Lainey Wilson Mixes It Up With a Star-Studded CMA Crowd for Opening Medley of Classic Country Hits

Following a Luke Combs performance of “Back in the Saddle,” host Lainey Wilson properly kicked off the 2025 CMA Awards, with a medley of country favorites originally performed by some of the stars in the Nashville crowd.

After some introductory remarks about how excited she was to be hosting the awards and how the creators of all her go-to playlist jams were in the audience that night, Wilson offered to demonstrate the point herself: “How about I get my buddy Charlie Worsham up here on guitar and we sing ’em for y’all?”

After Worsham dutifully joined her on stage with acoustic in tow, Wilson launched into Chris Stapleton’s “White Horse,” as the camera panned to Stapleton in the seats. That set the tone for an era-spanning medley, with a full band kicking in as Wilson started wandering the aisles at Bridgestone Arena to find the original artists of the songs she was racing through.

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Over the course of her medley, Wilson also hit on Brooks & Dunn (“Hillbilly Deluxe”), Ella Langley (“You Look Like You Love Me”), Gretchen Wilson (“Redneck Woman”), Lady A (“Need You Now”), Miranda Lambert (“Gunpowder and Lead”), Shaboozey (“A Bar Song”) and Little Big Town (joining in with her for a full-group performance of “Girl Crush”). Following that, a six-string-strapped Keith Urban took the mic on stage to perform his ’00s classic “Where the Blacktop Ends,” with Wilson eventually accomapnying him on harmonies.

The medley was a charming run through country history, with artists like Lambert, Shaboozey and Langley getting in the fun by dancing and miming to the camera along with Wilson. And the particularly good for Langley, who just minutes later accepted the awards’ single of the year award for the song Wilson serenaded her with.