Lainey Wilson: How She Finally Impressed Her Family
Lainey Wilson impressed her family with a new collaboration. She has had one hell of a few years in country music as the reigning Entertainer of the Year for both the CMA and ACM, but to impress her family, it took one post with a certain country star.
Lainey posted a photo of herself and Wynonna to Instagram. She wrote, “This was the moment we FaceTimed my folks back at home, and they REALLY started to think I was cool @wynonnajudd; it has been a career highlight to work together on this song. I cherish our life-long friendship so much. Wynonna is the real deal, y’all, and I’m really proud of this this one, what we did it all in the name of @tompettyofficial’s honor. If you haven’t already, check out ‘Refugee’ now off of ‘Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty’”
See that post here.
Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty also features contributions from other country music stars, including Chris Stapleton (“I Should Have Known It”), Dierks Bentley (“American Girls”), Thomas Rhett (“Wildflowers”), Luke Combs (“Runnin’ Down A Dream”), Dolly Parton (“Southern Accents”), Brothers Osborne (“I Won’t Back Down”) and George Strait (“You Wreck Me”).
Tom Petty, who died in 2017, had a complicated history with country music. He’d done a few country covers over the years, including Charlie Rich’s “Lonely Weekends” and Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” And Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were the backing band on Johnny Cash’s 1996 album, Unchained. But he wasn’t always a fan of modern country music.
He took a swipe at the genre in 2013 when on stage, he referred to it as “bad rock with a fiddle.” He later told Rolling Stone in an interview, “I don’t really see a George Jones or a Buck Owens or anything that fresh coming up. I’m sure there must be somebody doing it, but most of that music reminds me of rock in the middle ’80s, where it became incredibly generic and relied on videos.” At the time, Chris Stapleton responded via his Facebook page (in a post that has since been taken down), inviting Petty to collaborate with him.”
That collaboration never happened, but Petty did invite Stapleton to open for him on tour, so the two played some dates together in 2017. And Stapleton has collaborated with two of Petty’s Heartbreakers over the years: guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench. Both of those Heartbreakers will appear on Petty Country: Campbell on Margo Price’s version of “Ways To Be Wicked,” and Tench on Rhiannon Giddens’ take on “Don’t Come Around Here No More.”
Petty Country is dues out June 21.
