12/01/2023
In case you have questions about the Arkansas Country Music Awards , here are some great answers!
** FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS **
Question: What are the Arkansas Country Music Awards?
Answer: The Arkansas Country Music Awards are an annual, industry awards. These honor the independent, Arkansas country music recording artists. An independent artist can be defined as an artist on an independent record label or an unsigned artist who releases material on their own. Additionally, the awards honor those who paved the way and reached greater heights with the Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Q: When do nominations for the Arkansas Country Music Awards begin? And who can submit?
A: In any given year, the submissions for nominations open on January 1 and run for three weeks through January 21. Any fan as well as any music professional can submit.
Q: Are the awards based on a particular time frame?
A: Absolutely, they are. The Arkansas Country Music Awards use a two year eligibility period. The upcoming awards will be based on recordings that have been officially released between January 22, 2022 and January 21, 2024. Categories like Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Video of the Year are certainly sensitive to this. Also, this is very important in the vocalist and genre related artist categories. Each category has its own definition based on the eligibility period. Each category also has a criteria, and this can vary depending on the nature of the category, of course. For more information on that, go to www.arkansasmusic.org
and click on āEligibility.ā
Q: The awards have obviously become very popular and prestigious. A lot of excitement seems to be centered around the day the final five nominees per category are announced. How are those selected?
A: Once nominations end, the ones most meeting the criteria in each category will go to the special awards committee, which is an anonymous committee of music professionals. They select the final five per category. It is worth noting that the committee is sent ballots. They do not sit around a table and discuss this. As a matter of fact, no one committee member knows who another committee member is. Also, a portion of the committee comes off each year and a portion of other music professionals come on.
Q: Once the final nominees are announced, how are the recipients chosen?
A: Final voting is determined by the special awards committee, who are each sent a final ballot, and a collective tally of fan, online voting (This means EACH committee person has a final vote, plus the one receiving the highest number of fan votes per category counts as ONE ā1ā committee personās vote). The fan portion of final voting runs the first two weeks of March.
Q: I know there has been some talk about a change in the instrument category format for the 2024 Arkansas Country Music Awards. Can you explain this?
A: The categories for Bass Player, Drummer, Fiddle Player, and Guitar Player remain the same. The change comes in the fifth instrument category. It will now be Speciality/Utility Musician of the Year. Now, all musicians, regardless of their instrument, will have a category in which they are eligible.
Q: I had read where collaborations will now have their own category beginning with the 2024 awards show. How will that be constructed?
A: For the first six years of the awards show, collaborations were mixed in with the regular duos and regular groups. That has now changed due to the massive increase in collaborative releases. Vocal Duo/Group of the Year will be only for the regular duos and groups. Music Collaboration of the Year will be for a studio recording by two or more artists that are primarily known on their own. The Music Collaboration nomination/award will go to the artists and the producer (if different) of the recording.
Q: I think it is great that Arkansas has an event like this for the independent country music performers. However, I was curious if it is okay for the independent artists to write songs with known music people, have known music people involved in their recordings and open concerts for big name country stars?
A: Of course, it is. We want our artists to co-write with the best possible and be involved with other industry pros. We love when our artists play the Grand Ole Opry or tour with known country artists. A good example would be the categories Album of the Year and Song of the Year. The criteria for those clearly states that an album or song is eligible if it is āreleasedā by an eligible artist. So, an album could be produced by whomever in the industry or a song could be written or co-written by whomever. Album of the Year goes to the artist and producer. Song of the Year goes to the artist and writer(s). We've witnessed some Nationally known artists garner nominations here via being a writer of a song, co-producer on a nominated album, as well as a co-director on a nominated video.
Q: Why do the Arkansas Country Music Awards have categories for Americana, bluegrass and inspirational artists?
A: This is a great question! And the answer is why not! Country music can be defined as a lot of different styles and sounds that fall under one big umbrella. Here in Arkansas, we have some of all of that. Plus, those 'umbrella' categories you mentioned are very influential and integral to country music. Many facets of the Arkansas Country Music Awards rules and criteria cast a wide net. This is both an accurate assessment of the music scene here and a healthy one.
Q: I've attended all five of the live awards shows and my favorite segments are the Lifetime Achievements. How are those selected?
A: For an Arkansan who has been involved in country music professionally, there is certainly no greater honor than the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Arkansas Country Music Awards. Obviously, this is much different than the regular categories. These are career awards as opposed to a current eligibility period. From the onset of the awards, there has been a Lifetime Achievement nomination slot on the original nominating ballot in January. The considerations for Lifetime are retroactive and carried over from year to year. One can only imagine the depth and importance of this type of award, so these are worked on a year in advance. These are selected by the executive committee of the Arkansas Country Music Awards. The Lifetime Achievement recipients are announced in late January for that awards year.
Q: When will the next Arkansas Country Music Awards Show be held?
A: The seventh annual Arkansas Country Music Awards will be held on Monday, June 3, 2024, at the Reynolds Performance Hall on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
