Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton Set for 2017 CMT Artists of the Year
CMT has announced the lineup for the 2017 Artists of the Year special. Chris Stapleton, Florida Georgia Line, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean will all be honored for their successes over the past year at an October 18th ceremony airing live on CMT.
This marks Bryan’s sixth consecutive year as an honoree and Aldean’s return to the lineup: he was last honored in 2014, and to that point had been an Artist of the Year since the show’s inception in 2010.
Stapleton earns his second Artist of the Year inclusion, in addition to his Breakthrough Artist honor in 2015. Florida Georgia Line will be honored for the fifth time, while Urban was last honored in 2014, when he stole the show with an epic performance of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
Past ceremonies have also included special awards for Breakthrough Artist and Artist of a Lifetime. Those honorees have yet to be announced, but this year’s event will also pay tribute to the first responders and those affected by Hurricane Harvey.
CMT Artists of the Year airs live from Nashville on Wednesday, October 18th, at 8:00 p.m./ET.