The 2017 CMT Artists of the Year awards were filmed earlier this week. To close the show down, CMT brought together a supergroup consisting of Jason Aldean, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban, and Little Big Town to come out and perform an emotional rendition of the late, great Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’.
Jason Aldean famously made his first public appearance after October 1st’s Las Vegas shooting on Saturday Night Live where he performed Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’. This was both a declaration that domestic terrorism couldn’t break the spirit of the people, that it couldn’t keep him down, and it was a way for the Country Music superstar to pay homage to Tom Petty.
I’m not at all surprised to see CMT put together a supergroup to perform this song on their CMT Artists of the Year special. I am, however, surprised that I haven’t heard Jason Aldean’s cover of ‘I Won’t Back Down’ on Country Music radio yet. I mostly listen to Sirius-XM instead of the local stations, but I still listen to a decent amount of Country Music on the radio and I’m shocked that Aldean’s recording of the song hasn’t hit #1 on the charts yet because in addition to being a powerful performance it’s just a really, really good version of the song.