15 April at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The awards will be broadcast live in the US on CBS at 8pm ET.
Stapleton is shortlisted in such categories as Entertainer, Male Vocalist, Album of the Year for From A Room Vol. 1, Single Record of the Year for ‘Broken Halos’ and Song of the Year for ‘Whiskey & You.’ He won five ACM Awards in 2016 for his breakthrough album Traveller.
Stapleton’s competitors for the prestigious Entertainer of the Year award are Jason Aldean, Garth Brooks, Luke Bryan and Keith Urban. The Album of the Year title will be fought between Stapleton and Little Big Town’s The Breaker, Jon Pardi’s California Sunrise, Old Dominion’s Happy Endings and Thomas Rhett’s Life Changes.
Rhett has the second-highest total of nominations with six, including the categories of Male Vocalist, Album, Vocal Event and Video of the Year. Keith Urban has five, as does songwriter Shane McAnally. Miranda Lambert has four, including Female Vocalist of the Year, a title she has won eight years in a row. McAnally’s fellow shorlisters for Songwriter of the Year are Rhett Akins, Ashley Gorley, Hillary Lindsey and Josh Osborne.
McEntire, who herself is nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year, hosted or co-hosted the ACM Awards no fewer than 17 times between 1986 and 2012. She was the sole presenter of the event every year from 2001 to 2010. Also competing for the Female Vocalist title at the 2018 awards will be Kelsea Ballerini, Maren Morris and Carrie Underwood; the Male Vocalist category features Aldean, Rhett, Stapleton, Urban and Chris Young.
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