During the 2020 CMT Music Awards, Luke Combs kicked off the show’s opening, and this year, the country singer is back with another incredible performance.
Combs was nominated for two 2021 CMT Music Awards, including a nod to his 2020 appearance alongside Brooks & Dunn. During the opening act, the three stars performed Combs’ song, “1, 2 Many” from his 2019 album, What You See Is What You Get. The collaboration earned Combs and duo Brooks and Dunn a nomination for CMT Performance of the Year.
“I shotgunned a beer last night on national TV with Brooks & Dunn. If you would have told me that 5 years ago I would have punched you for lying to me,” Luke wrote on his official YouTube.
Combs also received a second CMT Music Award nomination for his song “Lovin’ On You.” The retro video inspired by the country singer’s youth earned a nomination for The Male Video of the Year. In an interview CMT Hot 20 Countdown host Katie Cook, Combs opened up about the video concept. He explained:
“The roller skating rink [idea was] kind of ’little kid’ vibe. I wish I could take credit for the idea. I have a great creative team that pitched me that idea. I grew up going to the roller skating rink and my mom loved to roller skate, my mother-in-law loves to roller skate and so it was just an easy home run…I got a great team to thank for it to be honest.”
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For Combs’ 2021 CMT Music Award performance, he decided to take the stage at Assembly Hall in Nashville as a solo act. The country star performed “Cold As You,” a song he co-wrote with Jonathan Singleton, Randy Montana and Shane Minor.
“I wrote this song with two of the same guys that I wrote ‘Beer Never Broke My Heart’ with,’ Luke Combs said earlier this year. “I think it’s very similar. The idea was actually Shane Minor’s idea, and he’s a really awesome guy and was willing to let me and Jonathan and Randy kind of take the little bit of a start that he had and run with it.”
For more on Combs, check out the music video that earned him a nomination for The Male Video of the Year in the clip below.