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TIMELESS: Garth Brings Home Six Awards, Including Entertainer of the Year, at the 1991 Academy of Country Music Awards
As the 61st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards show draws closer on May 17, we’re looking back to the 26th Annual ACM Awards show in 1991. It was a watershed event in Garth’s career. He walked away with six trophies for Entertainer of the Year, Top Male Vocalist, Album of the Year, Single of the Year, Song of the Year, and Top Country Video, riding a wave of success from No Fences that laid the foundation for Ropin’ the Wind.
Garth set a record for the most ACM wins in one night, and we’re doing a story on each award, in the order it was presented. This is the sixth story, Entertainer of the Year.
Garth had already won five awards when Alabama stepped on stage to present the award for Entertainer of the Year. As they explained, the award is a “yearly final exam” recognizing success in all areas of an artist’s career, including album sales, radio airplay, concert ticket sales, and media appearances. When they said Garth’s name in unison, he sat for a few seconds in stunned silence before hugging his family and stepping to the podium. He thanked his booking agency, Buddy Lee Attractions, his band and crew, and “most of all, those people that fill those concert seats and slept out overnight for tickets. You guys are crazy, but I’m having a ball!”
On tour in 1990, Garth had learned from the best when he opened for headliners like Kenny Rogers, Reba, and The Judds and watched how they connected with a crowd and how they treated people. He developed his own reputation as a thrilling entertainer, playing for crowds at fairs, festivals, and clubs and riding the success of early hits like “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” “Not Counting You,” and “The Dance.” The 1991 No Fences Tour marked a major transition in Garth’s touring history. Before the year was over, he had sold out two shows at Reunion Arena in Dallas that were filmed for his first network television special, “This is Garth Brooks!”
It was almost prophetic and ultimately fitting that Alabama, ACM’s Artist of the Decade for the ‘80s, presented Garth with the Entertainer of the Year Award in 1991. In 1999, Garth was named ACM’s Artist of the Decade for the ‘90s and Entertainer of the Year, after performing for more than 5 million people on his 1996-1998 World Tour. The Academy of Country Music also presented him with the Special Achievement award in 1998 for his landmark Central Park concert that drew the largest crowd ever to a Central Park musical event and entertained millions of HBO viewers as the year’s most-watched cable TV special.
