25 November 2019

The 2019 American Music Awards (AMAs) proved to be very fruitful for Carrie Underwood and Dan + Shay, with the pair both going home with two awards. Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney were up for Favourite Country Duo or Group, Favourite Country Song for Speechless and Favourite Country Album for their self-titled album – winning Favourite Country Duo or Group and Favourite Country Song. Meanwhile, Underwood was also nominated for Favourite Country Album for ‘Cry Pretty’ – which she won – and Favourite Female Country Artist, which she also won ahead of Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris. The other outright country award on the night was for Favourite Male Country Artist and was picked up by Kane Brown, pipping Luke Combs and Thomas Rhett to the award. The night very much belonged to Taylor Swift though, with the 12-time CMA Award winning artist – now very much a mega popstar – taking home five awards (Artist of the Year, Favourite Music Video (You Need to Calm Down), Favourite Female Pop/Rock Artist, Favourite Pop/Rock Album (‘Lover’) and Favourite Adult Contemporary Artist) in addition to being crowned AMA Artist of the Decade. Elsewhere at the American Music Awards, Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus took home the award for Favourite Rap/Hip-Hop Song for Old Town Road (Remix).

Temecula Road are gearing up for Christmas by releasing a cover of Alabama’s ‘Christmas in Dixie’ just ahead of their US support tour. You can listen to the track here. The song is the fourth release for Temecula Road in what has been a very eventful 2019 for the trio – made up of Dawson Anderson and sisters Maddie and Emma Salute – following in the footsteps of Fades, Never Knew I Needed You and Maybe Not. The group are also are about to embark on the upcoming Sara Evans tour (starting December 5) and have recently announced that they will be returning to the Grand Ole Opry on February 1 having made their debut there a few weeks ago. The tour with Evans will see the trio perform nine times across the States before Christmas. Back in October, the group were over in the UK for both Country Music Week and for supporting Scotty McCreery, who they also supported in various other parts of Europe. It remains to be seen whether the trio will return for C2C 2020, having appeared at C2C 2018 when they made their debut, but 2020 as a year is certainly shaping up to be an even busier one for the group than this current one.