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TIMELESS: Garth Brings Home Six Awards, Including Song 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 third story, Song of the Year.
Garth had already won Top Country Video for “The Dance” and Single Record of the Year for “Friends in Low Places” when it was time to announce Song of the Year. Both “Friends in Low Places” and “The Dance” were nominated, but “The Dance” received the honor.
Accepting the award, Garth said, “I’d like to say to Tony Arata, I don’t know how you did it, but you wrote my life somehow . . .You’ll never know what kind of gift I got in this song.”
Garth loved “The Dance” from the first time he heard Tony Arata play it at a songwriter’s night at the Bluebird Café. He told Tony that if he ever got a record deal, he’d record it. After he signed with Capitol Records and started working on his debut album, he had second thoughts about including “The Dance.” In The Anthology, Part 1: The First Five Years, he recalls telling his producer, Allen Reynolds, “I’m afraid it’s not country enough.”
Reynolds replied, “You don’t cut this song, it will be the biggest hit you never had.”
“The Dance” is the final track on Garth Brooks, starting a tradition where Garth placed a particularly moving and thought-provoking song at the end of each album. “Friends in Low Places,” his next release and the first single from No Fences, removed any doubts about whether his music was country enough, and the back-to-back #1 hits became two of his signature songs.
