Carrie Underwood Honores Women In Country With An Empowering Medley Of Legendary Icons’ Songs
As always, Carrie Underwood is the star of the ACMs! The singer kicked off the ACM Awards with a special medley performance!
Carrie Underwood is ready to make history at tonight’s ACM Awards, to hopefully become the first woman to win Entertainer Of The Year three times. Before she can make that achievement though, the singer opened up the show along with fellow nominees Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Luke Combs and Thomas Rhett. Can we talk about girl power?!
The songstress rocked the Opry stage in a shining gold mini dress with puff sleeves. Oh, and she had a gold mic to match! Carrie sang her hit “Before He Cheats” from her first album Some Hearts in 2005, and her riffs proved that she is quite able to hang with the boys, thank you very much.
Carrie went on to honor the female Grand Ole Opry members with a stunning medley of their songs while wearing a high-neck red gown. She started with Patsy Cline‘s “Crazy” and went into “You Ain’t Woman Enough” by Loretta Lynn and sounded absolutely fabulous! She then went into Barbara Mandrell‘s “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool,” Dolly Parton‘s “Why’d You Come In Here,” Reba McEntire‘s “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” and finished off with a stunning belt of Martina McBride‘s “Broken Wing.”
Carrie, the only female nominated in the Entertainer of the Year category, is a favorite for the award, after six-time winner Garth Brooks pulled himself out of contention for the award. In 2010, Carrie made history by becoming the first woman to ever receive the Entertainer of the Year Award twice, in addition to being the first to ever win the award consecutively.
In addition to withdrawing from consideration for the ACMs, Garth also pulled his name out of the race for the ETOY Award for the upcoming CMAs. He recently reflected on his decision, adding that he believed Carrie was going to take it home last year. “It was the year of the women, so we were all expecting Carrie anyway, and she justly deserved it as well as the other nominees,” he told Good Morning America. “We were sitting there talking [and] boom, your name gets called and you don’t have anything prepared or nothing, so you pretty much just tell them what you thought of the show.”
He added to People that his win was “not fun” last year. “I’m expecting to give a standing ovation to Carrie…I mean, this is her night … And when they said my name, then I was like, I’m lost here because I don’t know what to say.” We’re hoping that tonight is Carrie’s night and she takes home the big prize!