What does the CMA Awards have in common with President Barack Obama, Elvis, Michael Jackson, the Kentucky Derby, Christmas, NASA, vampires and some of America’s great college football and basketball teams? According to Chris Chapel, it comes down to one word: affinity.
Asked to elaborate, the VP of Sales and Merchandising, Whitman Books, noted, “It involves things associated by super-fans, people who have a real love for something. You see that in college football and definitely you see it in Country Music.”
This explains why Whitman’s Vault division has published The CMA Awards Vault, a spectacular, lavishly illustrated and fact-packed retrospective on Country Music’s Biggest Night and most prestigious Awards ceremony. It’s technically a book but in fact is much more — a scrapbook might be closer to the truth. And like all Vaults published by Whitman, its inserted memorabilia are true bits of treasure.
Whitman Publishing put together its first Vault, a celebration of the University of Tennessee Vols, in 2006. They've widened their field beyond sports to publish the titles noted above and many others. For all their diversity, these Vaults share that affinity factor with targeted segments of the public, along with the kind of history that comes from a college athletic program, or an epic entertainer — or, as the folks at Whitman realized early in 2009, Country Music.
After agreeing to focus on that subject in their next project, the Vault team looked for a partner to license use of materials for photos and inserted materials. That search led immediately to CMA and right after that to the Awards. “From the start, that’s who we wanted to talk with,” said Chapel. “And as we began to talk with the CMA team, we realized that the Awards has a great history. Plus, the timing was really strong because the plan was to get the product onto the shelves in early October, in time for the CMA Awards in November and holiday sales in the fourth quarter.”
Deborah Evans Price received the assignment to create the editorial content for The CMA Awards Vault. “As someone who grew up watching the CMA Awards and was then privileged to go to the Awards for the past 25 years, I couldn’t think of anything that would excite me more than doing a book on this institution,” said Evans Price, whose byline appears frequently in Billboard, Country Weekly, People Country, www.TheBoot.com and CMA Close Up.
Though her first-hand knowledge of the Awards gave her a good head start, Evans Price enhanced it through research in the CMA and Nashville Public Library archives, behind-the-scenes access to rehearsals for the 2009 CMA Awards and in-depth interviews with more than 40 artists and other significant players in the history of the Awards, from Sonny James, the host of the first “CMA Awards and Banquet Show,” to Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, who will host “The 44th Annual CMA Awards” for the third time in November. With more than 100 hours of their recollections and insights recorded, Evans Price put together a narrative that would be vivid on its own, even without the cornucopia of rare or unpublished photos and, tucked into dozens of pockets throughout the book are replicated souvenirs, which range from vintage issues of CMA Close Up and rehearsal schedules to a note to CMA from Charlie Daniels in 1980, a set-design blueprint from the 2009 Awards and envelope cards opened by presenters to announce winners.
The CMA Awards is also about countless beautiful costumes (and some that perhaps haven’t weathered changes in fashion that well) and red carpet specials. It's about unforgettable moments, from Reba’s legendarily scandalous red dress at the 1993 gala event to Mary Chapin Carpenter’s theatrical smooch with Little Richard in 1994. From the heartbreaking debut of Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” in 2001 to Taylor Swift’s tearful affirmation that nothing else in her senior year could top winning the 2007 CMA Horizon Award (which changed to New Artist Award in 2008), every detail going back to the first Awards in 1967 sparkles in this Vault like jewels in a closet filled with Manuel creations.
“Writing this book deepened my appreciation for the CMA Awards,” Evans Price mused. “Years and years of great songs on the Awards captured what was going on during those different decades, from the burgeoning women’s movement in the ’70s to the CB radio craze. We’ve heard for years that Country Music is the music of the common man, but from watching all the Awards shows again I realized that these songs, and what the artists were saying and doing, were barometers of what was happening in our nation.”
Graced by a foreword from Kenny Chesney and an afterword from Barbara Mandrell, The CMA Awards Vault 144-page hardcover 12-inch by 10-inch book with slipcase is available for $49.95 in bookstores and online retailers as well as at www.CMAawards.com.
CMA members can purchase the book for the discounted price of $35 plus shipping/handling by using the code: GBR10 at the online store’s checkout page on www.CMAawards.com, in the “coupon/gift certificate code” box. Save on shipping/handling fees by purchasing the book at the CMA office in Nashville at One Music Circle South.
“I’m thankful for the wonderful journey this book provides through the history of the CMA Awards,” wrote Mandrell in the book’s afterword. “Reading it makes one feel so ‘behind the scenes,’ ‘inside’ and as though they’re having conversations with many of the great artists in Country Music.”
“The 44th Annual CMA Awards,” hosted by Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, drew 16.5 million viewers on ABC during November sweeps and sold out the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The three-hour broadcast will re-air on CMT on Monday, Dec. 20 at 4 PM and 9 PM ET. Visit www.CMAawards.com.
