Reigning CMA Vocal Group of the Year Little Big Town are tied with Eric Church for the most nominations at this year’s CMA Awards with five, including Vocal Group of the Year – a category they’ve been nominated in every year since 2006. The group is also up for Single and Music Video of the Year for “Girl Crush;” as well as Album of the Year for Pain Killer and Musical Event of the Year for “Smokin’ and Drinkin’” with Miranda Lambert. “Girl Crush” is also nominated for Song of the Year, which is awarded to the songwriters, Liz Rose, Lori McKenna and Hillary Lindsey.
The group is currently making their way up the country charts with their latest single, “Pain Killer.”
The 49th Annual CMA Awards will be broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena Wednesday (November 4th) at 8pm ET on ABC.
Audio / Little Big Town’s Kimberly Schlapman and Karen Fairchild recall watching some of the CMA Awards’ memorable moments.
DownloadLBT (watching CMAs) OC: (Karen) …iconic platform. :46
KIMBERLY: “There’s so much history there, Barbara Mandrell, I remember.” KAREN: “I always think about her too. Winning Entertainer of the Year as a woman. Gosh! Just dominating.” KIMBERLY: “And Alabama winning year after year after year after year for Group of the Year.” KAREN: “Seeing Reba win Female Vocalist for the first time; Vince Gill performing for the first time and wondering who he was…voice of an angel. Just all these great moments of discovery for us, I think, as fans of country music, watching that show, and that’s still what it is for so many people, and that’s why we don’t take it lightly at all. It’s our chance to introduce ourselves to so many people and we get a chance to do that on a really, really big, iconic platform.”
Audio / Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild talks about hearing their CMA-nominated song “Girl Crush” for the first time.
DownloadLBT (Girl Crush) 3 OC: …that song? :33
KAREN: “Kimberly and I are so lucky that we were writing with them, and they had just written that song. And they said, (JIMI: “…like the day before.”) Liz said, ‘Can we play you guys something?” PHILLIP: “You’ll never cut it.” KAREN: “She said, ‘You’ll never cut it, but I just want to play it for you.” We said, ‘Yeah, yeah, play it.’ We had just set down, cups of coffee in the morning, we were hanging out, and they played ‘Girl Crush.’” KIMBERLY: “We were slayed.” KAREN: “We could not say, ‘Can we please have that’ quick enough. Like as soon as it was over, we were like, ‘We want that song! We want it right now!’ Why would we not cut that song?”
Audio / Little Big Town’s Jimi Westbrook talks about the band’s CMA-nominated song, “Girl Crush.”
DownloadLBT (Girl Crush) OC: …more special. :44
“I think ‘Girl Crush’ is one of the most brilliant lyrics I’ve heard in such a long time. It’s taking a phrase that you’ve heard so many times, and just the way it turns at the hook, it just catches you. It gives me chills every time I listen to it, when that hook turns like it does. It’s just brilliant. I think it’s a brilliant song, and [Karen’s] vocal is perfection. It’s so good. The emotion of that song comes through. I love it. I love the sparseness of the track. I think it’s empty in the right places, and the nice little subtle things that come in to support and the organ and all that…Jay [Joyce] killed that track and made it even more special.”
