Ep. 23 - LORI MCKENNA ("Girl Crush")

Long before Little Big Town took her song “Girl Crush” to the #1 spot on the Billboard country chart for a record-breaking thirteen consecutive weeks in 2014, Lori McKenna established herself as a highly respected singer/songwriter on the Boston-area folk scene. She recorded four independent albums in the late 1990s and early 2000s before country superstar Faith Hill released her versions of four of Lori’s songs in 2005. The pair appeared together on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and McKenna soon signed a deal with Warner Bros. Records. After releasing the Top 20 country album Unglamorous in 2007, she returned to her folk roots with the critically acclaimed independent albums Lorraine, Massachusetts, and Numbered Doors. McKenna has expertly balanced both her career as an emotionally evocative musical poet and consistent mainstream success as a commercial songwriter. Her songs have been recorded by Sara Evans, Tim McGraw, Mandy Moore, Keith Urban, Alison Krauss, Ashley Monroe, Hunter Hayes, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, and others. Fiercely devoted to her husband and five children, McKenna still lives in her small hometown of Stoughton, Massachusetts. She has famously described herself as “just a housewife from Stoughton who likes to write songs.” But those songs have earned her multiple Boston Music Awards, a half dozen Top 40 singles, and Song of the Year honors from the Nashville Songwriters Association, International and, most recently, the Country Music Association.