Lori McKenna

Though Lori McKenna became best known by writing songs for some of the biggest country artists around, in her solo career she pursued a more expansive singer-songwriter/Americana approach. Born Lori Giroux in Stoughton, Massachusetts (admittedly not a country music hotbed), she began pursuing a music career in the late '90s, and released her first album, Paper Wings and Halo, in 2000. Neither her debut album nor her next couple of records garnered any mainstream attention, but things began to change for McKenna in 2004, when her reputation in the singer-songwriter realm led to her signing a publishing deal with the renowned, Nashville-based Harlan Howard Music. She soon began written tunes for top-tier country artists, and one of the earliest feathers in her cap was getting a trio of songs onto Faith Hill's 2005 album Fireflies, including the title track and the Top 40 country hit "Stealing Kisses." Her new Nashville status caused Warner Nashville to take interest in McKenna as a solo artist. They reissued her 2004 album Bittertown and signed her to an album deal that resulted in 2007's Unglamorous. The album hit the Top 20 in the country charts, but yielded no hit singles, and for McKenna's next album, 2011's Lorraine, she was back on indie imprint Signature Sounds. Massachusetts followed two years later, but by this time McKenna's Nashvile songwriting career was really taking off, as her tunes became hits for Little Big Town and Hunter Hayes. Released at the tail end of 2014 by Little Big Town, "Girl Crush" became a huge hit, earning McKenna a Grammy and a CMA award. She found similar success by penning Tim McGraw's 2016 hit "Humble and Kind." That same year, her critically lauded The Bird & the Rifle earned McKenna three Grammy nominations. She followed it up in 2018 with The Tree.