US 60th Academy of Country Music Awards kick off
Host Reba McEntire launched into Merle Haggard's Okie from Muskogee, followed by Clint Black with Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy and Wynonna Judd with The Judds' Why Not Me.
LeAnn Rimes returned to the ACM Awards stage for her 1997 ballad Blue. Little Big Town tackled their 2014 track Girl Crush and Dan + Shay delivered their Tequila.
It was an exciting way to kick off the 2025 ACM Awards, live from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas.
In her intro speech, McEntyre mentioned that it has been 45 years since she received her first ACM Award nomination — and this year marks her 18th time hosting the show.
The first award of the night was for the coveted song of the year, awarded to Cody Johnson for his radio hit Dirt Cheap, presented by Lionel Richie.
There's a lot more to celebrate. Keith Urban will be awarded the coveted ACM Triple Crown Award, marking the first time an artist has received the trophy on stage since Carrie Underwood was honoured in 2010.
And directly ahead of the ceremony, Lainey Wilson was awarded the artist-songwriter of the year title by host Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert. And for the second year in a row, Jessie Jo Dillon earned the songwriter of the year award.
In addition to the star-studded "Songs of the Decades" performance, Langley, Wilson, Top, Stapleton, Ballerini, Miranda Lambert, Megan Moroney, Blake Shelton and Alan Jackson will perform.
There will be a few star-studded duets as well. Backstreet Boys and Rascal Flatts will take the stage together, as will Jelly Roll and Shaboozey. Brooks & Dunn will perform with Johnson.
The moment everyone was waiting for arrived right at the top of the 60th annual Academy of Country Music Awards: a 14-minute medley of six decades of country classics, performed by giants of the genre.
Host Reba McEntire launched into Merle Haggard's Okie from Muskogee, followed by Clint Black with Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy and Wynonna Judd with The Judds' Why Not Me.
LeAnn Rimes returned to the ACM Awards stage for her 1997 ballad Blue. Little Big Town tackled their 2014 track Girl Crush and Dan + Shay delivered their Tequila.
It was an exciting way to kick off the 2025 ACM Awards, live from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas.
In her intro speech, McEntyre mentioned that it has been 45 years since she received her first ACM Award nomination — and this year marks her 18th time hosting the show.
The first award of the night was for the coveted song of the year, awarded to Cody Johnson for his radio hit Dirt Cheap, presented by Lionel Richie.
There's a lot more to celebrate. Keith Urban will be awarded the coveted ACM Triple Crown Award, marking the first time an artist has received the trophy on stage since Carrie Underwood was honoured in 2010.
And directly ahead of the ceremony, Lainey Wilson was awarded the artist-songwriter of the year title by host Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert. And for the second year in a row, Jessie Jo Dillon earned the songwriter of the year award.
In addition to the star-studded "Songs of the Decades" performance, Langley, Wilson, Top, Stapleton, Ballerini, Miranda Lambert, Megan Moroney, Blake Shelton and Alan Jackson will perform.
There will be a few star-studded duets as well. Backstreet Boys and Rascal Flatts will take the stage together, as will Jelly Roll and Shaboozey. Brooks & Dunn will perform with Johnson.
The moment everyone was waiting for arrived right at the top of the 60th annual Academy of Country Music Awards: a 14-minute medley of six decades of country classics, performed by giants of the genre.
Host Reba McEntire launched into Merle Haggard's Okie from Muskogee, followed by Clint Black with Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy and Wynonna Judd with The Judds' Why Not Me.
LeAnn Rimes returned to the ACM Awards stage for her 1997 ballad Blue. Little Big Town tackled their 2014 track Girl Crush and Dan + Shay delivered their Tequila.
It was an exciting way to kick off the 2025 ACM Awards, live from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas.
In her intro speech, McEntyre mentioned that it has been 45 years since she received her first ACM Award nomination — and this year marks her 18th time hosting the show.
The first award of the night was for the coveted song of the year, awarded to Cody Johnson for his radio hit Dirt Cheap, presented by Lionel Richie.
There's a lot more to celebrate. Keith Urban will be awarded the coveted ACM Triple Crown Award, marking the first time an artist has received the trophy on stage since Carrie Underwood was honoured in 2010.
And directly ahead of the ceremony, Lainey Wilson was awarded the artist-songwriter of the year title by host Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert. And for the second year in a row, Jessie Jo Dillon earned the songwriter of the year award.
In addition to the star-studded "Songs of the Decades" performance, Langley, Wilson, Top, Stapleton, Ballerini, Miranda Lambert, Megan Moroney, Blake Shelton and Alan Jackson will perform.
There will be a few star-studded duets as well. Backstreet Boys and Rascal Flatts will take the stage together, as will Jelly Roll and Shaboozey. Brooks & Dunn will perform with Johnson.
The moment everyone was waiting for arrived right at the top of the 60th annual Academy of Country Music Awards: a 14-minute medley of six decades of country classics, performed by giants of the genre.
Host Reba McEntire launched into Merle Haggard's Okie from Muskogee, followed by Clint Black with Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy and Wynonna Judd with The Judds' Why Not Me.
LeAnn Rimes returned to the ACM Awards stage for her 1997 ballad Blue. Little Big Town tackled their 2014 track Girl Crush and Dan + Shay delivered their Tequila.
It was an exciting way to kick off the 2025 ACM Awards, live from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas.
In her intro speech, McEntyre mentioned that it has been 45 years since she received her first ACM Award nomination — and this year marks her 18th time hosting the show.
The first award of the night was for the coveted song of the year, awarded to Cody Johnson for his radio hit Dirt Cheap, presented by Lionel Richie.
There's a lot more to celebrate. Keith Urban will be awarded the coveted ACM Triple Crown Award, marking the first time an artist has received the trophy on stage since Carrie Underwood was honoured in 2010.
And directly ahead of the ceremony, Lainey Wilson was awarded the artist-songwriter of the year title by host Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert. And for the second year in a row, Jessie Jo Dillon earned the songwriter of the year award.
In addition to the star-studded "Songs of the Decades" performance, Langley, Wilson, Top, Stapleton, Ballerini, Miranda Lambert, Megan Moroney, Blake Shelton and Alan Jackson will perform.
There will be a few star-studded duets as well. Backstreet Boys and Rascal Flatts will take the stage together, as will Jelly Roll and Shaboozey. Brooks & Dunn will perform with Johnson.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
4 days ago
- ABC News
Rita Wrote A Letter is Paul Kelly's 'black comedy' sequel to How To Make Gravy
It isn't every day we get a sequel to an iconic Australian song. But nearly 30 years after he first cemented Joe, Dan and Rita in the national songbook with How To Make Gravy, Paul Kelly has written a follow-up to his immortal Christmas anthem. Recently voted the ninth-best Australian song of all time, the 1996 track has achieved true cult status, inspiring a star-studded movie, a music festival, countless cover versions, and has enshrined December 21 as "Gravy Day" in the national cultural conscience. Not bad for a song that Kelly once opined "doesn't have a chorus and [is] set in prison". The song's lyrics are the letter from the newly incarcerated Joe, addressed to his brother Dan while their family prepares to celebrate Christmas without him. Now, How To Make Gravy is getting a sequel called Rita Wrote A Letter, which continues the story as a "black comedy", as Kelly describes it. Kelly had been mulling over a Gravy follow-up for some time. "At least five or six years," he told Double J's Karen Leng. "I had the title and wanted to write [about] Rita because she doesn't get much of a go. In the sequel, we learn what Joe feared most — Dan making a move on his wife — came to pass. "Rita wrote a letter and this is what she had to say," Kelly sings. "Joe I'm really sorry, but me and Dan, our love is here to stay. With the kids it's getting better. And now a little baby's on the way." Musically, however, the backing rides a jaunty vintage piano line, originally written by nephew Dan Kelly. "[He] had a piece of music that he'd written on piano, sort of New Orleans-style piano, and he said, 'Put some words to that,'" Kelly told Double J's Henry Wagons exclusively back in May. This week, a funeral notice appeared in a Melbourne newspaper announcing Joe's death "by sudden misadventure", noting his love of reggae, cooking, and quoting Kelly's signature lyric: "Who's gonna make the gravy?" That question lingers over Rita Wrote A Letter, which confirms Joe's untimely passing. And yet, through the power of music, he returns — a surprise to Joe himself, as the wry opening lines portray. Rather than play into its dark subject matter, Rita Wrote A Letter plays Joe's demise with impish humour, complemented by the upbeat music. "I like songs where the music and the lyrics are a little bit at odds or cut against each other," Kelly explains. "Sad or dark lyrics but the music gives you another feeling … it gives you that balance." Besides, it leans into how Kelly originally envisioned How To Make Gravy. When it comes to characters, Kelly says: "I never really have that clear a picture." He's more interested in the storytelling dynamics and emotion than clear-cut portraits of Rita, Roger, Mary and the rest. "When Nick Waterman and Mega Washington did the movie … Angus, Frank and Dolly were all children — that was news to me," he says. In the music video for Rita Wrote A Letter, an older Rita is played by Australian actor Justine Clarke, while Kelly embodies Joe, haunting her vintage St Kilda home and expressing her decision to leave: "Joe, I gave you good chances / But half a year turned into two / You could never hold your temper / And you always made it all about you." In true Kelly fashion, he spikes the sweet with the sour, the song concluding with Joe wishing Rita well but all but pledging to haunt his treacherous brother. "But Dan, I don't forgive you," goes the final line before lyrical call-backs to How To Make Gravy. "I didn't mean to say that / It's just my mind, it plays up/multiplies each matter …" the Gravy Man sings as the music fades. Joe, who loosely features in beloved Kelly tunes To Her Door and Love Never Runs On Time, might be dead and buried, but fans have long wondered what exactly he did to wind up in prison. "There is room for a prequel," Kelly suggests. "I hadn't thought about that but now you mention it … These things can't be planned, they just happen." Rita Wrote A Letter heralds the arrival of a new album, Seventy, which will be released on November 7, and follows Kelly's 70th birthday back in January. The cover is a portrait of the celebrated musician while a similar image of Kelly from 1988 features on the rear of the album, both shot by photographer Dean Podmore. Billed as his "most varied album yet", the album is bookended with "one long song that we cut in half called Tell Us A Story," Kelly explains. A press release notes he drew from varied literary influences, including The Lord of the Rings, the death of Cicero, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's collection of one hundred stories, The Decameron. There's a moving track written for Kelly's granddaughter, Happy Birthday, Ada Mae, as well as Sailing To Byzantium, which sets the William Butler Yeats poem of the same name to music. In a similar fashion to its 2024 predecessor, Fever Longing Still, Seventy is also a showcase of Kelly's long-time bandmates. "[Drummer] Peter Luscombe has been with me for more than 30 years, [bassist] Bill McDonald and Dan Kelly for 20," Kelly says. "Even the newbies [keyboardist] Cameron Bruce and [guitarist] Ash Naylor have been with me since 2007." Kelly and his seasoned group are gearing up for some of their biggest Australian and New Zealand shows of their career. Kicking off in Perth later this month, Kelly and co will occupy arenas in Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, and Melbourne through August and September before jetting over the ditch to play Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. Supporting Kelly at all seven Australian dates of the trek will be Americana icon Lucinda Williams and homegrown ARIA-winning country-folk artists Fanny Lumsden. It'll be the first chance for audiences to hear Kelly's new material, as well as all the classics from an enviable songbook spanning four decades. All together now … "Give my love to Angus!" Tuesday August 26 — RAC Arena: Whadjuk Noongar Land, Perth, WA Friday August 29 — Brisbane Entertainment Centre: Turrbal Jagera Land, Brisbane, QLD Saturday August 30 — Qudos Bank Arena: Gadigal Land, Sydney, NSW Tuesday September 2 — MyState Bank Arena: muwinina, Hobart, TAS Thursday September 4 — Adelaide Entertainment Centre: Kaurna Land, Adelaide, SA Saturday September 6 — Rod Laver Arena: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Land, Melbourne, VIC Sunday September 7 — Rod Laver Arena: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Land, Melbourne, VIC Tuesday September 9 — Christchurch Town Hall, Christchurch, NZ Wednesday September 10 — Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, NZ Friday September 12 — Auckland Town Hall, Auckland, NZ
News.com.au
7 days ago
- News.com.au
Paul Kelly fans are mourning the death of one of Australia's most loved song characters
Who's gonna dig the grave-y? Paul Kelly fans are mourning after the revered singer killed off one of Australia's most famous song characters. The wry storyteller posted a Public Notice in a Melbourne newspaper on Monday announcing the death of Joe from his treasured 1996 song 'How To Make Gravy'. The death notice, also shared on Kelly's social media with a succinct 'RIP Joe' message, revealed the convict cook and star of the accidental Aussie Christmas anthem died of 'sudden misadventure'. 'With great sorrow, we announce the death of Joe by sudden misadventure. Much loved father, husband, brother, brother-in-law and uncle to Dan, Rita, Stella, Roger, Mary, Angus, Frank and Dolly,' read the notice. 'We'll miss you badly, Joe. You loved life and went hard at it. You loved music, food, football, celebration, tall tales and strong argument. We can still see you cooking up a storm in the kitchen at our big family gatherings, pots and pans on the go, BBQ smoking outside, glass of wine in hand, your beloved reggae music on the stereo, Junior Murvin, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Gregory Isaac and the like. You filling up everybody's drinks and teasing the little ones.' Of course the notice also acknowledged that 'Christmas just won't be the same this year without you.' And it begged the question which is the signature lyric of Kelly's beloved song: 'Who's gonna make the gravy?' 'But we know you'll always be with us, hovering above us, floating all around us, making sure we get it right. And laughing when we don't.' Kelly seems to be setting up the release of the long-anticipated sequel to 'How To Make Gravy', which polled at No.9 on Triple J's Hottest 100 Australian Songs last month and was brought to life in the successful Nick Waterman and Megan Washington film last year. 'The funeral and service will be on August 14th. Followed by a wake to end all wakes! Further details to follow,' the notice concluded. The 70-year-old songwriter flagged in May during a Double J interview that he had completed the sequel to 'How To Make Gravy' and it was called 'Rita Wrote A Letter.' Lovers of the song know that in his December 21 letter from prison to his brother Dan that he knew he had feelings for Rita and begged him not to make a move on his wife. Kelly told Double J he had the idea for the song in his notebook for 'quite a while.' 'I always wanted to sort of have more, I guess, her point of view in that whole situation. It took a little dark turn, but I can't really say much more about that,' he told host Henry Wagons.' Fans were quick to quote 'Gravy' lyrics and send their 'condolences' when Kelly shared the death notice on social media. 'I guess the brothers are driving down from QLD for the funeral?' commented one fan. 'Do you Rita and Dan will finally get together?' posed one astute observer. 'So sorry to read this. Poor Rita. She's been through a lot,' added another fan. Others got the cryptic clues that new music is on the way from Kelly. 'Just like the gravy, the plot thickens,' wrote one fan. Any new song Kelly drops soon will likely get its live premiere when he embarks on his headlining arena tour later this month.
Perth Now
08-08-2025
- Perth Now
Black Keys praise Oasis for having 'transformed the continet'
The Black Keys think Oasis have "transformed the continent". The Lonely Boy duo - made up of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney - played Manchester's Sounds of the City festival last month, just two days before the Wonderwall group's first homecoming gig at Heaton Park, and they were blown away by the "electric" atmosphere in the city, which they credited to the reunion between warring brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher. Dan told The Sun newspaper: 'The atmosphere was electric. Our audience was so up for it. 'I feel like they've transformed the continent. We've never seen anything like it.' During their time in Manchester, Dan paid a visit to the Oasis Adidas store. He said: 'I had one of the black soccer jerseys made — Oasis on the front and AUERBACH on the back. Had to do it, man, they're the kings.' The duo wrote three songs with "chord lord" Noel back in 2023 and have also performed with Liam, so they couldn't be happier for the pair about their reunion tour. Dan said: 'It was amazing. We just sat in a circle with our instruments and we worked things up from nowhere. 'Not too long after that we played a song with Liam [in Milan] and hung out with him afterwards. He gave us some really good advice about our setlist. 'Noel and Liam are both incredible — we're really happy for them.' The Black Keys regularly host Record Hang in Nashville, where they DJ from vinyl records, scouring record shops and online for obscure tracks, and they love still discovering new inspiration. Patrick said: 'We end up exposing ourselves to thousands of songs that somehow we've never heard. 'It's really cool to be so deep into our career and uncovering all this incredible music. It's totally reinvigorating — particularly when one of us finds a record that the other hasn't heard and it's a banger.' The pair are still hugely passionate about music, both their own and other people's but are "very sensitive" about what they listen to. Dan said: 'Pat and I were talking about this earlier — music can hypnotise you. You can use it for good or for evil. It's a very powerful tool.' Parick added: 'It's my biggest passion and it has been since I was 11. 'I also think about the delicate balance you need when you do it for a living. You're taking the thing you love the most but you never want to ruin it for yourself. 'Dan and I are very sensitive about what we listen to. We were at a music festival in a spot in between seven stages. It sounded horrible. I said, 'This is the kind of thing that could make me hate music'.'
