Trisha Yearwood was honored tonight at the CMT Awards with the first-ever June Carter Cash Humanitarian Award, which highlights the work she’s done in her community and elsewhere. She gave a passionate speech in which she mentioned the honor of having her name “in the same sentence as June Carter Cash.”
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“She found ways to keep shining her own light,” Yearwood said of June, “and she had no bigger fan than her husband, Johnny Cash.” She continued, in part, “I only hope with this [award] to be as big a part of my community and as good of a friend to fellow artists as she was. It can be really hard to stand up for what is right and what you believe in. June just did it.” Watch Yearwood’s entire speech here.
Yearwood also took the stage to perform her new single “Put it in a Song.” This is the first time she’s been on the CMT Awards stage in five years, and the debut of the new song. She co-wrote “Put it in a Song” with Erin Enderlin and Jim “Moose” Brown, as she noted on social media recently.
Trisha Yearwood Receives Humanitarian Honor Named After June Carter Cash
Yearwood recently spoke about the honor of receiving the award prior to the CMT Awards, while she was manning her concession stand during Trisha’s Tailgate at the Moody Center. Speaking to the Austin American-Statesman, she shared how the award is more like a call “to step up my game.”
“I knew June and Johnny a little bit,” she began. “She was a ball of energy. When her and Johnny walked into a room, she was the Tasmanian devil spinning around. She was so full of love, light and energy. So when I heard about this award and I realized she was who it was named after, it made me so happy to be in the same sentence with her because she was a force.”
She continued, “It almost feels awkward to accept an award like this because it feels like, I don’t know if you ever would feel like you deserve it, but it is a call to me to step up my game.”
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
