This Week’s Guest Host: Lainey Wilson

This week's guest host on Backstage Country is Lainey Wilson and she has officially confirmed that "Country's Cool Again." The country star joins Kelly Ford in the studio to discuss her music, touring the world, CMA Fest, and much more.

Wilson's new single, "Country's Cool Again," follows her massive hits including "Heart Like A Truck" and "Watermelon Moonshine." The song is featured on her 2022 album, Bell Bottom Country, which she says, "is a welcome to everyone who's wanting in on the Western way of life."

Most recently, it was announced that Wilson will be featured in a new special hosted by Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts, which will showcase the country singer’s journey to stardom. Bell Bottom Country, a “doc-style” program, will begin streaming on Hulu on Wednesday, May 29

Wilson has received five nominations for the upcoming 2024 ACM Awards, including Entertainer of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, Song of the Year (artist and songwriter nomination), and Music Event of the Year. The show will air live on Amazon Prime from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, on Thursday, May 16.

She will hit the road next month for her headlining 2024 Country’s Cool Again Tour with supporting acts Jackson Dean, Ian Munsick, and Zach Top. Wilson's tour will kick off in Nashville on May 31 and run through November 15 in Monroe, Louisiana.

"The tour is called 'Country's Cool Again Tour,' and what I mean by that is the Western way of life. It's cool to see people really starting to love the way that I grew up. So I'm like, the more the merrier." Wilson said.

She continued, "And also, country music is having a moment right now too. We're gonna have some exciting things. Y'all need to come and see it for yourself. I can't tell you too much."

Lainey Wilson won five awards at the CMA Awards last week (11/8), including the night's top honor of Entertainer of the Year. She also won Female Vocalist and Album of the Year for her Bell Bottom Country project, which was just nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Country Album.

After her major win, Lainey came backstage and talked about leading the pack of the new generation of country music, including Morgan Wallen, HARDY, Luke Combs, and more. She told us, "I will say that we are at a very pivotal time now in country music. I am very proud to be a part of this generation of country music. You got Jelly Roll, you've got Morgan, you've got HARDY, you've got Luke Combs."

She continued, "You've got folks like Ashley McBryde and Kelsea, 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. There's a lot of different kinds of people in the world to hear all the different sides of the stories."

Wilson said, "For me, I will say if you say I am kind of leading the pack or whatever, I hope that it will encourage people to stay true to themselves, stay true to their stories, stay true to their sound, and stay true to their look."

She concluded, "Don't let anybody tell you 'no.' At the end of the day, it's all about timing. 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 nine years old, and that is the truth. So, I'm hoping that I can show folks, 'You know what? Blood, sweat and tears, elbow grease and faith will take you as far as you want it to go.'"

Under the radar at the CMA Awards was the fact that Wilson, along with her buddy and duet partner HARDY, won a CMA for Video of the Year for "Wait In The Truck."

As country fans celebrate Lainey Wilson, we take a look at five of her best music videos.

This music video is quite personal as it was filmed in Lainey's own home and filled with personal elements and close friends. It was released on April 2, 2021.

Wilson told us at the time of release, "I hoped that people would connect to this song, and it's been so incredible to see just how strong the reaction has been. For the music video, we wanted to create a piece of art where people could watch it and feel something all over again."

This cinematic video stars Lainey as a stable hand who is brought in to earn the trust of a free-spirited pony that no one else has been able to tame. Through time, care, and patience, she can get through the difficult period and eventually rides the horse around the farm, designed to mirror her own approach to relationships.

Wilson recently celebrated the song going to number one on the country charts with a party on Music Row, where she and the song's co-writers sang it from their own separate truck beds in a parking lot.

This song was never released as a single, but they did make a music video of it, and it's kind of personal to this journalist as my buddy, a budding country singer named Presley, is a dancing extra in it, dancing right beside Lainey. The video features a bunch of breakdancers all dancing to the song in front of Wilson's tour buses.

It's another number-one country song. Lainey told us about it, "This song embodies what country music means to me, creating a timeless story that will resonate with people for generations to come. This song is about the crazy, young, nostalgic love we all hope to experience." The video has been watched almost 10 million times on YouTube.

Even though Wilson is an actress herself, she actually has actors Rachel Lynn Matthews and Sam Sherrod play in the video, acting out the storyline of the song and depicting the unfolding of a young love. Wilson performs the song in a field as she narrates the story.

This fantastic video from a duet with Lainey and HARDY is an award winner. It won the CMA for Music Video of the Year and the Musical Event of the Year award. "Wait In The Truck" also won the Visual Media of the Year (basically Video of the Year) at the 2023 ACM Awards. The music video also won Collaborative Music Video of the Year at the 2023 CMT Music Awards and was nominated for Video of the Year.

In this journalist's opinion, the murder ballad and video is one of country music's most prolific videos in the last decade. The video has been watched 69 million times on YouTube.