Strictly Country Magazine Logo

Welcome...

To The Official Site of The Spirit Awards! 

About:  
The Spirit Awards began in 1995, by Strictly Country Magazine. These awards were designed to give entertainers, under the country music umbrella, a fair opportunity to win an award(s) voted by their fans, music industry personnel and peers. The awards were also designed to give the fans of the country music umbrella an event to voice their opinion with the opportunity to vote for their favorite entertainers.

 

How To Get Nominated:
Through the Spirit Awards, entertainers are nominated by performing and or making a live public appearance within the designated areas set by Strictly Country. The designated areas contain the nine counties that make up the Twin Cities metro area of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Western Wisconsin. Entertainers are not limited to the number of awards received.


The Ballot:
Each year the staff at Strictly Country provides a list of all nominees. The ballot is available to any person online, on this website. Voting begins December 10th and ends December 15th of each year.

Who Can Vote:
Any person who enjoys music as much as we do is eligible to vote.  Each person can only vote once in a voting year, no matter what device they use.

Notifying The Winners:
All winners of the Spirit Awards, will be notified by the Editor of Strictly Country via telephone and or e-mail no later than January 5th of the following year.  At the time of notification, we ask the winner to record an MP3 reaction of their win to be played live during the official Spirit Awards Show.

The Awards Show: 
Strictly Country hosts the Annual Spirit Awards Show on our Friday Night Radio Show – Around The Campfire on January 15th of each year.  Winning entertainers are requested to make a statement about their award win during the show.  The show is hosted, played and available to listen to right here on our radio show page as well as under the designated year.

 

Presenting The Awards:
All winners of the Spirit Awards, will be notified by the Editor of Strictly Country via telephone and or e-mail no later than January 5th of the following year.  During notification, negotiations of award presentations will be held. It is against Spirit Award policy to present the award to any other person other than said winner, unless the winner has passed away. At that point the awards will be housed at Strictly Country offices until they can be presented to the next of kin.  Each presentation must be conducted live; therefore no award shall be mailed and or shipped to official winner.  All award presentations will be made live at a later date.

 

Spirit Award History:
In 2000, Strictly Country changed the design of the Spirit Awards. The awards went through an extreme change and finally received a logo that will forever represent the Spirit Awards. The new logo features a black capped chickadee landing on a 1950's style microphone. The logo represents the spirit of the bird and the song that it sings.  The microphone pays tribute to the legends whom set the pace of what music has become today.

 

 The Year 2006, marked the first year in which fans were able to vote for "Song of the Year."  Nominees for this category must meet certain requirements. Songs are chosen by the staff at Strictly Country from albums or singles that were shipped, by the people in the music industry, to the offices of Strictly Country for review with in the voting year.  The staff judges each song to meet certain requirements that include quality of original recording, vocal quality, lyrics, and the use of instruments.  Please note that some songs may be previously released songs from live, tribute, collection, and or greatest hits albums.

 

In 2013, Strictly Country added two new categories to the Annual Spirit Awards.  The first new category is for "The Spirit of Christmas" Award.  Nominees for this award must meet certain requirements.  In this category, the staff at Strictly Country chooses the best Christmas songs released in the voting year.  Like the Song of The Year Award, songs are chosen by the staff at Strictly Country from Christmas albums or singles that was shipped, by the people in the music industry, to the offices of Strictly Country for review with in the voting year.  The staff judges each song to meet certain requirements that include quality of original recording, vocal quality, lyrics, and the use of instruments.  Please note that some songs may be previously released songs from concept albums.

 

The second new category added to the Spirit Awards is "Album of The Year Award."  Like the previous two categories, albums are chosen by the staff at Strictly Country from all the albums that were shipped, by the people in the music industry, to the offices of Strictly Country for review with in the voting year.  The staff judges each album to meet certain requirements that include quality of original recording, vocal quality, lyrics, and the use of instruments. 

In 2016, The Spirit Awards added another category with “The Spirit of America Award.”  In this category, the staff at Strictly Country chooses the best songs about soldiers released in the voting year.  Like the previous three categories, songs are chosen by the staff at Strictly Country fro

m albums or singles that were shipped, by the people in the music industry, to the offices of Strictly Country for review with in the voting year.  The staff judges each song to meet certain requirements that include quality of original recording, vocal quality, lyrics, and the use of instruments.  Please note that some songs may be previously released songs from live, tribute, collection, and or greatest hits albums.

 

The Country Music Umbrella

Country music has grown to include a wide variety of styles.  These styles include traditional country, Western, Texan, Country Rock, Country Gospel, Country-rap, modern, alternative, Bluegrass, Hillbilly, Rock-A-Billy, Americana, Southern Rock and Folk.  We call this the country music umbrella.

© 1993 - 2016 Strictly Country Magazine
All Items contained on this site may not be used without written permission.
All Rights Reserved

      Lokey