2019 Golden Boot Awards: Vote Now for Collaboration of the Year
Welcome to the sixth annual Golden Boot Awards! The Boot’s fan-voted digital awards, the Golden Boot Awards feature 10 categories of staff-selected nominees who made waves in the country music world in 2019. Readers can vote for their preferred winner in each category as often as once per hour through 11:59PM ET on Jan. 23. We’ll announce the winners on the site on Jan. 24.
Some of this year’s biggest hits were collaborations. The 2019 Golden Boot Awards nominees for Collaboration of the Year crossed genres, called on old friends and brought some serious girl power to the country charts.
Two titans of country music, Garth Brooks and Blake Shelton, teamed up for “Dive Bar,” a fun and twangy ode to the virtues of a low-key drinking establishment. Fellow legends of the genre, Brooks & Dunn, released Reboot, a record showcasing all of their big hits, this time recorded as duets with other country artists, including Kacey Musgraves, Ashley McBryde, Jon Pardi and Luke Combs.
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell lent vocals to Steve Earle’s “Old Friends,” a new version of the Guy Clark classic that appears on Earle’s new tribute record to the late Clark, while Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings worked with Tanya Tucker to produce her critically acclaimed new album While I’m Livin’.
Carlile also teamed up with Amanda Shires, Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby to form the Highwomen, an all-female country supergroup dreamed up by Shires. Their debut album reached No. 1 and took a magnifying glass to the roles women play not just in country music but in the world.
For another all-female project, Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell teamed up to form Our Native Daughters, and released an Americana record that explores the impact of slavery, racism and sexism on the identities of black women. Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris, meanwhile, released the revenge fantasy banger “Way Too Pretty for Prison” while Brantley Gilbert and Lindsay Ell harmonized on “What Happens in a Small Town,” which hit No. 1.
Dan + Shay caught Bieber Fever, collaborating with Justin Bieber on their sweet, genre-blending single “10,000 Hours.” And, in the collaboration that launched a thousand covers, Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus' “Old Town Road” took over the charts, spending 19 weeks at No. 1.
Which one of these incredible teams gets your vote for Collaboration of the Year in the Golden Boot Awards? Cast your vote below!
This story was written by Caitlin Tremblay.