In an exclusive session held during CRS 2021: The Virtual Experience, two of Country Music’s most prominent trailblazers, 2020 CMA Male Vocalist of the Year, Luke Combs, and 2020 CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, Maren Morris, shared their perspectives on accountability in Country music. During the conversation, moderated by NPR Music’s critic and correspondent and the Nashville correspondent for WXPN’s World Café, Ann Powers, Combs and Morris started a call for an industry-wide response, encouraging to build a more accepting culture and diverse genre.
During the one-hour session that took place in front of radio programmers, DJs, music industry executives, and more, Combs and Morris offered their views for leaning into a better future that calls for unity and more inclusion.
Combs spoke about the conversation, saying, “I think we just wanted everyone to know that we’re here and that we want to be stewards of our genre because we are proud of it. And you do hear the old adage of ‘country music is a family.’ And I believe that more than anything, but I want it to be a family that everyone can feel like they’re a part of. Because it has changed my life; it has changed my band’s lives and my best friends’ lives that I write songs with. And I want everyone that wants to feel that to be able to experience it because it’s an incredible feeling. I just want everyone out there to be able to come into our community and be accepted and not feel excluded or pushed out. … I want those people to have the same opportunities that I had to feel that incredible feeling of having their dreams come true in the amazing genre that we have.”
Having told his story during the Q&A, Combs accentuated that one’s way of thinking can change, adding, “I’m a living, mouth-breathing example that people can change.”
Morris made a passionate plea for there to be more people of color accepted into the format, saying, “There’s an influx of Black talent, and it’s only going to make our genre, our songs, what we consider catchy, better. We kind of have to start at home — Black songwriters in the room making hit songs with us, feeling comfortable and welcome to do so, will change the sound of country radio for the better.”
The conversation will be available to registered CRS 2021 attendees, via the On Demand page of crsvirtual2021.com for 60 days, following the conclusion of CRS 2021 on Friday, February 19.
About Luke Combs: Luke Combs, who The New York Times calls, “the most promising and influential new country star of the last five years,” is a multi-platinum, ACM, CMA, CMT and Billboard Music Award-winning artist from Asheville, NC. His new deluxe album, What You See Ain’t Always What You Get, is out now on River House Artists/Columbia Nashville and debuted at #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart as well as Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. The deluxe edition features all 18 tracks from Combs’ RIAA double Platinum-certified, global #1 album, What You See Is What You Get, as well as five new songs including “Forever After All,” which debuted at #2 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart—the highest entrance ever for a male country solo artist. With the release, Combs also reached #1 on Rolling Stone’s Top 200 Albums chart, Top 100 Songs chart and Artists 500 chart—the first country artist ever to lead all three charts in the same week and first to top the Artists 500. Adding to a series of groundbreaking and historic years, Combs recently won two awards at the 55th ACM Awards, two awards at the 54th CMA Awards and three awards at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards. Moreover, Combs’ current single, “Better Together,” recently reached #1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. This is Combs’ tenth-consecutive #1 single—a first on the Billboard Country Airplay chart—and continues his triumphant run at country radio. Combs also recently made history as the first artist ever to have their first two studio albums spend 25 weeks or more at #1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart—breaking Taylor Swift’s previously held record at 24 weeks. The achievement comes as What You See Is What You Get topped the chart for the 25th time, while his 2017 debut, This One’s For You, has spent 50 non-consecutive weeks at #1—tying the record for the longest reign atop the chart.
About Maren Morris: Maren Morris is one of the leading voices in music today, armed with incredible vocal stylings and songwriting chops, sheer talent, honest lyrics and an undeniable presence. Her triple Platinum single “The Bones” dominated 2020, topping the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for 19 consecutive weeks—the longest #1 by a solo female musician ever and the first solo female multi-week #1 since 2012. The single earned Maren Female Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year and Song of the Year for “The Bones” at the 2020 CMA Awards, plus Female Artist of the year and Music Event of the Year at the 2020 ACM Awards. Topping it all off, “The Bones” is nominated for a 2021 GRAMMY Award for Best Country Song. Her 2019 album GIRL shattered the record for the largest ever debut streaming week for a country album by a woman and was named Album of the Year at the 2019 CMA Awards, where Morris was the most nominated artist. GIRL arrived three years after Morris’ breakout, Gold-certified debut album HERO, for which she won a Grammy for Best Country Solo Performance, New Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2017 ACM Awards and New Artist of the Year at the 2016 CMA Awards. HERO features the much-lauded singles that launched Maren’s career into the stratosphere— the double Platinum “My Church,” Platinum “80s Mercedes” and “I Could Use A Love Song,” and Gold “Rich.”
About Ann Powers: Ann Powers is NPR Music’s critic and correspondent. She has been a pop critic and many publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Village Voice. Her books include Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music, Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, and (with the artist) Tori Amos: Piece By Piece. She is the co-editor, with Evelyn McDonnell, of Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap, and Pop, the first published anthology of women music writers. In 2017 she founded Turning the Tables, an ongoing NPR initiative recentering the popular music canon on marginalized, underestimated and forgotten voices. She lives in Nashville with her family and is now at work on a manuscript considering the life and work of Joni Mitchell.
About Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc.®: The Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc.® is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization founded in 1969 to bring radio broadcasters from around the world together with the Country Music Industry to ensure the vitality and promote growth in the Country Radio format.
About Country Radio Seminar: Country Radio Seminar is an annual convention designed to educate and promote the exchange of ideas and business practices in the Country music industry, with specific emphasis on issues relevant to Country Radio. Country Radio Seminar 2021 will be held Feb. 16-19, 2021. For more information, visit
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