Lori McKenna

Songwriter Soup

Lori McKenna became a songwriter almost by accident. In this episode she joins Laura and Tracy to talk about her super unusual entrance into the Nashville music scene. Lori details how Faith Hill heard and recorded several of her songs before she had a publishing deal, how she balances living in Boston and working in Nashville, and why no expectations are the best expectations.

Over the last three decades, as she became a wife and mother of five, Lori McKenna has also emerged as one of the most respected, prolific singer-songwriters in popular music. On her latest release, The Balladeer, Lori McKenna is offering her most uplifting and up-tempo album in a catalog that spans 20 years. Produced by GRAMMY award winning Dave Cobb and recorded in Nashville’s historic Studio A, The Balladeer follows an incredible stretch of career momentum, including two consecutive Grammy wins as a songwriter for Best Country Song – Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” and Tim McGraw’s “Humble and Kind.” She has been nominated for the award four other times, most recently with Taylor Swift’s “I Bet You Think About Me,” which features Chris Stapleton and was released in 2021 on her re-recorded album, Red (Taylor’s Version).

In 2016, she made history by becoming the Academy of Country Music’s first female Songwriter of the year and in 2017, she became the first female ever to win the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award two years in a row. Yet her success doesn’t stop there. McKenna co-wrote Lady Gaga’s “Always Remember Us This Way,” which was featured in the Academy Award-winning 2018 film, A Star Is Born, and was also nominated for Grammy Song of the Year in 2020. She has written songs for a multitude of other award-winning artists including Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Sara Bareilles, Faith Hill, Hunter Hayes, Reba McEntire, and more.

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