During her acceptance speech for Female Vocalist of the Year at the 54th annual CMA Awards on Nov. 11, Maren Morris name-checked some of her favorite female voices of country music that her fans might not know. As she stepped up to the microphone for the third time of the night, after previously capturing CMA Single and Song of the Year for “The Bones,” Maren took the opportunity to mention the names of Linda Martell, Yola, Mickey Guyton, Rissi Palmer, Brittney Spencer and Rhiannon Giddens.

Maren did this to honor the way that she was helped in the early days of her career. “So many artists like Miranda [Lambert] for instance have paid it forward for me as an artist and given me an opportunity, and Keith Urban and everyone that’s brought me out on tour over the years,” says Maren “I feel like you obviously want to thank your team and the writers, and luckily I got the chance three times tonight to kind of say everything I wanted to say. I felt like tonight I really am thankful and grateful for those women that have pioneered the way for me to get to do this. And I’m such a fan of country music and soul music and so discovering artists like Linda Martell and giving credit to people like Yola and Mickey Guyton, you know people that really should be more heard of, and so I just felt like as Female Vocalist of this year, of 2020, I wanted to share that moment with these women that don’t often get the credit that they deserve.”

Check out Maren’s CMA winning song “The Bones” right here.

photo by TCD