Eric Church Rocks 2021 CMA Awards With ‘Heart on Fire’

Eric Church rocked the 2021 CMA Awards stage on Wednesday night (Nov. 10). The reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year delivered a raging performance of his latest single, "Heart on Fire," at the annual awards show.

Elevated by longtime band member Joanna Cotten's powerful backing vocals, Church brought his trademark swagger to the CMA stage. "Heart on Fire" leads Heart, the first of Church's three 2021 albums, together titled Heart & Soul. The country star wrote the song solo during a month-long writing-and-recording retreat to rural North Carolina in early 2020, which yielded the triple album that the country star released in April.

Church walked into the 2021 CMA Awards as one of the night's most-nominated artists. This year, he earned another Entertainer of the Year nod, along with nominations in the Male Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year (Heart), Song of the Year and Single of the Year ("Hell of a View").

The Country Music Association held the 2021 CMA Awards at Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville. The show, hosted for the first time by Luke Bryan, returned to the venue — its home since 2006 — after one year at Music City Center due to the COVID-19 pandemic.