Kacey Musgraves

Kelly Sutton (Sister)

**Kacey Lee Musgraves** (born August 21, 1988) is an American singer and songwriter. She has won six Grammy Awards (including the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2019), six Country Music Association Awards, and three Academy of Country Music Awards. Musgraves self-released three solo albums and one more as Texas Two Bits, before appearing on the fifth season of the USA Network's singing competition *Nashville Star* in 2007, where she placed seventh.

She later signed to Mercury Nashville in 2012 and released her critically acclaimed debut album *Same Trailer Different Park* in 2013. Her debut won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album. The album's lead single "Merry Go 'Round" won her the Grammy Award for Best Country Song. It also featured the platinum certified single "Follow Your Arrow" which won her the Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year. In 2015, she released her second studio album *Pageant Material* (2015). Her sophomore effort also received critical acclaim and a Best Country Album Grammy nomination. Musgraves also released a Christmas-themed album, *A Very Kacey Christmas,* in 2016.

Her fourth studio album *Golden Hour* (2018) was released to widespread critical acclaim and won all four of its nominated Grammy Awards categories, including Album of the Year and Best Country Album. The album's first two singles, "Butterflies" and "Space Cowboy", won Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song, respectively. *Golden Hour* also won the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association Award for Album of the Year, making Musgraves only the fifth artist to win all three major Album of the Year (Grammy, CMA and ACM) awards for the same album as well as the second artist to win the Grammy, CMA, ACM and all-genre Grammy Album of the Year.

### Early Life

Kacey Lee Musgraves was born August 21, 1988, in Golden, Texas, to Craig and Karen (née Abrams) Musgraves. Craig is the owner of a small printing business, M-Prints Printing, Inc., in Carthage, Texas, and Karen Musgraves is an artist. Musgraves has stated that she was born six weeks prematurely and weighed only five pounds. Musgraves has one younger sister, Kelly Christine Sutton (née Musgraves), who is a photographer.

Musgraves began songwriting at the age of eight, when she wrote a song called "Notice Me" for her elementary school graduation. She first learned to play music on the mandolin, then at age 12 started taking guitar lessons from a local musician named John DeFoore, which she later described as "one of the most important things that ever happened to me."

Musgraves' mother took her to local music festivals to sing western swing music. Along with co-student Alina Tatum, she was part of children country music duo Texas Two Bits, which toured through Texas and released an independent album in 2000, and earned an invitation to perform at President George W. Bush's "Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball". At age 14, her family funded her first solo, self-released album. She graduated from Mineola High School in 2006, and moved to Austin, Texas, at the age of 18.

### Career

#### 2008-2014

Musgraves was discovered professionally in 2008 while living in Austin by producer Monte Robison for his independent record label, Triple Pop. She collaborated with the Josh Abbott Band in 2010 on the song “Oh, Tonight“. Musgraves' two acoustic recordings for Triple Pop (covers of OneRepublic's "Apologize" and Miley Cyrus' "See You Again") are available on a digital EP released in 2012. “Apologize” (Acoustic Version) charted in the Billboard Hot Singles Chart at #23 on February 15, 2014, and racked up over 31,000,000 streams on Spotify. To commemorate the 10-year anniversary on March 30, 2018, Triple Pop released the “Acoustic Remixed” digital EP, which featured newly remixed and remastered versions of the same recordings.

Musgraves joined Lady Antebellum on the European leg of their Own the Night Tour in 2012. In 2012, she signed with Mercury Nashville and released her solo debut single "Merry Go 'Round". The song is included on her major-label debut album *Same Trailer Different Park*, produced and co-written by Musgraves, Shane McAnally and Luke Laird and released on March 19, 2013. The album debuted at number 2, selling 42,000 copies. It produced additional hit singles in "Blowin' Smoke" and "Follow Your Arrow". *Rolling Stone* magazine listed "Follow Your Arrow" at number 39 of its list of 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time, and said that Musgraves was "one of the loudest symbols of young country musicians embracing progressive values."

"Undermine", a song co-written by Musgraves and Trent Dabbs, was featured in one of the first episodes in the first season of the television series *Nashville* on October 17, 2012. Musgraves co-wrote Miranda Lambert's 2013 single "Mama's Broken Heart" and sang harmony on the song.

Musgraves was nominated for four awards at the 47th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards in 2012, including Female Vocalist of the Year.

Musgraves was also nominated for four Grammy Awards at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, tying Taylor Swift and Lorde for the most nominations received by a woman that year. Those nominations included Best New Artist, Best Country Album (*Same Trailer Different Park*), and Best Country Song for both "Mama's Broken Heart" and "Merry Go 'Round". "Merry Go 'Round" won the Best Country Song Grammy award, and *Same Trailer Different Park* won in Best Country Album.

Musgraves joined Katy Perry on the North American leg of her Prismatic World Tour as well as Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss on select dates during their tour. Musgraves provided backing vocals for "Bourbon in Kentucky", the lead single on Dierks Bentley's 2013 album *Riser*.

In April 2014, Musgraves won the Academy of Country Music award for album of the year for *Same Trailer Different Park.* In June 2014, she released a new song called *The Trailer Song*, which she debuted on *The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon*. *Same Trailer Different Park* was certified gold in August 2014 for selling over 500,000 copies. Musgraves' single "Follow Your Arrow" was also certified gold, and "Merry Go Round" was certified platinum.

#### 2015-2017

Musgraves announced in late August 2014 that she would perform a 10-show headlining tour, titled Same Tour Different Trailer, which started on September 25 and ended on October 19.

In September 2014, Musgraves said that she had begun writing songs for her second major label album, and planned to work with Luke Laird and Shane MacAnally later in the year after her touring schedule finished. "Biscuits", the lead single from the album, was released on March 16, 2015.

*Pageant Material*, Musgraves' second studio album, was released on June 23, 2015. To support the album, Musgraves performed on *The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon* (June 9, 2015), *Late Night with Seth Meyers* (June 10, 2015), *Good Morning America* (June 23, 2015), *The View* (June 24, 2015), *Jimmy Kimmel Live!* (September 14, 2015), *The Late Show with Stephen Colbert* (January 8, 2016), and *The Late Late Show with James Corden* (April 6, 2016).

Musgraves was featured on a remix of Miguel's single "Waves", released on February 26, 2016.

On September 7, 2016, Musgraves announced the release of her first Christmas album, *A Very Kacey Christmas*. The album, which features eight traditional and four original songs, was released on October 28, 2016, through Mercury Nashville. In support of the album, Musgraves embarked on a Christmas-themed tour, complete with a strings section, an accordion, a bass, a saxophone, a clarinet, and backup singers.

In September 2016, Musgraves was selected as one of 30 country music artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again", and "I Will Always Love You". The song celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards and secured Musgraves her first number-one country single.

In 2017, Musgraves provided backing vocals on "All the Best", a John Prine cover, for Zac Brown Band's album *Welcome Home*. Also in 2017, Musgraves was featured on *Outlaw: Celebrating the Music of Waylon Jennings*. Originally recorded for TV, it later was released on CD and DVD. During the broadcast, Musgraves performed Jennings' song "The Wurlitzer Prize". Musgraves appeared on the June 21, 2017, episode of *Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry* to receive a psychic reading and connect with her grandmother, Barbara Taylor, to learn more details about her death in a house fire. Musgraves has said that her song "This Town", from the album *Pageant Material*, is about her grandmother, and that her voice appears in the opening of the song.

#### 2018-Present

In October 2017, Musgraves posted a picture of herself on Twitter indicating she was in the studio writing new songs for her upcoming third studio album. On December 12, 2017, Musgraves announced the title of her third studio album *Golden Hour* through *Entertainment Weekly*. The songs "Butterflies" and "Space Cowboy" were released as the first singles from the album on February 23, 2018. In March, Musgraves headlined the 2018 C2C: Country to Country festival in London after playing the festival in 2016.

Musgraves premiered "High Horse", the third song from the album, on March 22, 2018, on Zane Lowe's *Beats 1* Apple Radio show. On March 29, 2018, she performed "Slow Burn" on *The Late Show with Stephen Colbert*. *Golden Hour* was released on March 30, 2018, on MCA Nashville. On May 12, 2018, Musgraves was the musical guest on *Saturday Night Live*, performing "High Horse" and "Slow Burn". Through June and July, Musgraves was the opening act on the second North American leg of Harry Styles: Live on Tour. In September, Musgraves appeared on a rerecorded version of "There's No Gettin' Over Me" with Ronnie Milsap for his 2019 duet album. On October 2, 2018, she appeared on *Jimmy Kimmel Live!* as the musical guest. In October 2018, Musgraves embarked on the "Oh, What a World Tour" in support of *Golden Hour*. The tour began in Oslo, Norway on October 13. In February 2019, *Golden Hour* won Album of the Year at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. The same month, Musgraves released "Rainbow" as the fifth single from the album. In April, Musgraves featured on a newly recorded version of "Neon Moon" with Brooks and Dunn for their duet album *Reboot*. She also made a cameo appearance as herself in the country-music drama film *Wild Rose*, released in April. In May, Musgraves made her Met Gala debut as a Barbie doll and afterwards announced she had signed with modeling agency IMG. In August, Musgraves appeared at San Francisco's Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, among her largest festival appearances to date. In October 2019, Musgraves revealed that she would cover the song "All Is Found" for *Frozen II*. The song plays over the end credits and is also included on the soundtrack album.

On November 4, 2019, Musgraves announced *The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show*, a holiday special premiering through Amazon Prime Video on November 29. On November 20, 2019, she debuted the song "Glittery" featuring Troye Sivan on *The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.* The soundtrack to the show includes collaborations with other artists, including a cover of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" together with singer Lana Del Rey. The show also stars Kacey's grandmother Barbara (Nana) Musgraves. In April 2020, she appeared in the *Together at Home* virtual concert series and performed "Rainbow". That same month, she released an Earth Day inspired remix of "Oh, What a World".

On May 29, 2020, Musgraves was featured on The Flaming Lips single "Flowers of Neptune 6" and also provided vocals on two additional tracks ("Watch the Lightbugs Glow" and "God and the Policeman") on their album American Head, which was released on September 11, 2020. Musgraves also provides backing vocals on several tracks on Ruston Kelly's second album *Shape & Destroy*, which was recorded before she and Kelly divorced. On December 10, 2020, Troye Sivan released a reworked version of his song "Easy" which features Musgraves and was produced by Mark Ronson.

On December 15, 2020, it was announced Musgraves will voice Earwig's mother in the English dub of the upcoming Studio Ghibli film, *Earwig and the Witch*.

### Personal Life

In 2014, in an interview with ABC Radio, Musgraves said she had been in a relationship with her bandmate Misa Arriaga for several years after becoming friends first.

Musgraves met Ruston Kelly at the Bluebird Café in Nashville. In May 2016, they had a songwriting date, and they began dating shortly after. Musgraves stated that the song "Butterflies" from her album *Golden Hour* is about her courtship with Kelly. On December 24, 2016, Musgraves became engaged to Kelly. They married on October 14, 2017, in Tennessee. The couple filed for divorce in July 2020, saying in a joint statement, "it just simply didn't work."