30 Country Music Icons, One Gigantic Mash-up

On June 2016, The Country Music Academy decided to create one of the biggest performances in the country scene to date. To celebrate the 50th year of CMA, they decided to perform a mega-mash up of three songs by three country legends namely Josh Denver, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton.

Music Icons, Then and Now

Do you love the Original, “I Will Always Love You” by Dolly Parton or the song “Take me home Country Roads” by John Denver? How about if you add “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson? These songs surely bring a lot of nostalgic memories and if you combine all these? You get one amazing performance.

The CMA made a brilliant choice in bringing together classic and contemporary music icons. The song featured Alan Jackson, King of Country Music George Strait, Vince Gill, Reba, Alabama, Charley Pride, and other classic country artists.

They are joined by the newer generation of country artists such as Little Big Town, Lady Antebellum, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and Brad Paisley.

For the full list of all the artists featured, you can watch the video here:

Forever Country

The song was recorded for over three days in Nashville and was released on September 2016. The video has now reached 34 million views on YouTube. The song debuted at #1 on the country chart. The song also won Video of the year at the 2017 ACM Awards.

It is interesting to note that the money earned from the sale and streaming went toward music education. This caused is supported by the CMA Foundation.

Since the song featured a lot of country music icons, they had limited screen time. The song also featured Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, the original artists of the song. Unfortunately, Denver passed away in 1997, so he was not able to be a part of this massive mash-up.

The song ended with Dolly’s breath-taking line taking us back to her original rendition of the song back in 1974. It really is one of the best country mash-ups to ever be performed and we only wish that the other country legends were alive to see this.