In 2013, Kacey Musgraves exhaled a breath of fresh air into country radio with her Grammy-winning studio debut, Same Trailer Different Park. Often finding herself at odds with the more traditional wing of Nashville’s establishment, the native Texan spent the next decade playing around with other sounds like folk and dance music. Now, with the revival of her old label, Lost Highway Records, Musgraves is quite literally returning to her roots. Keep reading to learn how she brought her grandparents along for the ride.
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Yes, That Is Kacey Musgraves’ Grandfather You Hear on “Lost Highway”
In the early 2000s, many country music renegades called Lost Highway Records home, including Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier, and Lyle Lovett. Kacey Musgraves joined that elite list when she signed with Lost Highway in 2011.
Unfortunately, the label would fold into Mercury Nashville just one year later with the retirement of its founder, Luke Lewis. Now it’s back, with Musgraves as its flagship artist. To kick off a new era, the eight-time Grammy winner, 36, recorded a rendition of “Lost Highway,” a song written by Leon Payne and popularized by Hank Williams in 1949.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, Musgraves simply aimed to bring the song “back to life.” In a nod to the Nashville radio days of yore, her version of “Lost Highway” begins with the sound of someone turning on a lo-fi radio before introducing her.
“And now here’s Kacey Musgraves taking us down that old ‘Lost Highway,’” a voice says.
The voice you’re hearing belongs to Musgraves’ 88-year-old grandfather, who drove to Nashville from Texas to help her record.
“He was visiting Nashville and I wanted his voice on this, so we convinced him to get in the vocal booth,” Musgraves told The Hollywood Reporter. “He was always one of the biggest champions of my singing and learning traditional country music. It’s hard to put into words just how beautiful that is for me. I’ll have that forever, you know?”
[RELATED: Exclusive: Kacey Musgraves Talks Tragedy Behind Grammy-Winning “The Architect”]
Her Unexpected Hometown Connection to “Lost Highway”
At first glance, Kacey Musgraves’ decision to record “Lost Highway” as her first single under Lost Highway Records seems self-explanatory. However, the “Cardinal” singer has revealed a deeper connection to the Leon Payne-penned track.
As history tells it, Payne wrote “Lost Highway” on the side of the road while hitchhiking from California to Alba, Texas, to visit his sick mother. When Musgraves heard the story, she “almost fell out of my chair.”
“Alba is the next town over to the teeny, tiny town I’m from, Golden,” Musgraves told The Hollywood Reporter. “Alba has no more than 500 people; I’ve never heard it referenced anywhere in pop culture. This song is full-circle for me, in terms of where I started and where I am now, my label.”
Featured image by John Medina/Getty Images
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