Lainey Wilson’s music is by equal measures richly textured and forthright – just like her upbringing. Signed to BBR Music Group’s flagship imprint, Broken Bow Records, Wilson pours her heart and soul into her songwriting to create her own “bell bottom country” sound, which is unapologetic, gritty, free-spirited, and exemplary of both her personality and her fashion sense.

Her songs and live performances are chock-full of straightforward, raw emotion that doesn’t beat around the bush about who Lainey Wilson is - either as a person or an artist. It’s these sensibilities that led CMT to proclaim her one of their “Next Women of Country” for 2019. She’s a blue-collar daughter filled with ambition and perseverance who learned the value of an honest day’s work from the moment she could walk.

Hailing from the rural farming community of Baskin, Louisiana (pop. 300), where her family has tilled the land for five generations, Wilson cultivated her tenacious work ethic just as her family cultivated corn, wheat, soybeans, oats and more. She learned that daily chores on the farm were a family affair, and every member had to do their part.

Music was also a family affair. Wilson’s father played guitar, her mother loved to dance, and her grandparents often took her to bluegrass festivals. She wrote her first song at nine, and her dad taught her how to play guitar at 11. Nashville-based producer and songwriter Jerry Cupit (George Jones, Tim McGraw) was a family friend, and began mentoring the budding young artist whenever he made trips back to his hometown of Baskin.

It wasn’t long until Wilson moved to Nashville to pursue her dream of making music, with little more to her name than that dream and a bumper-pull camper. She lived in her trailer outside Cupit’s recording studio, where she had free access to water, electricity and wi-fi for three years. It was during this time that Wilson began to make inroads with Nashville’s tight-knit songwriting community, forging invaluable creative relationships with other up-and-coming songwriters in town, including future CMA New Artist of the Year winner Luke Combs, with whom she wrote “Sheriff You Want To” from Combs’ sophomore EP.

“My songs are a part of who I am. Music is a way for me to express myself, and I don’t know what I would do without it. Even if I couldn’t do it for a living, I’d still have to do it somewhere,” she says.

Indeed, Wilson’s determination and salt-of-the-earth upbringing has prepared her well for the year ahead. She will take her pristine, soulful vocals on tour across the U.S. this year as part of Morgan Wallen’s If I Know Me Tour before going in-studio to record her first project for Broken Bow Records Her first radio tour won’t be far behind, but even with such a grueling schedule on the horizon, Wilson is undaunted.

“Where I come from, there are years when you get a plentiful crop. Then there are years when you get too much rain, or not enough. Either way, you still have to get up every morning at the crack of dawn to take care of your crops. It’s the same with music,” she says. “We get up every single day and we work toward that good crop, no matter how hard. And we do what it takes, because it’s in our blood, and we don’t know any other way.”