Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood hope this year's CMA Awards will be 'a combination of entertainmen
(7 Nov 2017) BRAD PAISLEY AND CARRIE UNDERWOOD HOPE THIS YEAR'S CMA AWARDS WILL BE 'A COMBINATION OF ENTERTAINMENT AND THERAPY' Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood are celebrating their 10-year anniversary _ as hosts of the Country Music Association Awards. The duo has hosted the show consecutively since 2008, and they return Wednesday (8 NOV. 2017) for the 2017 CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. While Underwood and Paisley plan to tell jokes, watch performances and hand out awards, they also want to honor the 58 people who were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas last month. Paisley says "this show can be a combination of entertainment and therapy." Jason Aldean was performing at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Oct. 1 when a gunman fired on the crowd from a hotel room. Nearly 500 people were injured. "I think that this is an interesting year and we have a job to do," said Paisley. "I think the main thing we're trying to do with this show is unify, and that's important right now. And I also think that we have obviously a couple of things to think about in our format, and one of them is this tragedy in Las Vegas. We can't ignore that, but at the same time I think it's our job to use this as something that's uplifting." Underwood said the country music world wants to pay tribute to the victims and their families. "You just want to be respectful and do it right. They're a part of our country music family and we want the families to know that we care a lot," she said. Paisley said the Las Vegas attack hits close to home because he's performed at the Harvest Festival. "I closed the show Oct. 1, 2016 at the Harvest Festival one year earlier and I know some of those people were at mine and if you think that hasn't crossed my mind a lot you'd be wrong," said Paisley. "It's an incredible group of people that make country music. These are great people. But there is no line between the performers and fans in our format. That's one thing that makes us unique. The family is all of us, performers, fans alike. And so we will come together this week and honor that and you know I think live music and country music in general there's a reason people show up and want to hear this. It's something - there's something different about live and so it's more important than ever that we do this show and do it right." After a decade of hosting duties, Paisley and Underwood say they've grown more comfortable with the gig over time. "We try to bring all we got to the table," said Underwood. "This one (Paisley) he has the hats and such and I can change my clothes a lot so I'm gonna do that. I don't know if it gets easier as far as - I feel like we're confident in our abilities as hosts and know that we got this. There have been things that have happened in the past that we've kind of had to figure out as we were going and we did so it's nice to kind of have that confidence." The CMA Awards will air live at ABC on 8 p.m. EST. Miranda Lambert is the leading nominee, while Keith Urban, Little Big Town, Sam Hunt, Jason Isbell and Taylor Swift - as a songwriter - will also compete for awards. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
