Variety’s Chris Willman Receives CMA Award

The Country Music Association has announced Chris Willman, Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic at Variety, as a recipient of the 2025 CMA Media Achievement Award. Willman received the honor Tuesday, Nov. 18 when CMA Awards nominees and performers Shaboozey and Stephen Wilson Jr. surprised him during Variety’s CMA Awards Interview Lounge presented by Duke Cannon at Anzie Blue. Willman is one of two honorees being recognized this year, with the second recipient to be announced in the coming weeks.

The CMA Media Achievement Award recognizes the outstanding achievements of print and online journalists, columnists, authors, editors, television writers, producers and bookers, and syndicated radio reporters in the media as they relate to Country Music. The award is voted on by publicist members of CMA.

Willman, who recently surpassed four decades as Los Angeles’ longest-standing, continually working full-time music journalist, has played a defining role in shaping the national conversation around Country Music. His long-standing passion for the genre was reflected most recently in helping spearhead Variety’s inaugural Power of Women Nashville live event and special issue, where he authored cover stories on Sheryl Crow and Mickey Guyton. His 2024–25 reporting also included in-depth Q&As with artists including Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, and Parker McCollum.

Throughout his career, Willman has served in influential roles at Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, and the Los Angeles Times, and is the author of “Rednecks & Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music,” cited by Stephen King as one of the best music books of all time. He is a two-time Entertainment Journalist of the Year at the SoCal Journalism Awards (2020, 2025) and was named Print Journalist of the Year at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards in 2024.