The Daily Telegraph - Features
The humble star country music has been waiting for
Pop
Lainey Wilson
O2 Forum Kentish Town, London NW5 ★★★★★
“We gon’ sing like a redneck choir tonight!” yelled Lainey Wilson by way of introduction. Not that she needed it. The London crowd – almost 5,000 miles from her hometown of Baskin, Louisiana – were fully signed up to the 31-year-old Yellowstone star’s yee-hawing, “blue-collar” brand of country straight off the back.
Wilson’s rapturous reception offered further proof that country music has exploded in Britain: this summer, BST Hyde Park will be headlined by chart-topping star Morgan Wallen, while Chris Stapleton and Megan Moroney will head out on sold-out tours in the autumn. Of course, the music remains the main draw. And Wilson is the real deal, her gravelly voice powering its way through tracks from her fantastic Grammywinning album, Bell Bottom Country, taking us on a journey through dilapidated towns and farming communities to the bright lights of Nashville, where Wilson moved, alone, aged 19, dreaming of making it big.
She treated the audience at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town to a high-energy race through her hits: WWDD – standing for “What Would Dolly [Parton] Do?” – uses the Queen of Country as a source of life advice and strength, with Wilson singing of how her idol “In them heels/In that dress/ Wouldn’t put up with no BS”. It’s a clever statement of intent, too, that positions Wilson squarely as the heir to the crown.
Country’s Cool Again provided another foot-stomping anthem to get the crowd fired up, addressing the genre’s current boom even outside of its usual circles (Beyoncé and Lana Del Rey come to mind) as Wilson set out her own “humble” credentials in comparison with the poseurs who “wanna be a cowboy/Drive a jon boat, whip a John Deere” against a heady mix of electric guitars, fiddles and blues beats.
For all its dizzying commercial successes, however, country music has a glaring problem: actually rewarding its female stars. Since the Country Music Association started to crown an annual Entertainer of the Year back in 1967, only seven recipients have been women. The big hitters (Loretta Lynn, Parton and Reba McEntire) all got their time in the sun, but some of this decade’s standout artists – Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves – remain empty-handed.
It was a source of shame thankfully rectified in 2023, when Wilson became the first woman to win since Taylor Swift in 2011. Her path to the top wasn’t smooth – she spent years working as a Hannah Montana impersonator to save cash, while her early years in Nashville involved executives telling her to change her sound – but it paid off. An incredible voice, a story of perseverance: Wilson is the humble star country has been waiting for.