11 Most Empowering Country Music Anthems by Female Artists: From Carrie Underwood to Mickey Guyton

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorJohn Legend, Carrie Underwood, J Balvin with Maria Becerra and just-announced Silk Sonic are among the performers added to Sunday’s Grammy Awards, where producers will also highlight three musical genres — gospel/Christian, tropical Latin and bluegrass — that are not traditionally part of the show. The ceremony will also feature a tribute to Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer who died March 25 at the age of 50.The list of artists set to appear on the live CBS telecast from MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas also include Maverick City Music, Aymée Nuviola and Billy Strings, who are lined up for “special segments that showcase Las Vegas and spotlight genres not historically represented on the Grammy Awards telecast,” per the Grammys.

Carrie Underwood had a special milestone to celebrate on social media while featuring a picture of several members of her family.MORE: Carrie Underwood wows in dazzling silver mini dress ahead of Las Vegas returnThese proved to be photographs of her adopted family, however, as she took the time to shine the spotlight on her many dogs in honor of National Puppy Day.WATCH: Carrie Underwood introduces new family member in adorable video with her sonsThe singer posted a picture of herself lounging on a deck chair in a pair of cat-eyed sunglasses and what looked to be a neon green swimsuit that peeked out from under her while she held on to one of her puppies.She then followed it up with many other shots of the others, with several of them also adorably clad in bow-ties and one hilariously wearing a diaper.MORE: Carrie Underwood's tasseled dress might be her most impressive look yetCarrie captioned her sweet post: "It's #NationalPuppyDay! My babies might be all grown up now (even got one in diapers), but they'll always be puppies in my heart! Be extra sweet to those furry family members today!"Her fans loved the photographs and instantly started gushing over her brood of dogs, with one fan writing: "Love love our fur babies!!!"A post shared by Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood)Carrie celebrated her puppies with a compilation of photographsAnother said: "Awww look at them! Little Ace she is getting old poor girl! She is so loved," with a third also including: "All the love for the puppy in a diaper."Carrie is riding on cloud nine currently, not only basking in the love of her many pets, but also in the love of her fans as she recently kicked off a new era of music.MORE: Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Kane Brown among

Party in Music City! Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean and more of country’s biggest stars will be honored at the 2022 CMT Music Awards.

Maren Morris is still proud of her 2019 Playboy cover. The 31-year-old clapped back at critics about the sexy shoot, and responded to trolls via Instagram on Saturday, March 19. “Before I go into the next album era, I did @playboy in 2019 and got a lot of hate at the time, but I’m the proudest that I showed country female sexuality in its realist form here,” she wrote on a caption of one of the black-and-white images from the magazine, shot by Harper Smith.

Maren Morris has been supported by Jenna Dewan, Amanda Kloots and Mickey Guyton as she defended her Playboy shoot and encouraged women in the country music scene to "own their sexuality".Exclusive: Miranda Lambert's stylist shares the singer's wardrobe secretsMaren posted a picture from her 2019 Playboy shoot and shared how proud she was that "showed country female sexuality in its realist form here". "We are nuanced, we are messy and stretch-marked in the most beautiful way.

Proud of her mom bod! Two years after giving birth to son Hayes, Maren Morris has been proud of her body and her sexuality.

New Music Friday! It's every audiophile's favorite day of the week, and some of our favorite artists from all different genres have blessed us with new tunes.Normani returned with a stripped-down, heartfelt breakup single, «Fair,» Carrie Underwood shared her haunting new track, «Ghost Story,» and Arcade Fire shared «The Lightning I, II,» a two-part introduction to their upcoming album, .If you need a little pick-me-up after all that emotion, thankfully Charli XCX, ROSALÍA and K-pop faves Stray Kids all dropped their new albums today.

Carrie Underwood left fans overflowing with emotions on Friday as she announced huge news on Instagram.The country music star has been teasing her new music recently and finally, her single, Ghost Town, dropped. MORE: Carrie Underwood shares rare photo of son from family beach tripCarrie filmed a video for social media and said how excited she was to finally let fans know they could download the track. WATCH: Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher's love story revealed Many of her followers commented: "OMG," and marveled at just how good the song is while others said they couldn't believe the time had finally come. The buzz over Ghost Town was amazing as other fans declared: "I know all the words already," and another added: "I haven't been able to stop listening to it since it came out last night."MORE: Carrie Underwood's jaw-dropping birthday cake needs to be seen to be believedMORE: Carrie Underwood wows in leg-lengthening micro shorts at ACM AwardsCarrie captioned the post: "Today is the day! I'm so excited my new single is finally here! Hope you guys love it. Welcome to a new era! #GhostStory *link in bio."A post shared by Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood)Carrie was thrilled to announce the release of her new single Ghost Town The mom-of-two is equally as overjoyed with the end result of her hit and she opened up about what a magical song it is. MORE: Inside country music singers' jaw-dropping homesMORE: Carrie Underwood's $3M estate with husband Mike is 400 acres of perfection"Ghost Story is a thrilling, dramatic song that David (Garcia), Hillary (Lindsey) and Josh (Kear) wrote for me," she said.

Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert have been nominated for two CMT Awards each, going head to head in the Video of the Year category.MORE: Carrie Underwood 'couldn't be more proud of sister' Miranda Lambert after 'long overdue' winThe show, the only fan-voted country music awards show, sees Carrie also nominated for Collaborative Video of the Year for her hit song 'If I Didn't Love You' with Jason Aldean, while Miranda is up for Female Video of the Year for 'If I Was A Cowboy.' WATCH: Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood perform together at 2014 CMT Music AwardsKane Brown leads the nominations this year with four, including Video of the Year, Male Video of the Year and CMT Performance of the Year.Kelsea Ballerini - who is hosting alongside Marvel star Anthony Mackie - has three nominations, along with Mickey Guyton, BRELAND and Cody Johnson; it is the first CMT nods for Cody and BRELAND.SEE: All the show-stopping looks from the 2022 ACM AwardsTwelve acts are nominated for Video of the Year - the big award - with the final nominees, from a second round of voting, announced on show day.A winner is picked via social media votes and announced as the final category during the live show. Kelsea will co-host with Anthony MackieJoining Miranda and Carrie in the category are Taylor Swift and Chris Stapleton, Mickey Guyton, Kane Brown, Maren Morris, Luke Combs, Kacey Musgraves, Cole Swindell and Lainey Wilson, Cody Johnson, and Brandi Carlile."Expect the most unforgettable CMT Music Awards yet, jam-packed with the most star-power, world premiere performances and one-of-a-kind collaborations from in and around Music City," executive producers Margaret Comeaux, John Hamlin and Leslie Fram said in a statement.

Chris Willman Music WriterCountry star Kane Brown leads the list of nominations for the 2022 CMT Music Awards with four, followed by three apiece for Kelsea Ballerini, Mickey Guyton and Breland and Cody Johnson.Joining the latter two artists as first-time nominees are Brittney Spencer, Caitlyn Smith, Elvie Shane, MacKenzie Porter, Priscilla Block and Tenille Arts, and two non-country artist who appeared on CMT during the year, H.E.R. and Paul Klein of LANY.Carly Pearce, who is up for two awards, helped announce the nominations Wednesday morning on CBS, which will air the CMT Awards for the first time this year, in a bumping up of what used to be CMT’s flagship show to a new awards tentpole for the broadcast network.

Carrie Underwood fans have gone wild following the singer finally revealing what she has been working on.MORE: Carrie Underwood thrills fans as she makes cryptic announcementThe star previously teased that something exciting was coming fans' way, and they were ecstatic to find out just what it is. On Monday, Carrie shared a cryptic five second video revealing something was coming on Friday, 18 March.Luckily fans didn't have to wait too long to find out what it was, as she took to Instagram on Tuesday to finally reveal the surprise.WATCH: Carrie 'couldn't be more proud of sister' Miranda Lambert after 'long overdue' ACM Awards winMORE: Carrie Underwood shares rare photo of son from family beach tripThough the video shared was no less cryptic than the first, Carrie made it extra clear in the caption, finally proving her fans' suspicions.The mother-of-two is releasing her latest single, Ghost Story, on Friday.

Chris Willman Music WriterThe state of the art for emerging Black performers in country music will be the subject of a feature-length documentary that has been produced by Amazon Music, titled “For Love & Country,” which was announced Tuesday morning as having a premiere date set for the music streaming service and Prime Video on April 7.The arrival of the film will be preceded by Amazon Original recordings by some of the documentary’s featured artists, starting with a new acoustic rendering by Amythyst Kiah of her signature song, “Black Myself,” that’s out today.Although the announcement of the doc does not include “Americana,” the lineup of artists featured in interviews and performances in the film includes about equal measures of singer-songwriters who are up-and-coming in mainstream country and those are are generally considered part of the alternative-roots or Americana realm. Mickey Guyton, who recently performed the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, is featured, as is Jimmie Allen, who has become one of the leading men of country with three of his singles becoming No.

Brad Martin has died at the age of 48.RELATED: In memoriam: remembering famous faces we lost in 2022The Before I Knew Better hitmaker passed away on Friday, 11 March. While no cause of death has been disclosed, Brad's sister, Melissa Lea Hobbs, revealed on an online fundraising page that he had suffered "severe internal damage" in "a work-related injury" in January " that was exasperated by an "already existing health crisis".Brad Martin was best known for his hit Before I Knew BetterOn March 9, just two days before his death, Brad's sister shared an update on his health, revealing he was "alert and oriented".John Ramey, who formed the duo Martin Ramey with Brad in 2008, shared the news of his friend's death in a Facebook post: "I can't believe I'm saying this… My dear friend and music brother Brad Martin passed away this afternoon..

Carrie Underwood gave fans a reason to be excited as the week goes on as she made a big announcement about something dropping really soon.MORE: Carrie Underwood shares rare photo of son from family beach tripThe singer took to social media to share a short clip that simply read: "Coming Friday March 18" paired with ominous music and the curious eyes emoji in her caption.WATCH: Carrie Underwood shares special message for her fansShe even changed her profile picture on her social media handles to a deep purple background with what looked like a dark silhouette on it.Fans were immediately thrown into a frenzy by the announcement as many deduced that Carrie would be releasing a new single and kicking off a new era this Friday.MORE: Carrie Underwood's jaw-dropping birthday cake needs to be seen to be believedOne commented: "It's happening.

Carrie Underwood sent country music fans into a tailspin on Wednesday, when she took to social media with an uplifting message.The star shared a snapshot of herself singing into a microphone in a studio and captioned the image: "So, I did a thing."MORE: Carrie Underwood wows in leg-lengthening micro-shorts at ACM AwardsFans immediately rushed to express their hope that she was releasing fresh tunes and commented: "NEW MUSIC!!! SO EXCITED," and another added: "You're torturing us!! How about real soon instead of Carrie 'soon' PLEASEEEE."WATCH: Carrie Underwood 'couldn't be prouder of sister' Miranda Lambert Others added: "Omg! New album?" and "WHAT!? YEEESSSS," while there were plenty of praying hand emojis and excitement among fans. Her teasing post comes as Carrie prepares to return to Las Vegas for the next run of her REFLECTION residency.MORE: Inside country music singers' jaw-dropping homesMORE: Carrie Underwood shares incredible birth video as she welcomes two new family membersIt's been a very busy time for the mom-of-two, who also blew fans away at the recent ACM Awards.A post shared by Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood)Carrie's fans are hoping for some new music Not only were her outfits show-stopping but her tribute to fellow musician, Miranda Lambert, was the talk of the town. After Miranda won the Entertainer of the Year award, Carrie immediately congratulated her. MORE: Carrie Underwood's $3M estate with husband Mike is 400 acres of perfectionREAD: Carrie Underwood to make comeback on American Idol's upcoming series? All we knowMiranda had been nominated several times over an almost two-decade career, but this was her first win; she was unable to be at the ceremony in person as she was performing in London. 

Headlining major award shows, as well as stepping up as a fashion icon, Underwood clearly let “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” She’s been married to her husband and NHL star Mike Fisher for over a decade, and the couple has been vocal about the joint successes and hardships they’ve faced — even heartbreaking miscarriages. Yet Underwood’s tenacity has carried on as she’s been able to juggle a thriving career, a legacy as an icon for the NFL and motherhood.

Carrie Underwood is now a well-known name in the music industry, with more than 100 major awards to her name and a plethora of top country hits. Before her meteoric rise to fame, however, Carrie got her start by auditioning for season four of American Idol in 2005.

For over ten tears, Carrie Underwood has walked her life with Mike Fisher by her side. The country music star has been happily married to the former hockey player, and they have taken their love from red carpets to country festivals to the random throwback photo on Instagram. But, for those unfamiliar with the man who has captured the “Good Girl” singer’s heart, here’s what you need to know about Carrie Underwood’s husband.

Country chic! There was no shortage of glitz or glamour at the 2022 ACM Awards. With designer dresses, jewels and top-notch glam, singers and stars slayed the red carpet on Monday, March 7.