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Carly Pearce paid tribute to Faith Hill with a stunning cover of one of Hill’s powerful ballads she debuted in the late 90s.
Pearce stood in “another backstage locker room,” where she and her bandmate delivered an acoustic rendition of “Let Me Let Go,” which the Mississippi-born country icon released in 1998 on her 12-track album, Faith. That project also included “This Kiss,” “The Secret of Life,” “Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me” with husband and fellow award-winning artist Tim McGraw, and more.
“Let me let go, baby/ Let me let go/ If this is for the best, why are you still in my heart/ Are you still in my soul, let me let go”
Pearce, who joined McGraw on his headlining tour earlier this year, said she’s “loved this song for so long.” Her cover of Hill’s “Let Me Let Go” drew praise from Instagram commenters, including Lady A’s Charles Kelley, who wrote, “oh wow forgot about how much I used to love that song. Killer job.” Caroline Jones, a solo singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who joined Zac Brown Band as the first female bandmate, hailed it “one of my all time favorite songs,” (and noted Vince Gill sings background vocals on the 90s track). Others wrote that they “have chills,” applauded Pearce’s “unreal” vocals, expressed their love of Hill’s music and hailed Pearce “my female vocalist of the year,” and “Female Vocalist of the Century.”
Pearce recently announced her first-ever world tour. The award-winning singer-songwriter is stopping throughout the U.S., Canada, and U.K./Europe beginning in October 2024 and spanning through spring 2025. Karley Scott Collins, Matt Lang, Wade Bowen and Carter Faith will join the tour on select dates.
The world tour arrives after Pearce released her fourth studio album, hummingbird. The long-awaited project includes “country music made me do it,” “truck on fire,” “we don’t fight anymore” featuring Chris Stapleton — which earned the Collaborative Video of the Year award at the 2024 CMT Music Awards earlier this year — “my place,” “fault line” and more. Pearce’s new 14-track album follows 29: Written in Stone, which arrived in 2021. That album included some of Pearce’s biggest hits of her career, including “Never Wanted To Be That Girl” with Ashley McBryde, which scored the singers their first Grammy Award.
“I hope that you see that no matter where you’re at, you’re right on time,” Pearce said, in part, in the hours ahead of hummingbird’s release. “Don’t let anybody tell you that just because you’re not living the ‘American dream’ or ‘society’s standards’ that anything’s wrong with you. It’s OK to not have it all figured out. You can still be happy through that, and I feel like what I have learned more than anything is that God gave me a really big story. A story that, if I’m honest, I don’t know that I really wanted. But I have owned it in the last three years, and I’m proud of it, and I’m proud of how far I’ve come, and I just can’t wait for you guys to hear hummingbird.”