ACM's 'Our Country': How a star-studded music special was made during the coronavirus pandemic
While he's hunkered down at home in Charleston, South Carolina, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Darius Rucker has passed the time in old, familiar ways. He's making music in his home studio and hanging out with his kids, "laughing, talking and eating a lot."
But other experiences have been new. Rucker just taped a performance with his friend Brad Paisley for a new prime-time TV special airing Sunday. They were in different states.
"We did it over FaceTime," Rucker explains.
"We called each other up, taped it, and Brad edited it. You know, it definitely wasn't easy, but we had a lot of fun," he said with a laugh.
Rucker and Paisley are two of more than 20 country stars who will be seen performing from their homes during "ACM Presents: Our Country," a two-hour special airing at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on CBS.
The special has come together in just three weeks, after it was announced that the Academy of Country Music Awards — originally scheduled for Sunday — would be postponed until September due to coronavirus concerns.
Since then, artists including Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Tim McGraw, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani have filmed themselves performing while in self-isolation.
The result is a "beautiful, emotional, intimate special," says executive producer R.A. (Rac) Clark.
"The approach when we reached out to all of these artists was, 'This is a collective experience across the world. We are all experiencing this. What are you doing as a fellow human being?' A lot of them said, 'I'm sitting down and making music, and I want to share that with everyone.' "
When Clark says "a lot of them," he means it. After they announced plans for the new special, even more artists offered to be a part of the show.
"We made a few jokes along the way that the show could definitely be three hours instead of two," says fellow executive producer Amy Thurlow.
So, the show's creative forces had an unexpected challenge.
"How do you fit 10 pounds of potato salad into a 1-pound container?" says Jack Sussman, CBS' executive vice president of specials, music and live events.
They decided to ask the artists to do slightly shorter versions of their songs and to spend a little time talking directly to their fans. In the end, they were able to include more than 20 acts.
On a technical level, it'd be hard for "Our Country" to be less sophisticated. There are no stage lights, no camera crews, no professional sound engineers. Artists were propping up their phones to record themselves or enlisted a family member to be their cinematographer. But Sussman says these limitations shed light on the musical talent on display.
"This is the beauty — and I mean this in a positive way — of an under-produced show. It shows you in no uncertain terms how amazingly talented these performers are, in a stripped-down, acoustic way. This music is not produced in a basement in Sweden. These guys get up on a stage, play real instruments and sing."
In fact, "Our Country" performers were encouraged to give viewers a look behind the curtain. While the members of Lady Antebellum sing "What I'm Leaving For" from separate homes, you'll see Charles Kelley's son sitting on his lap.
Shelton and Stefani belt out "Nobody But You" in front of a backyard bonfire. Underwood's "Drinking Alone" is aptly performed by the singer on a living room couch, with a glass of red wine at her side.
It's hard not to watch these performances — including Kane Brown and John Legend's FaceTime duet of their new single, "Last Time I Say Sorry" — and not imagine they were originally meant to happen on the ACM Awards stage. The show had announced only a handful of performers before the postponement.
On the ceremony side, the 2020 ACM Awards have been put "on pause," says ACM CEO Damon Whiteside. The voting results have been tabulated by Deloitte and will be kept "safely under lock and key until Sept. 16. ... Literally nobody has any visibility to them."
The coronavirus is a pandemic that continues to impact life in Tennessee in a variety of ways. The USA Today Network newsrooms in Tennessee are uniquely positioned to cover this crisis. We're providing this critical information for free. To support our mission, please consider a subscription. For more information on COVID-19, please visit cdc.gov/coronavirus.
The show, on the other hand, is bound for big changes.
"It's going to morph, obviously," Whiteside says. "Not knowing where the country's gonna be at that point, and what the mood of the country is. Artists may be on different hits at that point. We know that what we had planned prior is certainly going to morph in some way. But once we get through this weekend, we're going to jump headfirst into the awards show and really start planning."
How to watch
"ACM Presents: Our Country" airs at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday on CBS.
Gayle King will host, and the show features performances from Kelsea Ballerini, Dierks Bentley, Kane Brown & John Legend, Luke Bryan, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Sheryl Crow, Florida Georgia Line, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Tim McGraw, Old Dominion, Brad Paisley and Darius Rucker, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Coronavirus: ACM's 'Our Country' airs on CBS; stars perform from home
