It’s been yet another incredible year of Australian country music, and what a better way to cap it off then with the 2017 CMC awards.
Hosted by Morgan Evans, the award ceremony, now in its 7th year, is the only viewer voted country music awards in the industry, giving fans and listeners a real chance to back their favorites right to the top. This is exactly what happened for a handful of hardworking artists who seemed to sweep the pool across a variety of categories.
Songstress Fanny Lumsden took home the CMC new Australian artist of the year award after making an incredible impression with her debut album Small Town Big Shot. Fan favourites The McClymonts added yet another award to their incredible 11 year career, after taking home CMC group or duo of the year. Adam Brand added to his already stellar list of accolades and his current project – Adam Brand & The Outlaws were awarded the ARIA award for highest selling Australian artist.
West Australian singer-songwriter Chelsea Basham has cemented herself firmly into the hearts and minds of Australian country music fans, and as a result was awarded the CMC female Australian artist of the year. After snapping up a Golden Guitar and an APRA nomination, 2017 is set to be a big one for the talented artist.
Unsurprisingly Australia’s favourite country music son, Keith Urban, took home both the CMC international artist of the year and CMC international video of the year for the fifth and fourth time respectively . Both were a nod to his hit single “Wasted Time” from his extremely successful eighth studio album “Ripcord” which also received the coveted title of ARIA highest selling international album award. Appearing via video link, Keith expressed his gratitude and thanked his homegrown fans for their continued support.
But the focus was firmly on Travis Collins who took home the top three awards of the evening; CMC Australian artist of the year, CMC male artist of the year and CMC Australian video of the year.
Travis, who also performed his award winning single “call me crazy” took the time to reflect on the passionate nature of country music fans by commenting; “Here’s the thing about country music, I think country music fans are fans of every artist and it’s sometimes tough for them to choose who they’ve got to vote for so every single person who voted for me means something to me and to walk away with this three awards is just mind blowing.”
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