Musgraves gets own museum exhibition
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Kacey Musgraves’ career has been moving and changing fast over the past couple of years, leaving little time for reflection until she saw her life chronicled behind museum glass.
Musgraves is the subject of a new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum that opened Tuesday and runs through June 2020. The exhibit follows the critically acclaimed “Golden Hour” in 2018 that earned Musgraves four Grammys this year including country album of the year and album of the year, beating fellow nominees Drake, Cardi B and Brandi Carlile.
“I think a lot of people that night were like, ‘Who is this girl?’” Musgraves said. “Which is a funny conundrum to be winning album of the year, and to have people saying, ‘Who are you?’ But in a way, I kind of love that.”
The exhibit called “Kacey Musgraves: All of
the Colors” comes as the 30-year-old Texas singer has blossomed into a cross-genre star whose emotional and clever lyrics and inventive style — blending country with electronic, disco and spacey pop sounds — has earned her plenty of new fans.
The exhibit starts with photos of Musgraves as a child performer singing and yodeling classic Western songs and dressed in jeans and cowboy hats, through her early years in Nashville as a songwriter penning songs with Miranda Lambert and to her Grammywinning major-label debut album in 2013, “Same Trailer, Different Park.”
Early in her career, Musgraves established herself as a unique artist willing to challenge radio programmers with songs such as “Merry Go ‘Round” — which won a Grammy award for Country singer Kacey Musgraves poses in front of her new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
best country song in 2014 — and “Follow Your Arrow,” song of the year winner at the 2014 Country Music Association Awards.
Musgraves has also become one of modern country music’s new style icons, mixing country and Western embellishments into her red carpet outfits, stage wear and music videos. The exhibit features a rhinestonestudded dress designed by Enrique Urbina for the 2014 Grammys and a Western-inspired black pantsuit designed by Atelier Versace that she wore at the 2018 CMA Awards.
“I didn’t grow up
with anything designer ever, not once. Nothing luxurious like that of any kind,” Musgraves said. “There’s also this other side of me that is, like, really enthralled with all of that.”
Lyrics that she wrote with Lambert, Shane Mcanally, Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian are interspersed between the awards and outfits, alongside a letter she wrote to one of her songwriting heroes, John Prine.
“I love that you can pretty much dress anyway you want,” Musgraves said, “but if you strip it away and there are real songs there, that’s what matters to me.”