This morning I awoke thinking about what music I might listen to today and the thought entered my head that it would be interesting to listen to the music of several people who had been nominated for Entertainer Of The Year by the Country Music Association or CMA. Since I like classic country much better than the great majority of what is being billed and sold as country music today, I went to the first year of the CMA Awards, 1967, to start looking at who had been nominated but didn't win that year. The list was an incredible group of five of the greatest male country singers of all time, Eddy Arnold, Merle Haggard, Bill Anderson, Sonny James and Buck Owens. When I read the list, I was thinking that this group of five must have all won several CMA Awards in their careers despite not winning that year's Entertainer Of The Year Award. I was wrong! One of those five never won a CMA Award. Yet, all five are in the Country Music Hall Of Fame in Nashville. I am sure most of you will struggle to guess which one never won a CMA Award. I know I did.
I did not say at the beginning of this blog post who won the CMA Entertainer Of The Year Award in 1967. The winner was Eddy Arnold. He had actually been nominated for three CMA Awards that year, Entertainer Of The Year, Album Of The Year, and Male Vocalist Of The Year. He only won the Entertainer Of The Year Award and was never nominated again after that year.
Merle Haggard didn't win the Entertainer Of The Year Award in 1967 and, in fact, did not win a CMA Award until three years later in 1970 when he was nominated for an amazing 9 awards and actually won four. In an even more amazing statistic, Merle was nominated for 46 CMA Awards from 1967 until 2015.
Despite his amazing career as both a performer and a songwriter, Bill Anderson has been nominated for only 9 CMA Awards including that 1967 nomination for Entertainer Of The Year. He did not win a CMA Award until 2001, 34 years after being nominated the first time and having written at least 7 number one country songs both for himself and other performers.
Buck Owens has been nominated for 6 CMA Awards including that 1967 Entertainer Of The Year Award and did not win an award until 2001 when he shared the win with Brad Paisley, George Jones, and Bill Anderson, for the project called "Too Country". Buck Owens has never won a CMA Award on his own. Yet he had 10 Number 1 Country Albums in his career along with an astounding 20 Number 1 Singles. He also went 34 years after his first nomination before he ever won that joint Vocal Event Of The Year Award with Bill Anderson and company.
By now you have probably guessed that Sonny James was the one singer from that amazing fivesome who were nominated in 1967 who never won a CMA Award of any kind. In a 9 year period from 1967 to 1976, Sonny James was nominated for 5 CMA Awards and never won a single one. And during his prolific career, Sonny James had 2 Number 1 Country Albums and an amazing 23 Number 1 Country Singles. It is hard to believe that with that kind of career he never won a CMA Award.
I firmly believe those 5 men might well be the best group of nominees ever for any CMA Award. They all had stellar careers, all are in the Country Music Hall Of Fame, and all are world famous as singers and musicians. All 5 are among the best singers in the history of Country Music.
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