By Holly Gleason

As always vexes the Nashville community, the Grammys veer further from the business than any other awards show. Grounded in a creative work-qualifying base, it’s not the business people as much as the songwriters, musicians and fellow artists deciding the winners—and those creators are often not tethered to the Nashville chapter.

For Chris Stapleton, a soul-wringing vocalist who leans into the emotional core instead of superficiality, he’s been embraced by the late Tom Petty, Justin Timberlake, P!nk, Adele, Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars, which extends his voter reach far beyond Music Row. A respected songwriter who’s penned hits for George Strait,Kenny Chesney, Luke Bryan and many more, he represents the artistry Nashville’s creative community was built on.

That his “White Horse” (written with Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson) swept Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song before the show hit the air was almost inevitable. Stapleton, like frequent tour mate Willie Nelson, has gone his own way, but never lost sight of what matters to him. That staunch sense of life filtered through songs and tempered with Southern rock, soul and blues has transcended trends and connected with fans.

But that doesn’t mean the country categories are locked for the names non-country voters know or old guard Nashville ratifies. While a few people said they wouldn’t have been surprised to see Vince Gill with steel player Paul Franklin win in their category (Best Country Duo/Group Performance), new ground was decidedly broken.

Outlier Zach Bryan, a massive ticket-selling/streaming factor who’d never set foot on Music Row during his earliest success, connected with a passionate base long before he was discharged from the Navy. A sensation who inspires like peak Springsteen, he took home his first Grammy for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for his duet with genre-blurring singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves, a seven-time winner including Album of the Year in 2019.

Musgraves presented the award for Best Country Album, which she’s won twice, to hardscrabble songwriter Lainey Wilson for Bell Bottom Country, an album that measured what being a working woman means in the 21st century. Citing her five-generation family-farming roots, like Bryan she takes the genre back to the people who’ve always been fans of country music—and authenticated its cultural roots in a way that would’ve made Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn and 2024 Grammy Lifetime Achievement honoree Tammy Wynette proud.

Then there was Luke Combs in the night’s most unadorned and effective performance. After a video package, the unlikely star’s “Fast Car” opened to a spotlight on a dark forearm and fingers plucking an acoustic guitar; the voice was clearly female. Tracy Chapman, who remained invisible through the song’s meteoric rise, was onstage, softly reminding the world of her song’s origins.

In that moment, the tenderness and yearning of those who have less became a universal proposition. When Combs—Carolina twang, hard passion—took his first lines, suddenly it was Black and white, young and old, trying to escape the things that ensnare you. Straining against circumstances, dreaming in spite of it all, “Fast Car” was an essential truth of anyone who doesn’t have the advantages to take on the system, the privileges to chase Kardashianity.

For all the talk around race, homophobia and other extremism in country music, this performance spoke more eloquently to the reality—and perhaps (re)solution around the genre’s real issues. People forget Combs’ mom was a prison secretary, his dad a handyman—so this song sung in his father’s truck may not have been as people might realize.

And that unity of not finding work, living in a shelter, clinging to hope through the freedom of driving around in a car isn’t exclusive to any one population segment. Indeed, the promise of “I had a feeling that I belonged/I had a feeling I could be someone” was a universal truth. It was quiet, but it spoke volumes.

But beyond the winners and the standing ovation for Chapman and Combs, many of the nominees speak to a shift back to genuine humanity instead of brokered authenticity. A pair of Best New Artist nominees exemplify this. Jelly Roll charmed all week with his boyish exuberance for life being good. The War & Treaty’s Michael and Tanya Trotter blew away anyone who saw them in any of their Grammy-week appearances. And multiple-nominee Tyler Childers, the intense hard country/bluegrass practitioner from Eastern Kentucky, offered an unflinching look at how tenderness can root in tough places with his groundbreaking video for “In Your Love,” examining two men finding love as well as black lung death in the coal mines that sustain the region.

Maybe not since the era of Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, k.d. lang, Nanci Griffith, Rodney Crowell, Vince Gill and Rosanne Cash on the progressive side and Randy Travis, George Strait, John Anderson, The Judds, Patty Loveless, Reba McEntire and not much later Alison Krauss on the new traditionalist side has there been this kind of a gap between what country radio wants and what many people love. While some of those artists moved on to Americana, folk and adult alternative genres, all their names stand out, and many became Country Music Hall of Fame inductees and enduring superstars.