Tag: carrie underwood

Watch Country Star Megan Moroney’s Lovely Acoustic Tiny Desk Concert

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Now here’s some Good Country!

Last week, NPR Music released a brand new Tiny Desk Concert featuring country phenomenon Megan Moroney; it’s the starlet’s first visit to the fabled cubicle concert series. With an acoustic band and her fretboard inlays sparkling with her most recent hit album title, 2024’s Am I Okay?, Moroney plays through a handful of her hits – two selections from her Am I Okay? era and two from her 2023 breakout album, Lucky, which was certified Gold by RIAA.

Moroney’s brand of country is wholly mainstream and ripe for radio love (around ten of her titles have charted so far) and a sound that combines the polish and glamour of artists like Carrie Underwood with the grit, humor, and self-awareness of The Chicks and women country forebears from Loretta Lynn to Gretchen Wilson. It’s all packaged in a familiar brand of rhinestones and gorgeous blonde hair, sly humor, and manicured and idyllic while down-to-earth beauty, yet Moroney’s music ends up consistently striking her listeners as feeling totally brand new. It’s grounded in tradition, yes, but breaking new soil with each and every effort.

Critics and fans agree – what Moroney is doing works. She’s won a CMT Music Award, an ACM Award, and took home a CMA Award in 2024 for New Artist of the Year. Her Am I Okay? Tour kicks off this spring and continues through the fall, with dozens of dates at huge arenas, theaters, festivals, and venues across the country.

Her too-short 17-minute Tiny Desk Concert demonstrates why. “Tennessee Orange,” Moroney’s breakout hit and a viral internet sensation, is quippy, witty, and leverages a mighty Music Row hook. These songs are as sardonic as they are saccharine, a subtle siren plying us through our ears, eyes, and hearts. “I’m Not Pretty,” which leads off both her Tiny Desk appearance and 2023’s Lucky, certainly warrants her middle finger to the mentioned “ex-boyfriend,” leaning into the liberation and comeuppance dripping from the track you can still hear regularly over the airwaves. “No Caller ID” is found in delicious heartbreak that reminds listeners of ’90s and ’00s classics like Lee Ann Womack’s “Last Call,” but with 2025 production values and plenty of Moroney’s own spin. She introduces the final song, “Am I Okay?,” the titular track for her current album, tour, and the inspiration for her signature guitar’s inlays with even more of her biting wit and charm:

“[‘Am I Okay?’ is] proof that a man once made me happy, which is nice in my discography of sad songs. Full transparency, he did screw up, so this song is no longer true, but it was fun while it lasted, right?”

Yes, indeed. All of her music, from the sad to the salacious, is entirely fun, top-to-bottom. Megan Moroney is a mainstream country icon on the rise and her Tiny Desk Concert appearance illustrates why and how she will continue to win hearts and ears with her particular brand of Good Country.

 

Inspired by Loretta Lynn’s Story Songs, Margo Price Sings a Duet With Her Hero

Posted on by Editor

Loretta Lynn’s new album, Still Woman Enough, not only brings a collection of new songs from the venerable artist, but also makes a point of celebrating women in country music that have come after and alongside her. Appearing on the Legacy Recordings project are pillars of country music like Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Tanya Tucker, and Margo Price. About including these all-stars, Lynn said, “I am just so thankful to have some of my friends join me on my new album. We girl singers gotta stick together. It’s amazing how much has happened in the 50 years since ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ first came out and I’m extremely grateful to be given a part to play in the history of American music.”

Steel guitar, fiddle, shuffling drums, and a story told straight are the key ingredients in “One’s on the Way,” a song about the underappreciated struggle of raising children. In a promotional, behind-the-scenes spot for their duet version, Price shared her unique perspective as a creator who had the privilege of working alongside a lifelong heroine. The song is especially meaningful to Price, who said of the collaboration, “I chose ‘One’s on the Way’ because it’s an important song. It was an important song at the time and it’s still an important song; to be able to talk about birth control and women’s rights in country music is legendary.”

Lynn carried “One’s on the Way,” which was written by Shel Silverstein, to No. 1 in 1971. It also served as the title track of her album that year. Her recording of it received a 1972 Grammy nomination, one of 18 she’s earned in her six-decade career. Still Woman Enough is the country legend’s 50th studio album.

In an interview about their duet, Price observes, “What first drew me to Loretta was, obviously I love her voice and I love the way she sings, it’s so powerful, but it is what she’s saying and how she’s saying it. ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ and those story songs, they gave me the blueprint as a country artist and just as a writer in general. Loretta said you either have to be first, great, or different. You know, she was all three.”

As an acclaimed artist who has been outspoken in her music throughout her own career as well, Price concluded, “Loretta is such an important figure to me. She’s larger than life in so many ways, and she really was this no-frills, no-BS, singing straight from her heart. And yet, men can sing about sex, they can sing about straight-up murdering someone and it was fine, but Loretta was not afraid to step on any toes. She wrote her truth. I think Loretta’s songs are timeless, and I’ve taken so much knowledge and wisdom from her, just watching how she navigated her career and motherhood. She’s one of the greatest of all times.”

Photo credit: Bobbi Rich

WATCH: Loretta Lynn, “Coal Miner’s Daughter Recitation”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Loretta Lynn
Hometown: Butcher Holler, Kentucky
Song: “Coal Miner’s Daughter Recitation”
Album: Still Woman Enough
Release Date: March 19, 2021
Label: Legacy Recordings

In Their Words: “I am just so thankful to have some of my friends join me on my new album. We girl singers gotta stick together. It’s amazing how much has happened in the fifty years since ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ first came out and I’m extremely grateful to be given a part to play in the history of American music.” — Loretta Lynn

Editor’s Note: “Coal Miner’s Daughter Recitation” commemorates the 50th anniversary of the release of Loretta Lynn’s signature song (October 5, 1970) and album (January 4, 1971). Meanwhile, her upcoming 50th studio album, Still Woman Enough, includes collaborations with Reba McEntire, Margo Price, Tanya Tucker, and Carrie Underwood. Lynn reunited with director David McClister for a short film version of “Coal Miner’s Daughter Recitation.” Shot on location at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, the music video includes scenes filmed in her “Butcher Holler” replica home.

Album image courtesy of Legacy Recordings

Indigo Girls Expand “Country Radio” With Black, Brown and Queer Musicians

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Hollywood, the 2020 Netflix series from director-screenwriter Ryan Murphy, is a resplendent show dripping in Art Deco that does not wholly reimagine Los Angeles’ golden era, but rather subtly inserts a quintessential question: “What if?”

What if Hollywood hadn’t been as… ___-ist? (Sexist, racist, misogynist, ageist, etc.) If one happens to be born into a region, a folkway, a culture, an art form that doesn’t include you, or that doesn’t quite love you back, one often doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. And then what? Do we, the rural, country-loving queers, wait around for our Ryan Murphy to reimagine the world to better include us? Not quite.

For Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of Indigo Girls — and, for that matter, almost each and every queer who has ever loved roots music — that “What if?” question is existential, but it also doesn’t matter. What if country music loved LGBTQ+ folks? The lyrics of “Country Radio,” a track off the duo’s sixteenth studio album, Look Long, tell it plainly: “But as far as these songs will take me/ Is as far as I’ll go/ I’m just a gay kid in a small town/ Who loves country radio.”

While curating the following playlist of their favorites from country music airwaves and songs they wish were included there, Saliers and Ray offer a quite simple solution actionable in each present moment: Be who you are, listen to the music that brings you joy, love who you love — and be anti-racist.

Emily Saliers: [I began with the idea:] What are the songs that I listened to that I latched onto, that sort of gave me a feeling of “I can’t get into this song [because of its heteronormativity], but I love this song so much”? One of the first songs that came to mind is “Mama’s Song” by Carrie Underwood. 

I should preface this by saying, I don’t expect that there can’t be heteronormative country songs, or that queer life has to be explicitly represented in songs, it’s not that. It’s the feeling of the way a song moves me emotionally, but then it stops me a little bit short of being able to fully experience it because of the language or the obvious implications of man and woman.

I love Carrie Underwood’s voice and she’s taken more of a harder, pop direction since “Mama’s Song,” but she sings this so beautifully. She’s talking to her mother, “He is good… he treats me like a real man should,” and yet the beauty of her song [is in] her telling her mom that’s she’s going to be okay. 

Amy Ray: For me it’s a little different because I never had the experience of feeling like I wish I could put myself in a song. I think it’s because, gender-wise, I always just related to the male singers. I kinda have that gender dysphoria, you know? [Chuckles] I have these filters that sort of make it my own — probably out of necessity, from growing up loving the Allman Brothers, Pure Prairie League, and Randy Travis so much. [Sings] “Amie, whatcha gonna do?” Pure Prairie League!

It’s very odd — Emily’s perspective on this is something I can understand, and I agree that it’s this weird disconnect with country music. We have to kind of acclimate it to ourselves, in some way, using some kind of trick in our minds. But I’ve always had that internal translator…

ES: Another example is Brett Young’s “In Case You Didn’t Know.” Now this is a song that you can listen to and fit your own queer life into it — as far as I remember it doesn’t have any gender pronouns. Then I watched the video and of course he’s singing to a woman who comes into the audience and he plays to her, alone. It’s a love song to his girlfriend — or wife or partner or whatever — so I could live in that song and think back to relationships and apply it in my own life, but then I watched the video and that door shut a little bit.

AR: I love Angaleena Presley, the Pistol Annies. Presley is such a great writer. “Better Off Red” is one of my favorite songs that she’s written… Honestly, if I hear songs, if I like it, I just put myself in it. I don’t really think about it or worry about it. It’s a survival mechanism from my youth, not that it’s the right thing to do. It’s built inside me.

…I thought you couldn’t be a country singer if you were gay and left-wing and a complete dyke. That made me feel more alienated than the songs themselves, that idea of its inaccessibility. Or, if you went to a show and you were sitting there in that audience, in the early days before it all kind of busted open, you would feel scared. Or judged. Or uncomfortable.

ES: Think about what a splash that song by Little Big Town, “Girl Crush,” had. Just the implication of a lesbian relationship or feelings! That song was a big hit, but it got people talking. [Probably] the majority of the people in this world lean more heteronormative, so they’re representing themselves in these songs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

I wouldn’t want to listen to just albums that are for and by queer people, oh my god. No way! But we have to have them as part. I think about what an influence Ferron was, how much Amy and I love Ferron. When her first album came out, it was like, “Oh my gosh this is one of the best songwriters in the country and she’s queer!” I can’t describe how important it was to have an artist like that.

Even Lil Nas X, who had the number one hit forever-ever-ever with Billy Ray Cyrus. It’s awesome to know that he’s queer! And a guy like Young Thug, a rapper out of Atlanta, who’s not gender normative by any stretch, to me. It’s interesting. It’s good to have a mish mosh! It’s not that the majority of songwriters out there can’t be represented in their own songwriting, we just have to have ours, as well.

AR: [We] should add Amythyst Kiah. Amythyst is amazing.

[Racism] is the pivotal struggle of the Americana scene and the roots scene. How do you honor Black and Brown folks who want to be in this scene — and maybe some of them don’t even want to be in this scene because even Americana is rooted in questionable legacy. How much do people of color want to be immersed in that scene when it still feels so racist? Even the best parts of it. It’s a huge question to unwrap and it has to do with such a long history of where country music came from.

We stole the banjo and put it in our hillbilly music in the mountains and called it our own. We forgot all the stuff we learned from “our slaves,” you know? It’s crazy to me, if you think about the racist roots of where a lot of this comes from. Merging this racist legacy with this incredible populist music — music for the people, like Woody Guthrie, like the Carter Family. You get those two things bumping up against each other constantly, how do you entangle that and make this a space where it doesn’t matter what color you are? Where it doesn’t matter what your religious persuasion, or your political party, or your gender, or your sexual preference, or anything.

I think the way we deal with it is by all of us thinking all the time and being mindful of [that racist history]. And including [Black artists] in our playlists and touring with them. Some people are like, “What does it mean if you’re forcing this integration? Is it just going through the motions?” No! No, no, no.

ES: I’ll [echo] the things that Amy said, practically: Tour with Black musicians or Brown musicians or musicians who have not been able to feel that they’re welcome and make everybody welcome. Like Amythyst or Chastity Brown. Those are artists of color who have been discriminated against, who feel other-than in the world of their genres.

I think, first, we all — we white people, we people “of no color,” we “colorless” people — should dig deep, identify our own racism and how far it goes, how much we use it. Break it down, talk about it, identify it in each other. Really start from the core of things and hopefully act outwardly as a result of what we’ve dug through, inwardly. Try to heal and fix, you know? We’ve got to ask artists of color what their experience is like and why it’s like that. I’ve got to assume that there must be some Black artists, who if they hear a song from a white, country, roots singer about the freedom of driving down a dark, country road, they’re not going to feel the same way about the history of Black people down dark country roads. A lot of it is context and, as Amy says, there’s so much to be unraveled. But we are at a tipping point.

AR: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, I feel like there’s a lot of crossover, to me from that and the beginnings of early rock ‘n’ roll. That’s kind of what Elvis Presley was doing and borrowing from. I think about that sometimes, that territory. I like old recordings, like field recordings almost, of all the Alan Lomax type stuff he would collect. Field songs, prison songs. I think a lot of country writers have taken from that stuff, you know? 

I remember an interview with Kathleen Hanna that really resonated with me. She said, when they ask you who your favorite artists are, most of us name all these male artists. That’s who we can think of, because that’s who’s archived the best. Straight men, bands, and writers. If you sit down and really think about who you love and make a list of the women and the queer folks — this is what she was talking about, she wasn’t talking about color at the time or race or the social construct of race — and you take that list to your interviews and rattle off those names, you’ll be more honest, because you’ll be talking about who you really listen to and not just trying to remember [anyone] off the top of your head. 

People are so out of the habit — and so in the habit — of white supremacy that we don’t even know how to do the right things, just in our instincts. We have to learn, write it down, so we remember to do it.

Photo credit: Jeremy Cowart

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Old Crow Medicine Show: “Time to Start Doing Exactly What We Feel Like Doing” (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

I can still remember the first time I saw Old Crow Medicine Show live. It was a sweltering summer night in Nashville around 2008 (back before the bachelorettes and Bird scooters) and they played from a massive barge moored at Riverfront Park. The thing was huge — far too big for six skinny street musicians to budge — but I swear it moved while they stomped and hollered, the Cumberland rolling by lazily behind them.

I was familiar with the band and already loved the unapologetic mix of tradition and edgy intensity, but that live show was revelatory. It gave me a new appreciation for the sense of community Old Crow was trying to forge, so it’s always surprised me that they didn’t record live albums. That has finally changed with this month’s release of Live at the Ryman.

Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry House on another hot summer night, front man Ketch Secor spoke with BGS about the project, why Old Crow is just now getting around to a live album, and what their style of music needs most right now.

BGS: Part of the idea of this album is that Old Crow has played the Ryman over 40 times. For a band that started out busking in the Northeast, how does it feel wrap your head around that?

Ketch Secor: Actually, I wish I had a real count because Lord knows I’ve played there more than 40 times. I think that’s how many times we’ve headlined, but if you add them all up I bet it’s a triple-digit number. We’ve been openers there for Dolly Parton back in 2002 for, like, a daytime show. We’ve done a lot of film and television there, all kinds of awards shows. It always felt like the place to shoot for — it’s the moon, the Ryman Auditorium, and we were always a shoot-for-the-moon kind of band because we figured “Well, we’re not supposed to be here anyway, so we might as well try and go as far with it as we can.”

You self-released one live album in 2001, and then nothing else until now. Why did it take 18 years to do another, since the live show has always been the foundation of what you guys do?

Oh, I think because we’ve always tried to put out a new studio record every couple of years, and here at the 21-year mark it’s probably time to start doing exactly what we feel like doing.

You haven’t been doing that the whole time?

Nah, not with those studio records. There’s a lot of stuff you’ve gotta do. Yeah, we always did it “our way” in the fact that we always played our own music. But just being in the music business means doing it everybody else’s way.

So you had to make a few compromises here and there?

Oh yeah, there was a lot of playing the game in ways that never seemed to pan out, but it never stopped us. That was just the way it was, and we were impressionable, so that’s what we did. We did it the way we were advised to do it.

Can you elaborate a little?

Like playing Napster. Doing shows for radio programmers in L.A. who never played us. Trying to make videos for CMT that were never in rotation, ever. …Opening up for Carrie Underwood at [Country Radio Seminar], it’s like, “What were we doing there?” Those guys, they might have liked it, but they were never gonna play it. And I don’t care if they like it, I want them to fucking play it, or I don’t want to play that show.

So now that you feel freed up to do it your way, what’s that look like?

Live at the Ryman. Here we are singing a Merle Travis song! Here we are singing our songs or selling popcorn and tickets and people brought their buck-dance shoes! I mean, we’ve set beer records at the Ryman. I’d rather sell beer at the Ryman than sell records! …I’d rather sell beer at the Ryman than digital streams! What’s the fun in that?

“Tell it to Me,” “Methamphetamine,” those are interesting songs to present because rural America has a new drug problem going on with opioids. Why is it important for you guys to sing songs like that, especially at the Ryman?

Well, “Tell It to Me” was recorded in Johnson City in 1928 I think. The band that brought that song to the studio had been an original backing band for Jimmie Rodgers… Anyway, I’m just saying this because if you like country music, you should probably know that drug songs have been part of the canon since recording studios first illuminated a red light bulb and said, “You’re on.”

I don’t think people do know that. We’re just now starting to get radio songs with pot references that people don’t flip out over.

Yeah, I mean it was blow in the ‘20s and now it’s pot in the 2010s. And then “Meth” is a really different kind of song because it’s more topical. We recorded it a long time ago but it seemed important to bring it back and revamp it, make it more intense, and Charlie Worsham plays some really great electric guitar on it. It just feels like it’s knocking on your door, like a hurricane.

Tell me about doing “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” with Margo Price.

We were down in Oxford, Mississippi, doing a show with Margo. She was opening up for us down there near Ole Miss, and we were looking for a song that seemed to fit, so we tried that one. Our duo thing felt really good, and I feel like I’m a little bit in the Conway range — and she’s definitely in the Loretta range — so it worked out pretty good. We heard the playback we thought it sounded great so we wanted to put it out. I saw her at the grocery store the other day and she said she loved it.

Why did you include a song like “C.C. Rider,” which has Lee Oskar playing harmonica?

I really love his band War. We did “Lowrider” onstage at the Ryman, too, maybe that will come out on Volume 2. But what I really loved about that moment on the Ryman recording is that it has twin harps. You know the old guys don’t have their pictures up here [gestures at photos of Opry stars on the dressing room wall]. …But the story of the twin harp playing of the Crook Brothers — Herman and Louis Crook — lives a long time, because Herman and Louis lived, like, into their 90s. What they were great at was two harmonicas playing in unison.

That’s interesting. In your music you’re often looking to the past for inspiration, but what do you think is the future of string bean …. er, string band music, Americana?

You just answered it, man. We need a new Stringbean. Nobody’s acting like that and that’s what’s missing. Who’s gonna be the clown? What happened to the kind of entertainment that’s self-effacing? Everybody on this wall loves the clowns, but none of them are. They’re “the vocalists” and we’re supposed to take them seriously. I’d love to see this genre — whether it’s country or Americana or whatever — just not take itself so damn seriously. Let’s just have a grand ole time. Let’s poke some fun at each other, and especially at ourselves. I’d love to see that.

Editor’s Note: Read part 2 of our interview with Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor.

Illustration: Zachary Johnson

22 Top Country Duos

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Country music was made for duets. Not only because those tight, tasty harmonies are a foundational aspect of the music, but also because country accomplishes heartbreak — and every other make and model of love song — better than almost any other genre. (Thought quite possibly better than all other genres.) It just makes sense to have two singers, one to play each role in a lost, soon-to-be-lost, or (rarely) divine, never-perishing romance. But the format isn’t restricted to lovers or their placeholders, it can just as seamlessly fit heroes and acolytes, parents and children, siblings, peers, fellow pot smokers, and on and on.

Take a scroll through these twenty-two country twosomes:

Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton

We couldn’t have this list without these two. They should be the start, middle, and end of any definitive list of country duos. So we’ll just make the easy choice and kick it all off with Kenny and Dolly — that extra intro about their friendship and the years they’ve known each other? Swoon.

Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty

After saying what we did about Kenny & Dolly we knew this pair needed to come next — so as to not rile anyone. Out of countless duets we could have chosen, how could any top “You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly?”

Willie Nelson & Ray Charles

For inexplicable reasons people tend to forget Ray Charles’ incredible forays into country. His collaborations with Willie are stunning for the extreme juxtaposition of their voices and styles — they feel and swing so distinctly and differently, but all while perfectly complementary. “Seven Spanish Angels” ranked a very close second to this number in our selection process.

Glen Campbell & John Hartford

The most-recorded song in the history of recording? It’s said “Gentle On My Mind” holds that honor. And goodness gracious of course it does. Here’s its writer and its popularizer and hitmaker together.

Lee Ann Womack & George Strait

Together, Lee Ann and George were beacons of the trad country duet form, especially in the ’90s and early 2000s. This one from the jewel in the crown of Lee Ann’s discography, Call Me Crazy, is crisply modern, but with decidedly timeless vocals.

George Jones & Tammy Wynette

A broken, country fairy tale of a love story, George and Tammy’s relationship was infamously fraught, but damn if that didn’t just make their duets ever more… ethereal. Which doesn’t justify that Tammy Wynette kinda pain, to be sure, but it does remind us that if country can do anything better than all other genres, it can be sad.

Reba McEntire & Linda Davis

One of the best country songs, duets, and music videos EVER MADE. Theatrical and epic and a little silly and downright catchy and Rob Reiner and… we could go on forever.

Tanya Tucker & Delbert McClinton

Tanya is back with a brand new album and its well-deserved level of attention has been helping to re-shine the spotlight on her expansive career. Forty top ten hits across three decades. Who does that? Here she duets with Delbert McClinton on their 1993 hit, “Tell Me About It.”

Alan Jackson & Jimmy Buffett

Hey, if this has to be stuck in our heads for the rest of the month, it should be stuck in yours, too. Fair’s fair. It’s only half past [whatever time it is], but we don’t care.

Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash

One of the most recognizable duos in the history of the genre, immortalized not only in their discography but in a film adaptation of their love as well, Walk the Line. We all know “Jackson” as familiarly as the ABC’s, so here’s a slightly lesser-known beaut. (Keep watching til the last verse for an adorable bit from June.)

Eric Church & Rhiannon Giddens

Country is at its best when it surprises us. This collaboration is certainly, on the surface, unexpected, but the message of the song isn’t the only way these two artists can relate to each other. Over the course of their careers they’ve both fought their way from the fringes to the centers of their respective scenes. More of this, please.

Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner

Dolly got her start with Porter Wagoner on his television show in the 1960s. They can certainly be credited with pioneering, popularizing, and epitomizing the country duet format. One of her most famous hits, “I Will Always Love You,” was written for Porter as she lamented leaving their act to go totally solo. (We’re a little glad she did.) You can tell they sang this song just a few gajillion times together, give or take.

Pam Tillis & Mel Tillis

Father/daughter duos in country aren’t as common, but they certainly aren’t unheard of. Pam and Mel are a perfect example. (The Kendalls are another.)

Patty Loveless & Ralph Stanley

Patty Loveless received the first ever Ralph Stanley Mountain Music Memorial Legacy Award in 2017 at Ralph’s home festival, Hills of Home, in Wise County, Virginia. Patty and Ralph were longtime friends and collaborators during his lifetime and even through her mainstream country success she referenced bluegrass and Ralph as influences — and she cut a few bluegrass records as well.

Alison Krauss & James Taylor

It’s. Just. Too. Good. Like butter. Like a warm bubble bath. Like floating on a cloud. Two voices that were meant to intertwine.

Charley Pride & Glen Campbell

These two were made to sing Latin-inflected harmonies together, weren’t they? Charley Pride gets overlooked by these sorts of lists all too often. But dang if he didn’t crank out some stellar collaborations, too!

Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris

“Love Hurts” and boy, if Gram and Emmylou don’t make you believe it heart and soul and body and being. The definitive version of this Boudleaux Bryant song? Perhaps.

Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard

Icons being icons. And friends. And amazingly talented, ceaselessly musical comrades. You love to see it. (We could’ve/should’ve chosen “Pancho & Lefty.” We did not.)

Vince Gill & Amy Grant

There are quite a few reasons why the Ryman Auditorium basically hands this husband and wife duo the keys to the place each December. Basically all of those reasons are evident in this one. It’s fitting that this video came from one of those Christmas shows, too.

Dolly Parton & Sia

Dolly literally outdoes herself, re-recording “Here I Am” for the original soundtrack for her Netflix film, Dumplin’, after she first cut the Top 40 country single in 1971. Clearly she and Sia have much more in common than an affinity for wigs; their soaring, acrobatic voices seem so disparate in style and form until you hear them together. Listen on repeat for the best therapeutic results.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

[Insert entire Raising Sand album here, because how could we ever choose?] Lol jk, here’s “Killing the Blues.”

Carrie Underwood & Randy Travis

Cross-generational, meet-your-hero magic right here. Little did we know what was in store for Carrie Underwood then. But the way Randy looks at her up there, you can tell he knows she’s goin’ places.

Still Humble and Always Kind: An Interview with Lori McKenna

Posted on by Editor

Of Lori McKenna's debut album, Paper Wings & Halo, an AllMusic.com critic so many years ago — that would be me — wrote, “From McKenna's pen flow timeless, heart-grabbing melodic lines and psyche-splintering stanzas. … If this album is any kind of signpost, look for McKenna's light to be shining bright for a long while to come.” All these many years later, her light is, indeed, shining bright — on the Billboard country charts, at the Grammy Awards, and, now, on her 10th solo record, The Bird & the Rifle. Produced by Americana master Dave Cobb, the new collection is utterly captivating, filled with everything we've come to expect from McKenna — glimpses of real life and real love laid bare in profound and poetic, stark and stunning detail.

Because I go all the way back to Paper Wings & Halo with you …

WOW!

Yeah. So I've been thrilled to watch your ascent over the years. How are you processing it all? Does it ever really sink in — everything that's happened in the past 15 years?

I don't ever really get to a point where it doesn't amaze me how lucky I am in this career. As soon as I start getting complacent with “Am I doing enough?” something appears. I don't know why I'm as lucky as I am, other than the fact that, as I would say to my kids, it's because I keep trying. The thing about music is, there's always more to learn. There's always a better song to write. You always hear a better song that you wish you wrote. And it's changing all the time. So I go to bed a lot and think, “Shit, I'm lucky!” [Laughs]

[Laughs] Do you feel like songwriting and other talents like that are inherent gifts that we can't really take credit for? I mean, sure, you can work to perfect the craft around it, but without those seeds …

I do think there's a weird thing that happens sometimes where … like “Humble and Kind,” for example: The chorus, when I looked back on it, I thought, “Man, I really lucked out.” [Laughs] It's better than I think I knew how to do it, to be honest. Also, the hook on “The Bird & the Rifle” … I was in the shower the night before we wrote it, thinking, “What if you just said, 'Spreading her wings always brings the rifle out in him'? Maybe it doesn't land on 'the bird and the rifle.' Maybe that's not the hook.” That was just pure luck and thinking about something long enough. I don't want to be weird and say “the songwriting gods and all that come down.” And who am I to have any gods pay attention to me? I don't know. Sometimes, you do look back and say, “That turned out better than I think I know how to have made it.”

So there's some something going on that is bigger than you?

I think so. And I don't know, really, if there's a name for it. Other days, you can try everything and it's like, “Nope. Not happening.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] “Do not pass go.”

Yeah. “Today's not your day.”

At the listening party for this new record, you said something about how you go around checking for melodies in your guitars. That would kind of indicate that you feel like songs are already out there just waiting to be caught … maybe?

I like to stew on little ideas. Those are usually the best ones. If I think about it for a couple of days, then I get to sit down and write it, that's usually when it's formed correctly. But sometimes, you don't know they are there at all. It's funny. I don't know what it is. I think I've purposely tried to not over-think it because you can mess yourself up. There's definitely something going on that isn't concrete, in the process. That's why I always think that songwriting classes, they must be so hard. But, really, if you just keep trying … That sounds like a bad thing to say to somebody who's tried a lot and hasn't gotten where they want, but it's really the only way to do it — just show up.

Right. Over these many years, what has changed for you, in how you approach the job or how you approach songwriting?

It's funny because, originally, I was doing open mics, then I started doing shows, then I put out a couple records … that was all where my world was, “My wife does this thing. She does these shows and it's cool” … [Laughs]

[Laughs] “Humor her. It's fine.”

[Laughs] Yeah, “It's fine. She pays for the groceries, sometimes.” But I think my husband knew that I had to do it. Young moms always say, “Make sure you take care of yourself. Have something for you.” It was always my thing for me. It was like that. It was my hobby for a while. And I made a lot of money at the hobby, now and then. When the Faith [Hill] thing happened, it wasn't like a door opened; it was like a universe opened, because I had never co-written before. I didn't know, really, what a publishing deal was.

You were just this little folkie out of Boston.

Yeah. I kind of wanted to learn about all those things. I knew certain people who had some sort of access to it, but I didn't really know or even know how to figure it out, to be honest. Since then, it's just been one surprising turn after another.

I remember when I got my deal with Warner Bros. We went out to eat at the 99 with the kids. I was like, “Babe, I think I got offered a record deal.” He was like, “What? No way.” [Laughs] We're at a 99 and I'm like, “Should I do this? I feel like I should.” It's always surprised me, in this crazy way. Now, the biggest change is that it's a full-on part of all our lives. My husband knows the business now, to a … I don't know that much, myself, but we know a little bit about it together. Like changing publishers and stuff like that, I can talk to him about it. We're all on the same page as far as “This is what mom does.”

“It's not just her hobby anymore. It's putting you through college.”

That publishing deal opened up the whole thing of writing songs for other people, which was a whole world that I hadn't really explored before. I love that part of it.

There's that part of it and there are your songs. And, then, some songs do double duty — like “Humble and Kind,” which Tim McGraw took to number one, and “Three Kids No Husband,” which is on Brandy Clark's new record. You also said at the party that, if you had a voice like Carrie Underwood's, you would write differently.

That didn't sound bad did it? I was thinking about that after … I love her voice.

No, no, not at all. I'm just curious … would it be bigger melodies? I mean, you would still be you , so you would have the same message.

Yeah. I think my melodies would be bigger. I really think our limitations form our style. I play the guitar the way I play because I can't play the guitar like a great guitar player. But that guitar part might sound like me. And it's my limitations that took me there more than my craft. I think the same is true in writing a song by yourself or writing a song where, that day as a co-writer, you're singing for the day. I write with Hillary Lindsey a lot and she can sing anything and she is really great at melodies. Then, you're co-writing with somebody who can find those big, beautiful melodies that I won't by myself.

I also think, because I like simple songs and my voice lends itself to a simple melody, then the words can't be general words. The words have to be the thing that carries a song. So, I think if I could sing anything, my songs wouldn't be as lyrically driven as they are. Does that make sense?

Totally. I look back to a song like “Don't Tell Her” — which still slays me — and everything that makes you a great songwriter is in there: the attention to detail, the search for intimacy, the spin on the dynamics. In a weird way, that tune is almost like a foreshadowing of or bookend for “Girl Crush.”

OH! That's true, isn't it? I never thought of that … because I always forget about that song. [Laughs] But, when you say it like that, it is a little bit the same story. It's hard to not think of that scenario, when you've been married a long time or in a relationship a long time, because you know the person so well and they know things about you that nobody else does. And you know, if they're going to go somewhere else, this stuff could come up in conversation. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Your secrets aren't safe.

Or even just things that person knows and nobody else knows them. It's not good or bad; it's just a thing. So I think anyone in a long relationship would have that thought process. But that's interesting.

I also think your two woman songs — “All a Woman Wants” and “If Whiskey Were a Woman” — I see those as a pair.

Oh, really?

But here's the thing: Guidebooks? Disclaimers? Statements of fact? How do you see those songs versus how they are received?

“All a Woman Wants,” I think came from a conversation with Gene, my husband, about, “Damn. I'm really kind of easy, here.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] As far as women go …

Yeah. I was talking to a songwriter friend the other night who was like, “I'm getting married and everything's so cool. Am I going to still be able to write? Everything's good right now.” You know, that little bit of fear. I said, “No. All you have to do is take that thought and blow it up, just exaggerate the shit out of it for a little while, for three-and-a-half-minutes, and you'll have a song.” [Laughs]

That's really what it was. I remember kidding around with him, like, “Dude. I am easy. I have like three things!” When you start picking it apart, most women just really want to feel like they are your everything. I got in trouble for that song, though. A couple of people were like, “How do you know what I want?”

“I do want the diamonds!” [Laughs] “Drip me, baby!”

[Laughs] Yes! But the fact that he wants you to have them … My neighbor came up and said, “I love that line!” Gene didn't understand it. I had to explain it to him! [Laughs] I did! He was like, “What's that diamond thing?” I was like, “Listen to it! I think it's kind of clear. Come on, pay attention!”

“If Whiskey Were a Woman” is that same thing, I guess, in the way that he wants something. It's like, “Oh, I can't do that.”

[Laughs] “So go have a drink, buster.”

[Laughs] Yeah, yeah. “You won't let me do that, so …” That's so interesting, the way you think of it. I love it!

What would the perfect career look like for you? Do you have it?

I think so, yeah. People ask me sometimes, as far as the two separate categories of songs, “How do you do that?” I guess they want to know, logistically, if I think of it this way or if I write about myself, usually it's in this category. Sometimes not. But it hasn't bothered me that there are those two things. I've really enjoyed having those two things.

For a while, I started picking it apart and thinking … I don't like leaving home, to be honest. I like songwriting best. That's my favorite part. I like singing. I like playing. I like standing in front of people. But I don't love all that, as much as I just want to be able to write a great song. I want people to hear them. But I have this thing where I don't necessarily have to sing them — other people, every now and then, will sing them. And that still makes me feel great, so maybe I should just write for other people. I kind of did that, during Numbered Doors — I had that mentality of “I'm not going to travel for shows. I'm going to travel for writing because that's my favorite part.” It didn't work. It wasn't going to crash land … yet. But it would've, eventually.

Then my publishing deal came up and I started talking to Beth Laird [of Creative Nation]. Every other publisher, when I was like, “What about my artist side?” They were like, “You can do whatever you want.” But Beth was like, “Hey, what about your artist side? I think that's an important piece. I think that makes you a better writer.” So I needed that little selfish part to be like I want to write the best song for my little project. I don't know what it does to me, but it's really important to me. And I didn't know that. I was maybe starting to think it or maybe starting to lose it. It was going to go one way or the other. Then Beth came in and sparked that, again, in me. And my friends probably would have, eventually … like Barry Dean is really perceptive about what I need, as a creator, and what is helpful. Other people cutting my songs was something I never thought was possible. The fact that I get to do both is amazing.

Dreams do come true.

Even if you hadn't dreamed them! [Laughs] I wouldn't have thought, “Oh, I want this!” That was another thing Beth said to me, when I first started talking about signing with them. She's a goal person – like, “Write down these goals.” I've heard that a bunch of times, but I could never say out loud certain things … like, “I want to be a songwriter.” That sounds crazy! She taught me, and I remember talking to her one day and I was like, “Well, I want a Grammy.” How cocky is that?! [Laughs] I said that out loud!

[Laughs] And … SHA-ZAM!

When that all happened, I was like, “Beth! What did you do?!?!” [Laughs]

[Laughs] What kind of voodoo is going on down there?

Everybody write your goals down! It's incredible! [Laughs]

Photo credit: Becky Fluke