Can Sam Hunt win Song of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards for “Body Like a Back Road”? If that sounds like a familiar question it’s because he was nominated in the same category for the same song at last year’s CMAs. But he lost that award to Taylor Swift, who wrote “Better Man” for the group Little Big Town. Now he’s got a second chance to win what would be the first CMA Award of his career, but his competition may not be any easier.
Hunt has been nominated six times at the CMAs thus far. He picked up three bids in 2015: Single of the Year and Song of the Year for “Take Your Time,” as well as New Artist of the Year. But he lost Single and Song to another Little Big Town hit, “Girl Crush,” and New Artist of the Year went to Chris Stapleton.
Then in 2017 he was up for Single and Song for “Body.” Swift nabbed the songwriting award, while Keith Urban took Single for “Blue Ain’t Your Color.”
Hunt did win at the Academy of Country Music Awards earlier this year for the song, which was honored with Single Record of the Year. But given its crossover success it’s perhaps surprising that it hasn’t had more luck on the awards scene. It wasn’t just a country hit, it was an overall pop hit, reaching the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. And in 2017 it set a record as the longest-running number-one hit on the Hot Country Songs chart (34 weeks), though that record was broken in 2018 by Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line‘s “Meant to Be.”
Nevertheless, Hunt lost both his CMA nominations last year and both of his Grammy nominations for the song earlier this year (Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song). Thus far the ACM Award is the only major peer group prize he’s won.
According to the combined predictions of hundreds of Gold Derby users, Chris Stapleton is the CMA front-runner for “Broken Halos” with 11/2 odds. But even though Stapleton has been a CMA darling with seven victories in just the last three years, this is his first nomination for songwriting.
So maybe that’s good news for Hunt, who is tipped to win by 4 of our Top 24 Users who got the highest scores predicting last year’s CMAs, and by 3 of our All-Star Top 24 who got the highest scores when you combine the last two years’ predictions. Are they on the right track, or is “Back Road” headed for another dead end?
Be sure to make your CMA predictions so that Hollywood insiders can see this year’s contenders are faring in our CMA odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before winners are announced on November 8. And join the discussion on this and more taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our music forums. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
