Lainey Wilson and the Art of Remaining Yourself in a Genre That Wants to Change You

Baskin, Louisiana, is a farming village in Franklin Parish with 210 residents at the 2020 census. Lainey Wilson grew up there, the daughter of a fifth-generation farmer and a schoolteacher, and in August 2011, at 19 and just out of high school, she left for Nashville.

What followed was not an overnight story. Wilson spent her first three years in town living in a camper trailer. She made two independent albums, Lainey Wilson in 2014 and Tougher in 2016, and kept writing. It would be a decade between the move and her first No. 1.

The long road to a hit

The song that changed things was "Things a Man Oughta Know," which she wrote with Jason Nix and Jonathan Singleton. It first appeared on her 2019 EP Redneck Hollywood, was released as a single in August 2020, and reached No. 1 on the Mediabase and Billboard country radio charts in September 2021. Her label, BBR Music Group, noted that she was the first new solo female artist to top country radio since Gabby Barrett. In March 2022 it was named Song of the Year at the ACM Awards. Her first album for BBR, Sayin' What I'm Thinkin', had arrived in February 2021.

Bell bottom country

Her next album turned her look into a mission statement. Bell Bottom Country, released on October 28, 2022, took its name from the flared jeans that had become her trademark. Wilson has described the phrase as country with a flare, and has said the bell bottoms began as a way to stand apart from the many other women trying to break through in Nashville. The album won Best Country Album at the Grammy Awards on February 4, 2024.

The awards came quickly once they started. At the 2022 CMA Awards she won Female Vocalist and New Artist of the Year. In November 2023 she won five CMAs in one night, including Entertainer of the Year, matching the single-night record Johnny Cash set in 1969 and setting a new one for a female artist. She won Female Vocalist again in 2024, then in 2025 hosted the CMA Awards and won Entertainer, Female Vocalist and Album of the Year. At the 2025 ACM Awards she took Entertainer, Female Artist, Album and Artist-Songwriter of the Year.

Beyond the radio

Television brought her to a wider audience. Taylor Sheridan created the character Abby, a musician, for her on Yellowstone; she first appeared in the fifth season in November 2022 and returned for the season finale in December 2024. In music, her album Whirlwind followed on August 23, 2024, and debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, with a deluxe edition a year later.

The Grand Ole Opry made her part of the institution. She made her Opry debut on February 14, 2020. Reba McEntire invited her to become a member during the finale of The Voice on May 21, 2024, and Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood inducted her on June 7, 2024. Our history of the Opry, A Century of Saturday Nights, tells the story of the stage she joined.

2026 and what comes next

This year has been busy. Wilson married Devlin "Duck" Hodges on May 10, 2026, at Ruskin Cave in Tennessee. She made her film debut in Reminders of Him, released March 13, and her Netflix documentary Keepin' Country Cool premiered on April 22. She headlined Stagecoach and played stadiums with Chris Stapleton, and she returns as host of the CMA Awards on November 18, nominated again for Entertainer of the Year, Female Vocalist and Single of the Year.

None of it required her to become someone else. She arrived in Nashville at 19 with a small-town Louisiana sound, spent a decade working toward a hit, and when the hits came, they came on her terms: bell bottoms, twang and all.