As she embraces a significant period in her own career, reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year winner Lainey Wilson spoke about why this is a “very pivotal time” for country music as a whole.
The Bell Bottom Country megastar expressed her pride to be “part of this generation,” nodding to fellow award-winning artists like Luke Combs and HARDY, her duet partner on the powerful duet “wait in the truck,” as some of her fellow trailblazers in the industry as examples of artists to watch. Wilson said backstage at the 57th CMA Awards last month, after scoring the Entertainer of the Year honor (the first female artist to do so in more than a decade):
“We are in a very pivotal time right now in country music. I’m very proud to be part of this generation of country music. You got Jelly Roll, you got Morgan [Wallen], you got HARDY, you got Luke Combs, you got folks like Ashley McBryde, and Kelsea [Ballerini], and they all look different, they all sound different, they all have different stories, they all come from different places, and I think it’s really important for that to be a thing because there’s a lot of different kind of people in the world who need to hear all the different sides of stories. For me, I will say I hope that if you say that I’m kind of leading the pack or whatever, I hope that it will encourage people to stay true themselves, stay true to their stories, stay true to their sound, stay true to their look. Don’t let anybody tell you no. at the end of the day, it’s all about timing, and I’ve been in this town for 12 and a half years, but I didn’t start working on this 12 and a half years ago. I started working when I was 9 years old. And that is the truth, so I’m hoping that I can show folks, hey, you know what, blood sweat and tears elbow grease and faith, it’ll take you as far as you want it to go.”
Wilson reflected on the first time she wrote a song — she was 9 years old — during an interview with iHeartCountry earlier this year. That’s the same age that she went to the legendary Grand Ole Opry for the first time, where she saw Little Jimmy Dickens, Phil Vassar, Crystal Gayle and Bill Anderson. Now a Grammy Award-nominated artist, Wilson said she remembers “an overwhelming feeling,” even at 9 years old, that she would be on the Opry stage someday, among other milestone moments in her career.
“The truth is, I knew this would happen. I knew that I would be here,” Wilson said last month, when asked about her success after striving for about 12 years in Nashville to make it to this point, including a period of time living in her camper trailer. “I just, I feel like sometimes you gotta pretend. You gotta put yourself in the shoes of things that you’re not so one day you can become what you wanna be and what you knew that you could be, and that’s what I’d do, those lonely nights in my camper trailer out in West Nashville. I was envisioning myself being here. I was waiting outside of Bridgestone to get a little wristband so I could maybe be in the pit and feel like I was a part of this industry. I knew it. I knew it with every fiber of my being. And that sounds wild, but it’s true. And I think a lot of people around me…they knew it too. I’ve always had kind of a weird sense of peace about it. But I do feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”