Baskin, LA · country

Lainey Wilson

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Bell-bottoms, Louisiana drawl and a run of CMA hardware — the hardest-working woman in mainstream country right now, with the catalog to back the swagger.

Lainey Wilson was raised in Baskin, Louisiana, a farming town of about 170 people, where her father Brian farmed and her mother Michelle taught school. The family's classic country records, Buck Owens and Glen Campbell among them, shaped her early ear, and a Grand Ole Opry show she saw at age nine set her ambition; her father taught her a few chords and she was writing songs by her pre-teens.

As a teenager she took a job impersonating Hannah Montana, booking her own shows at fairs, birthday parties and hospitals, including St. Jude, across Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. She moved to Nashville in 2011 after high school and lived in a camper trailer outside a recording studio, whose owner covered her water and electricity bills.

She released a self-titled album on Cupit Records in 2014 and Tougher on Lone Chief in 2016, which reached the Billboard Top Country Albums chart; she also performed as one half of the duo Loretta Jett with Kasey Tyndall. A self-released 2018 EP led to a publishing deal with Sony/ATV and, later that year, a major-label deal with BBR Music Group.

Her single "Things a Man Oughta Know" reached number one on the country charts in 2020, followed by the album Bell Bottom Country and songs including "Heart Like a Truck" and "Watermelon Moonshine." Her music mixes traditional country storytelling with rock and soul phrasing, delivered in a thick Louisiana accent.

She has won nine Country Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year in 2023 and 2025, along with a Grammy for Best Country Album and sixteen Academy of Country Music Awards. She played a version of herself, the musician Abby, on Yellowstone, appeared in the documentary Rebel Country, and made her film debut playing Amy Matthews in the adaptation of Reminders of Him.

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