Chris Stapleton, Tim McGraw + More to Receive ACM Honors Awards

The lineup of special award recipients has been announced for the 2023 ACM Honors ceremony, an annual event that celebrates special and off-camera ACM Awards winners with an evening of live music and tributes.

Carly Pearce is hosting the ACM Honors ceremony for the third year running. A four-time ACM Award winner herself, Pearce says she feels "grateful and excited" to return to her hosting gig for the festivities.

"The Academy of Country Music has played such a crucial role in the rise of my career in the last several years, giving me opportunities to expand my artistry with hosting," she adds in a statement.

Chris Stapleton is one of the biggest honorees of the night: He's taking home the ACM Triple Crown Award, an exclusive category he qualifies for after winning the ACM's New Male Vocalist of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year and Entertainer of the Year at different times across his career. Stapleton notched his first ACM Entertainer win at this year's awards show. Only eight other artists have previously earned the Triple Crown Award.

Tim McGraw will receive the ACM Icon Award for his contributions to the popularity of the country genre through musical efforts as well as other endeavors in film, literature and philanthropy. Of course, McGraw has been active in several different spheres: Most prominently in recent years, he and his wife Faith Hill co-starred in the massively popular Yellowstone prequel, 1883. Label executive Mike Dungan is also bringing home the ACM Icon Award at this year's ceremony.

Kane Brown will win the ACM International Award for his contributions to country music's worldwide prominence, while Breland is the inaugural winner of the ACM Lift Every Voice Award — a trophy celebrating artists who augment under-heard perspectives in the genre. Clint Black, K.T. Oslin and Mary Chapin Carpenter are the 2023 recipients of the ACM Poet's Award.

Charlie Daniels is the posthumous honoree for this year's ACM Spirit Award, a trophy presented to the artist who most closely embodies Merle Haggard's legacy of songwriting craft, storytelling and trailblazing.

Other 2023 ACM Honors recipients include DJ Charlie Cook, radio executives Bill Mayne and Troy Vollhoffer as well as previously-announced winners Ashley Gorley and Hardy, who won ACM Songwriter of the Year and ACM Artist-Songwriter of the Year, respectively.

The ACM Honors ceremony will take place on Aug. 23 at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Friday (June 30), but ACM A-List email newsletter subscribers and Academy members will have an opportunity to secure their tickets early through a pre-sale on Thursday (June 29). Performers for the show are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

In 2022, the ACM Honors aired on Fox several weeks after the show took place. It's not yet clear whether this year's event will be broadcast on television.