Kacey Musgraves spent a lot of time on her latest album, Pageant Material, and inserted some cool moments into the song. The most special moment is at the beginning of the song, “This Town,” in which she placed the voice of her grandmother (aka Memaw), who passed away last year.

“There’s a really special moment that happens in the beginning of this song that you’ll hear and it’s a woman’s voice, and it’s my Memaw’s – Barbara Taylor – she passed away last December. It’s my mom’s mom. She was the most interesting woman ever, and she worked in the ER. Her whole career basically, she was an ER nurse. So, she always had these insane stories of like all these crazy people coming in,” says Kacey. “A couple of years ago, she came over to the house and we were all sitting around. It was my mom and dad and my sister and me and her, and we got her going on the stories again, and I secretly pressed record secretly on my phone, and I got all these stories of all these people coming in and things that she saw. And I had forgotten that I did that.”

Her co-writer, Shane McAnally, urged her to use the recording in the song. “Whenever we were producing ‘This Town,’ I kind of pictured like a radio or like a TV in the background, or like small town conversation. I was going through my voice notes, and…I brought that up. I was like, ‘I have this audio of Memaw talking,’ and he said, ‘What if we put that in the song?’ And it was brilliant, so we found a good part of the story and put it in there.”

For all you vinyl collectors out there, the (pink!) Pageant Material vinyl record is available this Friday.

Kacey Musgraves debuted atop the country album chart with her latest album, Pageant Material. The collection sold more than 54,000 copies to land at No. 1 on the country album chart and No. 3 on the overall Billboard album chart.

While she didn’t have as much time to put together her second album, she said every song starts with her. “I really love how songs make me feel when I write them and taking things I’ve gone through and putting them in songs,” says Kacey. “So, it starts with me, and if other people like it, that’s awesome.”

Kacey launches her Country & Western Rhinestone Revue Tour August 27th in Atlanta.

Kacey Musgraves listened to a lot of older music when she was getting ready to make her new album, Pageant Material.

“Leading up to this record, I was really listening to a lot of – and still am – Jim Croce. I really love his writing and his melodies, and of course Glen Campbell is a huge influence all around. I just, I love his music,” says Kacey. “Nancy Sinatra, of course Loretta, there’s even a little Ronnie Milsap and Stevie Wonder floating around in there. Charley Pride, Charlie Rich was another one. That era of country music is really inspiring to me.”

Check her out when she performs on ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday (June 23rd).

Toby Keith became a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame during a ceremony in New York City last week. Comedian and TV show host Stephen Colbert honored him. Songwriter Bobby Braddock (“He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “Time Marches On,” “People Are Crazy”), Cyndi Lauper, Jerry Garcia, Linda Perry, Willie Dixon and Robert Hunter were also inducted.

Little Big Town was featured on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood over the weekend. The band, who taped their interviews last year and earlier this year, talked about their longevity as a group, their induction into the Grand Ole Opry and their latest smash hit, “Girl Crush.”

Kacey Musgraves is scheduled to perform on ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday, the release day of her new album Pageant Material. She’ll also perform on ABC’s The View on Wednesday.

Dierks Bentley will perform during NBC’s  Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular on Saturday, July 4th beginning at 8pm ET. Brad Paisley, Kelly Clarkson and Meghan Trainor are also scheduled to perform.

Kacey Musgraves injects a little innocence in the song “Somebody to Love,” which her co-writer Shane McAnally says “sums up how we all feel.”

“I just really love the idea that everyone is just here living this existence and just looking for love, looking for somebody to love. I mean, I feel like that’s the human experience goal is that you just want somebody to love and somebody to love you in return,” says Kacey. “The idea, sometimes when I see people or meet people or I’m looking at my friends or whatever, I see like the little kid in them and I’m just like, it’s just easy for me to see each person as like the little boy or girl version of themselves. In the song, we say ‘we’re all just little kids looking for somebody to love.’

The tune, which was also written by Josh Osborne, is from Kacey’s new album, Pageant Material, due out Tuesday (June 23rd).

Father’s Day is Sunday (June 21st), and we have liners with many of your favorite country stars! See and download below.

Kacey Musgraves is featured on the cover of the July edition of Redbook magazine and inside, she talks about self-acceptance and how she’s found peace with her own musical path.

When critics are offended by some of her lyrics, such us “roll up a joint/or don’t” from her song, “Follow Your Arrow,” she says, “I’ve come to conclusion that people are always going to find a way to be offended about something, and it’s almost like they want to be. I won’t be everybody’s cup of tea. I’ve found peace in that. I’m cool with not being the biggest superstar on the planet. I don’t let people’s approval make or break what I’m doing.”

Many of her songs talk about self-acceptance, because it comes from some of the kids she grew up with not being able to be themselves. “After high school, my best friend came out to me, and he was like, ‘I don’t feel like I can be myself, and you’re the first person I’m telling,’” says Kacey. “That is still a lot of people’s reality. So if a kid feels like they can walk a little taller because of something I sang, I’m inspired by that.”

Kacey returns with her new album, Pageant Material, on Tuesday (June 23rd).

Kacey Musgraves’ new album, Pageant Material, is set for release next Tuesday (June 23rd), and one of the songs featured is “Dime Store Cowgirl,” which Kacey co-wrote with Shane McAnally and Luke Laird. The title originates from a real experience Kacey had as a young pre-teen performer back in Texas, but talks about the many career moments she’s had over the last two years.

“I had this title saved for a while. It’s something that someone said to me a long time ago. I was probably 11 or 12, and this stage mom, this certain stage mom of this girl I used to sing with, well, we would wear these really Western outfits and she would like to wear hers down real low, and I like to cock my hat back, my cowboy hat, kind of retro-like, which I still think is really cute today,” says Kacey. “And I was like doing my own thing, and this stage mom came over and she was like, right before we went on stage, she was like, ‘Don’t wear your hat like that! You’re gonna look like some dime store cowgirl.’ So, there’s a song now.”

Kacey will perform a few tracks from her new album when she hits the stage Thursday night in Aspen, Colorado.

Kacey Musgraves is getting ready to release her sophomore album, Pageant Material, and the subject of one of the songs on the new project, “Family is Family,” should be relatable to just about everybody.

“I just love it, because no matter who you are, what family you’re a part of  — rich, poor, black, white, whatever – family is family. It’s all the same dynamic. Everybody’s got the crazy ones in their family, no matter how much they try to hide it. It’s just the truth, and so yeah, family’s family no matter what,” says Kacey. “That one was just really fun, because we got to sit there and dream up like, and laugh about just all these little nuances that happen in families.”

Pageant Material, which also features “Biscuits,” is set for release Tuesday (June 23rd).