Mac McAnally, a 10-time Country Music Association Musician of the Year, will perform on Nexstar’s Coast to Coast Countdown to 2026, bringing his folksy style and Buffett legacy to Las Vegas.
A Storied Career
McAnally is a prolific songwriter who has written for Alabama, Jimmy Buffett, Shenandoah, George Strait, and Kenny Chesney. He is a 10-time winner of the Country Music Association Musician of the Year. McAnally describes himself as a country boy from Mississippi who, as a teenager, wrote short stories that later became songs that touched people.
Connection with Jimmy Buffett
“I made a little singer-songwriter album when I was a teenager still, and the same guy that gave me the record deal was the guy that had given Jimmy [Buffett] his first record deal, maybe eight, 10 years before that. And he sent Jimmy a copy of my first album and said, ‘This kid is a storyteller like you.'” That moment sparked a lifelong friendship and musical partnership between McAnally and Buffett.
Traveling with a Superstar
“I hit the road with Jimmy, and I’ve gotten to travel the world and see things that I never would have seen if it weren’t for his well-chosen ambition. He was great at being an ambitious superstar. And he was also a generous superstar in that he took all of us with him on that plane, and we stayed in super nice hotels with him, and we saw things that we would never have seen without him,” McAnally said.
Tribute to a Legend
Mac McAnally performed a tribute to Jimmy Buffett at the 57th Annual CMA Awards on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. He said, “If you want to role model … he left all of this, all of this human joy music, and his whole life was just a big smile, wider than his head that spread to everybody else like a virus. And, I’m not as good at that as he was, but I have some of that to spread still, and I’m doing, you know, a junior minor league version of what he did.”
Looking Ahead to New Year’s Eve
McAnally is excited about the New Year’s Eve show airing across the country. He said Las Vegas is a one-of-a-kind place. He recalls his first trip decades ago to meet Wayne Newton, describing the moment as glamorous and spoiled. “And that was my first trip to Vegas … it was really glamorous and spoiled, and I was wearing hand-me-down overalls from my grandfather. I had sort of a Scottish afro because we didn’t know about conditioner in North Mississippi. And I’m in Las Vegas, and Wayne was just taking a scoop of Solo Cup full of hundred-dollar chips and saying, here we go, play.”
Coast-to-Coast Countdown to 2026 Lineup
The show will feature:
- Foreigner
- Cheap Trick
- Styx
- Mac McAnally
- Kevin Cronin Band (former lead singer of REO Speedwagon)
- UB-40
- The Marshall Tucker Band
- 38 Special
- Bri Bagwell
How to Tune In
Catch Coast-to-Coast Countdown to 2026 on this station’s free CTV app (Roku, Apple TV, Fire) beginning at 8 pm PT/11 pm ET on New Year’s Eve. The pre-show begins for participating markets at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET exclusively on CTV. Check local listings for details on how to watch on-air, or stream live on this website and enjoy exclusive bonus content not seen anywhere else.
