CMA Fest is here for 50 more years, storms and all, after closing with Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw

While the threat of torrential downpours canceled the afternoon performances on the final day of 2023's 50th CMA Fest, what occurred both on and off festival grounds during the event highlighted country music on the cusp of its most dynamic future.

CMA Fest's final day — though abbreviated — still proved fruitful.

Storms slow, don't deny CMA Fest's final day

Inclement weather prompted organizers to shut down all performances around 2 p.m. on the final day of the 50th CMA Fest. And as another line of heavy spring storms approached, CMA Fest officials announced that Nissan Stadium gates would open at 7:30 p.m.

Forty-five minutes after that, veteran baritone-voiced country crooner Josh Turner opened the evening's festivities at 8:15 p.m.

David Morris, Tanner Adell, Megan Moroney emerge

One is a rapping Charleston, West Virginia native with a top-20 song on Billboard's emerging artists and digital country sales charts. The other is a bi-racial, adopted ex-Mormon with roots in Wyoming plus 5.8 million likes and 400 million views associated with her name on TikTok. Finally, there'sa CMT Music Award-winning singer-songwriter with a top-five country radio song which, under five years ago was a student at the University of Georgia.

David Morris' hit single "Dutton Ranch Freestyle" is a rap ode to "late night bonfires, Yellowstone, Whiskey Myers and lifted trucks with mud on the tires." Adell's single "Whiskey Talk" includes the lyrics "Cowboys all want buckle bunnies / Better get yourself home on time / Nothin' good happens past midnight." Megan Moroney's "Tennessee Orange" is already a well-known commodity of a ballad, but her single "I'm Not Pretty" from her new album "Lucky" includes the ironically-delivered lyrics "I'm not pretty, I'm not cool, I'm just a girl who peaked in high school."

Even as rain clouded Lower Broadway's skies, all three named performers still shook hands and signed numerous autographs of yes, their millions of social media followers and those who digitally stream their music.

CMA celebrates Black Excellence at NMAAM

In describing the need for an intimate gathering of 100 artists, theologians, music industry executives and notable creative figures, Mia McNeal, the Country Music Association's 2022-hired Senior Director, Industry Relations & Inclusion, noted that the trade association "strives to recognize excellence and build a culture of inclusion in all that we do -- it's not just what we do, it is who we are."

At the National Museum of African-American Music, McNeal was joined by the event's honoree, BMI's Dove, Emmy and Grammy-winning Executive Director of Creative, Shannon Sanders, a well-respected musician, producer arranger and executive for three decades.

Sanders' recent work in his role has included easing the R&B-to-country transition of K. Michelle, aka Puddin'. She sang to honor him while notable attendees like Vanderbilt professors Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and Dr. Gilman W. Whiting, MNRK Music Group Senior VP & General Manager Gina Miller, Black Country Music Association co-founder Frankie Staton, and many more.

When asked to summarize his career's success and its inspirations, Sanders offered to the NMAAM crowd remarks that included highlighting the support of his family, linking the legacies of Black author W.E.B. DuBois and Country Music Hall of Famer Charley Pride, plus making a nod to a 1993 hit from rapper Snoop Dogg.

In regards to watching those who surround him being able to meet or exceed his success, Sanders offered the following statement:

"It ain't no fun if the homies can't have none."

Ashley McBryde's star-making surge continues

At some point soon, Ashley McBryde will headline a final CMA Fest day.

"Hi, my name's Ashley and I'm gonna play some songs I wrote," stated the multiple-time CMA Award winner at the start of her half-hour set.

Her humility was appreciated but McBryde has come a long way since five years ago, when she was still a "Girl Goin' Nowhere." By 2024, she'll have released three albums. The first two were critically acclaimed.

They yielded songs like 2022 "Ashley McBryde presents: Lindeville" track "Brenda Put Your Bra On" (which, at CMA Fest, came complete with multiple expletives and McBryde throwing a pink brassiere into the crowd). Her set on Saturday also included "Leave The Light On" and "The Devil I Know," her new album's title track.

"I used to play in bars when I was 19," McBryde said, introducing "The Devil I Know." "I would tell my parents they weren't bars and tell the bars I wasn't 19. I could tell you the story but I'd rather just sing it."

McBryde concluded her foot-stomping set with a kiss blown to the crowd at the end of her 2020 hit "One Night Standards."

Dierks Bentley's bluegrass brilliance

Dierks Bentley's tenth album's title single is a No. 1 hit extolling how much downtown Nashville's gravel streets seem paved with gold, filling his rhinestone heart with joy. It's one of many emotions that filled his well-received CMA Fest set.

These emotions, among many, included shock that the 48-year-old star crowd-surfed Saturday evening.

The hitmaker and CMA Fest TV special host had the crowd singing along to several songs, including "I Hold On" and "Drunk on a Plane."

"There's gonna be some people really hurting at the airport tomorrow morning," Bentley said as he introduced the almost decade-old hit. Fans still knew every word.

However, Bentley's Monday night bluegrass jam sessions at the Station Inn provided the most entertaining moment of the set. Facing the crowd as if a firing squad protecting Bill Monroe's legacy, Bentley band member Charlie Worsham took control of the vocals for a rendition of Garth Brooks' 30-year-old classic "Calling Baton Rouge" that was as country as it was a funk-drenched dance jam that excited the crowd's feet.

As he launched into "Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)," Bentley's wide-ranging appeal that makes him an ideal CMA Fest TV special host was readily apparent.

Luke Bryan showcases mainstream country mastery at 50th CMA Fest

Luke Bryan took to the stage to close Sunday's 50th CMA Fest final day at 12:05 a.m. CT.

Yes, country music apparently parties so hard on Sunday night that Monday morning is still Luke Bryan's "kind of night" — and the festival's attendees (unlike other nights) hadn't slowly streamed to the exits, exhausted from 12 hour days filled with a cornucopia of the genre's hits.

Bryan's greatest skill is that he modernizes country's long-beloved art of song salesmanship.

His songs often extol the virtues of country life: how corn-made liquor is an appealing aphrodisiac ("Rain Is A Good Thing") and those plow-droppin', hay bailin' and cow-feeding farmboys ("Country On").

His best salesmanship, though was getting a crowd representing 50 states and 42 countries, to appreciate the joys of dancing in a manner that appeals to the fish, insect and mammal kingdoms:

Namely, the birds, bees, catfish, crickets, critters and squirrels.

"Country Girl (Shake It For Me)" is a 13-year-old chart-topping single.

Yes, other, more modern songs celebrate similar notions. However, there's something refreshingly fun about 46-year-old Bryan, doing his best, awkward shimmy while singing loudly and proudly.

He's somehow made corn liquor, hay-baling and dancing for the appreciation of critters sound strangely appealing for 45 minutes. That, in so many ways, describes the joy of country music.

The genre is often awkward and ridiculous but also unquestionably heartfelt. It its best, it simplifies all emotions and thoughts into notions best understood via three chords and the truth.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: CMA Fest 2023 closes with Tim McGraw, Luke Bryan and dynamic future