Additional performers and presenters have been announced for tonight’s 53rd Annual CMA Awards telecast. Joe Walsh joins Dierks Bentley alongside Sheryl Crow, Chris Janson and John Osborne for a special performance honoring Kris Kristofferson, the 2019 CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.

Additional presenters include Jimmie Allen and Cody Johnson, Good Morning America contributor Lara Spencer, Walsh, and actress/producer Reese Witherspoon.

Carly Pearce and Michael Ray will host the CMA Awards Pre-Telecast, where the CMA Musician of the Year will be presented to the winner. In addition, the CMA Music Video of the Year and CMA Musical Event of the Year winners will be recapped, having been announced this morning live on Good Morning America. The CMA Broadcast Awards winners will also be recognized during the pre-telecast.

Chris Bandi. Photo: Haley Crow/MusicRow

Chris Bandi is ready to make his breakthrough at country radio with his single “Man Enough Now,” which he co-wrote with Jason Massey and Jason Duke.

He signed with RECORDS, a joint venture label between Barry Weiss and Sony Music Entertainment. “Man Enough Now” will head to radio in January, and the track has already earned more than 60 million streams on Spotify.

“I was thinking about a relationship I had been in in college and some things I wouldn’t do now that I had done then,” he says of writing the song. “I brought this title in about ‘If we were in a relationship now, I would probably get a few things right because I’m man enough now.’ They put it on Spotify and it’s changed my life.”

During a recent visit to the MusicRow Magazine offices, he performed “Man Enough Now,” and even when a guitar string broke during his performance, he powered through. He also played “They Make Whiskey,” and noted he expects to release an EP early next year.

Bandi began writing songs in high school and joined a band. “They would write all the music and they would send me MP3s and I would write all the lyrics for it.”

While in college at the University of Mississippi, this Missouri native began making regular trips to Nashville, ultimately relocating to Music City about six years ago. He began pursuing a music career in earnest in college.

“My worst job was working as a server at a restaurant in college,” he recalled. “Then I figured out you have a lot more fun and make a little more money making music in the bars. I started playing all the bars in Oxford, Mississippi.”

He was inspired by artists such as Eric Church and Luke Bryan who performed shows in Oxford.

“They were singing about trucks and dirt roads and things I could relate to,” Bandi recalls. “High school football, and the lyrics were great, so I started focusing on writing songs like that. I signed with BMG in 2016 as a writer. Mom and dad say I have a day job now,” he quipped.

This month, Bandi joins Laine Hardy on tour.

Chris Bandi with MusicRow owner/publisher Sherod Robertson. Photo: Haley Crow/MusicRow

Chris Bandi with MusicRow staffers.

Next Women of Country celebrate during the 2019 CMT Next Women Of Country Celebration at CMA Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on November 12, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for CMT)

CMT announced the members of the 2020 Class of its Next Women of Country franchise earlier Tuesday (Nov. 12) at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s CMA Theater.

This year’s class of 11 artists includes Abbey Cone, Avenue Beat, Caylee Hammack, Gabby Barrett, Hailey Whitters, Kylie Morgan, Madison Kozak, Renee Blair, Sykamore, Tiera and Walker County. The announcement was made by event co-hosts Leslie Fram, SVP, Music Strategy & Talent, CMT, and country music superstar Martina McBride.

The class of 2020 marks a total of 75 female acts that have been named as part of the program since its inception in 2013.

Brandi Carlile accepted the 2019 CMT Next Women of Country “Impact Award,” an honor presented to a female artist that has impacted songwriting, recording, radio airplay, record sales, streams, media impressions, awards and touring in country music over the past year. The award was presented by singer-songwriter Brandy Clark (Class of 2016) and Change the Conversation co-founder Tracy Gershon.

Martina McBride, Leslie Fram, Brandi Carlile, Brandy Clark and Tracy Gershon attend the 2019 CMT Next Women Of Country Celebration at CMA Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on November 12, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for CMT)

In a surprise appearance, Tanya Tucker appeared onstage as Carlile announced that Tucker will headline the upcoming CMT Next Women of Country Tour in early 2020. Supporting acts and cities to be announced. The 2020 tour is sponsored for the second consecutive year by Burlington Coat Factory.

Singer-songwriter Mickey Guyton began the event with a performance of “Sister,” performing with fellow Next Women of Country alumnae Clare Dunn (2014), Leah Turner (2018), Rachel Wammack (2018) and Tenille Townes (2018).

Notably, the leaders of several Nashville record labels–including BMLG’s Scott Borchetta, WMG’s John Esposito, Sony Music Nashville’s Randy Goodman, BBR Music Group’s Jon Loba, and UMG Nashville’s Cindy Mabe.

John Esposito, Leslie Fram, Martina McBride, Jon Loba, Randy Goodman, Scott Borchetta, and Cindy Mabe at the 2019 CMT Next Women Of Country Celebration at CMA Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on November 12, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for CMT)

Mabe offered an honest and inspiring speech about the current state and future for women in country music.

“We can all keep moving through and thinking that things have changed at the rate they need to change, and they haven’t,” Mabe said. “This platform and these artists today are so much more than a positioning statement that makes it to a press release this afternoon. This is about how we give a voice and a perspective to half the world. There is so much said about women not wanting to hear other women’s voices, but speaking for all the women that I know and raising two little girls of my own, and I can only speak for them, but they only want to hear female voices. You are the ones that show them the way. You are the ones that will dictate the next generation’s impact. You represent how they are felt and represented in the world and their feelings, and their thoughts and their voices and then show them that they matter. I think back to my childhood and I think how music spoke to me and I can say without a doubt that I wouldn’t be here without the voices of Dolly and the Judds, and Reba in my ear, because they raised me. On the eve of country’s biggest night, I can’t help but think about our sole female Entertainer of the Year nominee and the fact that Carrie Underwood wouldn’t exist without the impact of Martina McBride,” she added, to the applause of the crowd.

“The impact that her music made on Carrie as a little girl is what changed a whole generation and this is how it works and this is how each of you that are sitting in this audience need to understand your impact of where you go from here. I would be remiss to say that it’s going to be an easy way to get there, and you are all going to forge your own way and not all of them are going to look like radio. But we have artists like Kacey Musgraves that are showing there are now ways to you can expose new music to the masses and I think that if there is anything to say today, it’s that the women are bringing interesting, state of the art, cutting edge music and it doesn’t all fit in a box, that’s the truth of the matter. We will spend the next years figuring how how we get it exposed, one foot in front of the other, because great music should always rise and it’s not about fitting into a box. I’m speaking on behalf of Universal Music Group. We are committed—I can say I get out of bed every day and move it toward making women’s voices matter.” Mabe said.

Pictured (L-R): Renee Blair, Kylie Morgan, Ivy Dene, Sophie Dawn, Sykamore, Tiera and Madison Kozak attend the 2019 CMT Next Women Of Country Celebration at CMA Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on November 12, 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for CMT)