CMA FEMALE VOCALIST:
HOW IT’S DONE

Tammy, Loretta, Dolly, Crystal Gayle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Reba, Carrie, Miranda: All multiples.

Emmylou, Alison Krauss, Taylor, Patty, Tanya, Lee Ann Womack, Olivia Newton-John: All singles. But they’ve all done it.

Many of country’s most iconic stars have taken home the Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year Award. It’s ironic, because even as radio continues as a desert for female artists—compared to the ’90s, when so many women were played that just being nominated for Female was considered a win—Nashville continues producing strong, individual female voices.

With seven-time winner Lambert and five-time winner Underwood representing the feast-to-fallow years, Carly Pearce’s 2021 win foreshadowed 2022’s decidedly country bend. With newcomer Lainey Wilson and backroads songwriter Ashley McBride rounding out the category, there truly is a woman for all tastes.

Pearce’s ascent was marked by a pair of wins in 2020 for “I Hope You’re Happy Now.” The flair for relational drama in her songwriting matches the charge of her emotive mezzo-soprano. With her 2021 Album of Year nominee 29 yielding a Single/Song/Vocal Event/Video-nominated juggernaut in “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” with Ashley McBryde, Pearce took her divorce heartbreak and crafted an album that played to her strengths, as evidenced by the nominations.

McBryde, enjoying her third consecutive Female nomination, played the other woman in the quadruple-nominated Pearce/Shane McAnally/McBryde co-write. With her dusky alto, equal parts twang and conviction, she’s a singular voice, as both a singer and a songwriter, that suggests the same sort of erudite earned life presence as Loretta Lynn or Mary Chapin Carpenter. Her plain-dirt stories with a twist—and her ability to deliver them—set McBryde apart and earned her the 2019 CMA New Artist Award.

Only eight women have won Female on their first appearance, but Lainey Wilson has the right outsider mettle. With a robust voice as salty as it is cutting, she delivers an old-school brand of country that’s as subtle as a freight train. She sings Song of the Year nominee “Things a Man Oughta Know” wide-open, and that strength and no-frills delivery sets her apart. With six nominations, Wilson is this year’s leading nominee—and that momentum might sweep in a ninth member to a club that includes Loretta, Gretchen Wilson, K.T. Oslin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Pearce and Underwood.

Underwood dropped “Ghost Story” on The Grammy Awards to set up Denim & Rhinestones, an ambitious project she co-produced with David Garcia. Since arriving at Capitol Nashville, the vocal flamethrower has been emboldened to push her power-forward pipes in ways that sound like she’s having the time of her life. With an emphasis on fun—in the wake of last year’s gospel project—Underwood’s never seemed as frisky as she is forceful, until now... and it shines on everything she’s singing.

Lambert offered up unvarnished performances on The Marfa Tapes, recorded around a campfire in Texas, then dropped Palomino as a survey course in musical vibes and styles. At times exotic (the heatwaves-on-the-highway “Acting Up,” the swervy “Strange”), feverish (a gospel take on Mick Jagger’s “Wandering Spirit”), country-funky (“Country Money,” “Music City Queen” with the B-52’s) or silky (“That’s What Makes the Jukebox Play”), Lambert demonstrates why she’s taken this award seven times.

Seeing this diverse group of nominees, each making a distinct mark in terms of both music and message, bodes well for the female voice in today’s Nashville. All five of these women take their songs out to the fans, and they’re giving voice to the women facing new chapters of their life, making it happen, kicking butt or even showing the boys how it’s done.