Number One With a Bullet

Miranda Lambert sings songs about shooting an abusive husband, burning down a lover’s house, and beating up an ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Faith Hill she ain’t, and she’s not exactly radio-friendly either. But the East Texas girl has topped the charts twice—and she might even save country music.

by John Spong

October 2007

(Page 3 of 3)

From the safe distance of seventeen years and two number one albums, Bev looks back at the rough times as the happiest in their kids’ lives, the memories dominated by the “picking parties” Rick hosted on the porch two or three nights a week. His hunting buddies would bring beer by the house, and Bev would cook big meals with ingredients from their yard. “I’d play guitar and sing,” said Rick, “sometimes until two in the morning. And Miranda would crawl up between my chest and guitar . . .”

“And she’d just be sitting there trying to play it with him,” said Bev, “while he sang Merle and Jerry Jeff and Tammy.”

“And then, when people weren’t around,” Rick went on, “especially during the depressing time, when we were losing our ass, Miranda and I would lay on the hardwood floor in my gun room, in the complete dark, and listen to Mickey Newbury and David Allan Coe and . . . oh, ‘Set ’em Up, Joe,’ what’s his name?”

“Vern Gosdin,” answered Bev.

“Yep,” said Rick. “Every night. That was our thing. I’d drink a glass of red wine and she’d lay her head on my chest and just go to sleep.”

Eventually, the investigating business picked up and the Lamberts got back on their feet. But the kids never did forget that sitting and waiting for life to happen to you is no way to get anywhere.

“People ask why Miranda has such an old soul,” said Bev, “why she does what she wants. Well, that’s where she’s from. That’s why she has the faith to believe ‘I can do this.’ She knows she didn’t come from nothing. She came from something.”

“I love raw albums,” said Miranda that day on the bus. “I’d love to record an album in a garage and for it to sound like an old Gary Stewart album, without a bunch of overdubbed this and that. But when you’re in the mainstream, you’ve got to fit in. You’ve got to get your foot in the door first.”

That’s a calm acknowledgment of the real world she’s in. Country music today is a much different beast, both sonically and substantively, from the one Miranda used to listen to on her dad’s old LPs. Soundwise, the music is bigger. Back when country music was intended for jukeboxes and AM radios, the drums and bass were almost incidental. But the early nineties saw the arena-fication of country music. It began with the unprecedented success of Garth Brooks. When his ticket and record sales became the dream for new acts, producers started making records that would sound at home in football stadiums, with huge, pounding drums and layered guitars playing fat power chords. The biggest-selling female country singer of the decade—and for that matter all time—was Shania Twain, who just happened to be married to and produced by Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the evil genius behind AC/DC’s Back in Black and Def Leppard’s Hysteria. Then, as the ascendance of grunge and hip-hop stole classic rock’s relevance, country picked up the slack. There’s a reason that advance copies of Bob Seger’s and Bon Jovi’s recent releases were sent to country radio and music writers.

On the substantive side, country was swept up in the Republican revolution. “Country music has always reflected what’s going on in the world,” said Don Cusic, a country historian and professor in the acclaimed music industry program at Belmont University, in Nashville. “With all the divorces after World War II, you had the cheating songs: ‘Slipping Around’ and ‘Dark End of the Street.’ The sexual revolution of the seventies produced them too. And the white working class was drinking heavily through those periods.” As the nineties wore on, habits, or at least opinions, and certainly radio playlists, started to change. Maybe it was a function of millennial angst, followed almost immediately by post-9/11 uncertainty. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that so many radio stations were owned by Clear Channel, a corporation that is cozy with the GOP.

In any event, the message was repositioned. Joe Galante, the chairman of Sony BMG, explained: “Look at the big books now, like The Secret. It’s not about finding first love; it’s adults raising families, leading their lives day to day. And those people are grabbed by Ronnie Dunn singing ‘Believe’ or Alan Jackson singing ‘Remember When.’ It’s good news and bad news and raising your kids. And it’s got just as much soul as Hank Williams.”

Maybe, maybe not; it won’t sound that way to those of us who grew up on Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley. When I drove from Austin to Lindale to hang out with Rick and Bev, I listened to country radio for the four-hour drive up and the four-hour drive back. In all that time I heard one cheating song, Sammy Kershaw’s remake of the Amazing Rhythm Aces’ “Third Rate Romance.” (And not one song, by the way, by Miranda Lambert.) What I heard fully five times was a song called “Moments,” by Emerson Drive. The protagonist sings of intending to jump off a bridge to kill himself, but then he encounters a wise, soulful homeless man who reminds him of the blessings in his life. The singer chooses life and returns home, presumably to kiss his wife and live happily ever after. It reminded me not of the country songs I grew up with but of after-school specials, and I found myself eyeing overpasses, wondering if I might jump off myself.

That’s the part of the new country equation with which Miranda will not make peace. “I’m sorry, but I have not been blessed every day, and I have the best life ever. Great people to work with and everything’s going good, but shitty stuff still happens. So why are we pretending it doesn’t? I can picture, like, my dad, driving down the road in our old two-hundred-dollar crap car that had no air conditioner and hardly started. And him with no money, taking us to the Burger King to get four Whoppers and four waters because Whoppers were ninety-nine cents and waters were free. I can just see him turning on country radio and hearing something like . . .” She paused.

“‘Moments,’ by Emerson Drive?” I asked.

“I’m not even going to say any titles because I don’t want to piss anybody off,” she said. “Just one of those songs. Come on. This is real life. We’re from Lindale, Texas, and we’re poor and sweaty in our car that won’t start. I want to hear a song about that. Because that’s what country music is to me.”

Fans started to gather outside the arena a good four hours before the awards show started on Tuesday night, jockeying for a clear sight line at the stars walking in on the orange carpet. (A traditional red carpet might have been used if the show’s sponsor had been Red Lobster instead of Home Depot.) Drawing no attention from the country faithful, and being careful to avoid it from hotel security, Bev and Crysta Lee, a high school friend of Miranda’s who now sells merchandise for Team Lambert, darted past the throng to position themselves in an off-limits spot nearest to where the limos were unloading the stars.

“Miranda wouldn’t let me see the dress she’s going to show up in before tonight,” said Bev, “and I’m not going to miss it.”

A few minutes later, Blake stepped out of a limo, and the fans went crazy. Rather than wave and walk on to get his picture taken, as per arrival protocol, he approached the velvet rope and started signing autographs, shaking hands, and giving out hugs, completely disrupting the tightly choreographed photo-op schedule. He looked positively thrilled at the reception.

“The BS-er sure looks handsome,” said Bev. While she might have liked him and Miranda to have shown up together, she said the relationship has to be taken a step at a time. “First Miranda had to get him to cut that mullet and then take off the hat. Now if she can only get him to wear something besides blue plaid shirts.”

As Blake finally made his way inside, Miranda slid out of her limo in a strapless gold cocktail dress. She turned and waved to the fans, then spun back around to face the photographers. Though Bev didn’t wave or scream, Miranda spotted her and stopped for a hug.

“How’d you get down here?” Miranda said.

“Well, I had to see your dress, little girl. You look so beautiful. Good luck.”

At that, Miranda headed to her photo op and Bev and Crysta left for the VIP area backstage, where Rick had scoped out a table near a flat-screen TV. They didn’t pretend not to care who’d win, uttered no “happy just to be nominated” bromides. They whooped as if they were rooting for a brawler in a bar fight when Miranda gave her revved-up performance of “Small Town” about ten minutes into the show. They even nodded appreciatively when fellow nominee Taylor Swift walked into the audience to serenade Tim McGraw with a song about listening to him on the radio. When the song was over and Taylor looked into the camera and excitedly mouthed, “That’s Tim McGraw. Oh, my God!” just as she’d practiced in rehearsal Sunday morning, Bev gave out a sympathetic “Awwww.”

About an hour into the show, the Top New Female Vocalist award was announced. As Carrie Underwood, the singer who beat Miranda for the award last year, read the list of nominees, Rick grabbed Bev’s hand. When Carrie paused before announcing the winner, a voice in the audience shouted, “Miranda!” and Rick and Bev crept up onto their tiptoes and held their breath.

“And the ACM Top New Female Vocalist is,” said Carrie, “Miranda Lambert!”

Bev looked at Rick and both started to cry, while on the screen, Miranda walked almost businesslike onto the stage. “Thank you so much,” she said as the noise from the crowd died down, unwadding a scrap of paper containing a list of names she needed to thank: family, management, her band, the record label, and then, thrusting her hand in the air twice, God and the fans. Noticeably absent was a nod to country radio.

When the show was over, the Lamberts celebrated in true high-roller fashion, renting out a private dance floor in the MGM Grand’s Studio 54 nightclub. Party pics on Miranda’s Web site show the whole lot of them—Miranda and Blake, Rick and Bev, the band and crew—dancing to bad disco like happy drunks at a country club wedding reception. The sequined, royal-blue minidress that Miranda changed into during the show made her blue eyes pop in the pictures like Fourth of July fireworks.

But the look on her face was mostly one of relief.

“Famous in a Small Town” © 2007 Sony/ ATV Songs LLC, Nashville Star Music, Watsky Music, Quit Pickin’ At It Music. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Songs LLC and Nashville Star Music administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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