On the road at the ACMs: What we're seeing ahead of tonight's awards

FRISCO, Tx -- The 58th Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards being held in Dallas' suburbs offers a fascinating tipping point moment for the genre's modern evolution. Since COVID-19's onset, the genre has yet to showcase entirely -- at a major event in one of its tent post cities -- how far its social and technological evolution has advanced country music's industry.

In just under five hours, across a five-mile stretch of North Texas flatlands, two events -- the Grand Ole Opry's Jelly Roll-hosted NextStage showcase and the ACM Awards' Lifting Lives Fundraiser -- showcased the depth and scope of a genre on the precipice of developing mainstream superstars -- on country music's own terms.

Artists featured on Friday including Jason Aldean, Ashley Cooke, Jackson Dean, Chapel Hart, ERNEST, HARDY, Jelly Roll, Corey Kent, Kameron Marlowe, Megan Moroney, Ian Munsick, Restless Road, Lainey Wilson and Bailey Zimmerman all, in various ways, represent the two decades of labor required to elevate country music to the moment it's currently occupying.

Aldean reflects on his superstar influence

As the Academy of Country Music's Artist of the Decade for the 2010s -- plus 2022's Entertainer and Single of the Year award winner, Aldean's the best artist with whom to start any conversation regarding the genre's modern evolution.

While speaking with The Tennessean before replacing the vocally-injured Morgan Wallen as a headline act at ACM's Lifting Lives event, he proudly recalled a laundry list of talents who are now consistent chart-topping and award-winning acts of the modern era who all can count learning the art of stardom while on the road with the "Dirt Road Anthem" vocalist.

When looking at 2023's list of ACM Award nominees, his amphitheater-filling 2021 summer touring lineup of himself and the most nominated male and female nominees of 2023's slate -- HARDY and Lainey Wilson -- is extraordinarily future-forward.

As the two performed their 2023 ACM Award-nominated and chart-topping country duet "wait in the truck" on a rain-soaked Top Golf course, the moment sounded like a clarion call to the genre's forthcoming arena rocking crossover future.

Taylor Swift's 'Eras' inspire Music City's next era

As for other key influences, artists were still buzzing Wednesday about Taylor Swift's nearly three-dozen American tour stops on her "Eras" tour. Megan Moroney -- yes, she of ACM New Female Artist of the Year nominee and top-10 country radio single "Tennessee Orange" fame -- brightly beamed with a smile when discussing the tour. She said it was "spiritually transformational" to sing along to Swift's decade-old single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" in a torrential downpour early this just-passed Monday morning at Nashville's Nissan Stadium.

For the 25-year-old artist who just headlined her first show at Music City's Brooklyn Bowl and has a summer of ever-larger crowds and stages singing along to her emo, guitar-driven ballads forthcoming, the magnitude of watching Swift's performance -- as an emerging country superstar similar to Swift 15 years prior -- was uniquely impactful.

"Taylor Swift represents the gold standard of what I intend to achieve as an artist, businesswoman and creative professional," stated Moroney to The Tennessean at La Cocina Restaurant before taking the stage at the Opry's NextStage event.

"It's almost 2 a.m. and she's wearing stiletto heels in a pouring monsoon rainstorm. But, more than her rest and safety, she cared about delivering the best performance possible for her fans. I'm so lucky to have been in attendance for such an inspiring blueprint of a performance."

Country's harmonies unify new fanbase with genre's past glory

From their work with Kane Brown (and being signed to the "Like I Love Country Music" vocalist's 1021 Entertainment joint venture label with Sony Music Nashville) to their singles like 2022's "Growing Old With You," Restless Road (the trio of Colton Pack, Zack Beeken and Garret Nichols) offer a unique perspective on the vocal and performance qualities that -- moreso than beats, chords and genre inspirations -- drive the future of country-defined Southern pop's overall industry-redefining moment.

"Harmonies create a lane for people who are on the fence about being moved by country music to finally join their friends as fans of the genre," Pack stated to The Tennessean.

Via their 2022 participation in the superstar artist incubation program that Opry's NextStage program is rapidly becoming (since 2019, the NextStage program has showcased artists including Parker McCollum and Wilson, 2022's ACM New Male and Female Artist of the Year trophy recipients), they feel that a historical lineage that ties their art to the likes of legendary country vocal acts like Alabama, Brooks & Dunn and the Oak Ridge Boys is now firmly a part of their work.

Those three acts, in particular, have nearly 60 No. 1 country radio and sales chart hits.

Restless Road's Opry-celebrated harmonies place them in a storied company.

Small-town heroes' universal truths guide country's broadest appeal yet

Traditionally, artists like Sheridan, Wyoming native Ian Munsick and small-town Mississippians like Chapel Hart and HARDY have been least-anticipated to most-wanted outsiders in Music City.

The combined size of their hometowns is 99.5 percent smaller than the population of Dallas' Metroplex area.

The impact their stardom is having -- between HARDY's seven ACM Award nominations, Chapel Hart's barnstorming nationwide touring and regular Grand Ole Opry appearances, plus the Western-representing collaboration between Munsick and 2023ACM Award-nominee Cody Johnson resulting in the popular ballad "Long Live Cowgirls" -- proves that size and might are not necessarily shared bedfellows in country music's latest era.

Munsick notes that growing on a ranch in a town of 500 people in America's least-populated state made the potential to impact country music's mainstream seem like a "magical" and unattainable dream.

However, on the back of 70 million digital streams by 2021, Munsick's star surged. As a result, 2023 finds him in the Opry's NextStage class, plus proudly claiming both the heritage of his father and brother's aspirations to cross from ranching to country music stardom, plus the inspiration of the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Sioux Indians who call the area near Munsick's birthplace home.

On the surface, it's a bold move. But given that he's discovering and retaining fans rapidly, he's wholly heartened by the direction in which his uniquely defined career is headed.

"Cowboy and western influences greater than 'Yellowstone' are changing country music's future. The best vision of the genre's future involves my two favorite worlds," Munsick told The Tennessean.

Danica and Devynn Hart, plus their cousin Trea Swindle, were seated backstage at La Cocina after finishing a set at the Opry NexStage event. For the previous two hours, every artist in the building -- both onstage and otherwise -- had joyously screamed upon seeing the African-American family trio in the flesh.

They're the genre's ultimate one-night stand barnstorming group when not playing on the Opry stage in Nashville or wowing television audiences on America's Got Talent.

Once off the carpet on Thursday night, they're a week out from releasing their next album, "Glory Days" and performing seven shows during an eight-day west coast swing.

Social media unifies genre, boots acclaim

Perhaps more than any other group, they're best to ask the question: If country music isn't entirely past racism and marginalization as problematic issues, then how does being booked and busy offer strength?

"Social media has us on Circle Network, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, NBC and live at the Opry, simultaneously," joked Swindle.

That's not just it, though. Like so many other rising performers currently, they are afforded the chance to use their live performances to intimately pay forward pandemic-era follower growth. With frequent touring and hyper-engagement, any current-era country artist with followers under a million can claim to likely have actually literally touched one-in-four people who actively represent their most engaged social media community.

Artists who can share in those moments with their fans are also -- in a way that positively supersedes gender and race -- creating uplifted and spaces where sustained and prolonged artistic development and commercial success are possible.

"Right now, country music looks like the genre we'd imagined it was when we were little girls," said Danica Hart. "And in that genre, when artists like Jelly Roll, Ashley McBryde, Ddarius Rucker and Lainey Wilson all advocating for our continued growth, that means everything."

Aldean provided the best scope to judge and study country music's modern era explosion in popularity with the proper depth and breadth.

Aldean recalls an era two decades prior when he -- alongside Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood -- led rock and R&B-flavored moments in country music that ultimately served as the table-setter for country's socio-cultural explosion.

"People are getting turned onto the country music format in larger numbers than ever. Younger acts bringing their own [vibes] to the table are carrying the genre's flag much further. I think that's cool."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: At 2023's ACMs country's stars discuss genre's unprecedented future