Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman met at Samford University, a private Baptist school in Homewood, Alabama, singing together in a vocal ensemble. After moving to Nashville, the duo reconnected and were later joined by Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet to form Little Big Town.
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They are famous for their four-part vocal harmonies and perhaps infamous for their ability to look in and out simultaneously. Little Big Town’s first hit celebrated rural life, and years later, their crossover hit was scandalous in certain circles.
How can a country group echo Lynyrd Skynyrd and Katy Perry? In a career blending the pride of “Sweet Home Alabama” with the provocations of “I Kissed a Girl,” Little Big Town has been a refreshing open book to a music industry that’s too often working hard to close doors.
Origin Story
Little Big Town’s first hit began as a song called “Waiting for the Sun to Go Down.” It stalled until the group’s producer and co-writer, Wayne Kirkpatrick, wrote the line I’m born and raised in the boondocks. The original title was repurposed for a lyric in “Bones,” another song from their second album, The Road to Here.
I feel no shame
I’m proud of where I came from
I was born and raised in the boondocks
One thing I know
No matter where I go
I keep my heart and soul in the boondocks
“Boondocks” is more than a Southern pride anthem; it zooms in on rural life in the South with specific references to crawfish holes, five-card poker, and church. Five-card draw is the simplest poker variant, and simplicity is the overarching theme of “Boondocks.”
You get a line, I’ll get a pole
We’ll go fishing in the crawfish hole
Five-card poker on a Saturday night
Church on Sunday morning
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Excuses, Excuses
It’s a fitting first hit for Little Big Town as they struggled through various record labels and a debut album that failed by Music Row’s standards. There was suspicion within the industry that the group was “put together” or inauthentically country, but those attacks amounted to nothing more than excuses for failing a talented group.
Little Big Town celebrates the stereotypes often used against rural people. It’s removing the hurtful power of an epithet by using it as a badge of honor.
It’s where I learned about living
It’s where I learned about love
It’s where I learned about working hard
And having a little was just enough
But “Boondocks” isn’t reactionary self-defense; it’s part nostalgia and part anthem, traveling the long and improbable road from a small town to a platinum-selling country album. Clint Black’s Equity Music Group released Little Big Town’s The Road to Here in 2005. Black’s record label chose the name ‘equity’ as the lofty goal of how his label would treat its artists. Alas, good intentions aren’t always enough, as the label closed in 2008.
The Outsiders
Little Big Town has always seemed like an outsider. But it’s also what makes the group so fascinating. They crossed over to mainstream audiences with the witty 2014 hit “Girl Crush.” It’s hard to write a new country song that doesn’t sound old, and Lori McKenna, Hillary Lindsey, and Liz Rose did just that for Little Big Town.
“Girl Crush” flirted with same-sex romance, and Little Big Town predictably faced backlash from conservative audiences. It was a refreshing move from a pop-country group, and once again, it smashed a stereotype of how people from “the boonies” view the world.
For those unfamiliar, “Girl Crush” isn’t as the title suggests. It’s about a girl’s obsession with the girl who stole her lover. It’s desperately needing to taste Jolene’s lips. Like The Chicks before them, Little Big Town wouldn’t stay in Southern pigeonholes.
Speaking of The Chicks, “Boondocks” lost the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals to The Chicks’ song “Not Ready to Make Nice.”
Leave It on a Lonely Shelf
Most people are judged by others outside of a group, creating a monolith divorced from the reality within. Humans are beautifully messy and complex, leaving prejudice on a lonely shelf that’s as backward as the supposed backwardness of the South.
It all falls under the ridiculous conversations over what real country music is or the even more considerable chatter about what it means to be a real American. Authenticity has nothing to do with whether one drives a pickup truck or a smart car. Most people read Barbara Kingsolver and Stephen King. How else do you explain a major label country group from the Boondocks singing a song like “Girl Crush?”
Photo by Mike Lawrie/WireImage
