The 2017 CMT Awards Open With Straightforward, Music-Driven Tribute to the Late Gregg Allman

For those Nashville residents who needed a bit of a break from Predators madness this week, the 2017 CMT Awards provided a welcome respite on June 7, bringing Music City’s focus from hockey back to its main industry. The show’s opener was particularly instrumental, wasting no time in honoring one of music’s most recent and painful losses, that of the legendary Gregg Allman, who passed away May 27. Country power trio Darius Rucker, Jason Aldean, and Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley joined forces to to usher in the show without a word of commentary, launching immediately with Allman’s famous composition “Midnight Rider,” which was originally released by the Allman Brothers Band in 1971, and more successfully solo by Almann himself in 1973.