Lainey Wilson stopped by The Bobby Bones Show to talk about her big night at the ACM Awards, share details on her upcoming collaboration with Dolly Parton, and reveal the major malfunction she had during her award show performance.

To say Wilson is having a monumental year might be an understatement. At the 58th ACM Awards, she was crowned the New Female Artist of The Year, and also won Album of The Year, Musical Event and Video of The Year. She also gave two explosive back-to-back performances. The first, her new song with Jelly Roll called “Save Me,” that lead into her solo performance of “Grease.” Her solo performance was a side of Wilson we hadn’t seen before that she said she was happy to show. She ditched her signature hat and danced around the stage so much that it caused her to have a malfunction with her microphone clip. It fell off and she had to hold it the whole time, so she wasn’t able to do the cool microphone stand tricks she had planned. When the performance was over, she thought she killed it, but she is also her biggest critic, so she started to second guess herself, until she saw the standing ovation she received. She has been getting a lot of positive attention at award shows in the last year, but they are still scary to her she admits. She feels like millions of people are watching just hoping for her to mess up on live TV.

Before those big performances and speeches, Wilson gets tunnel vision. She thought if she won something she should have some bullet points because you’re only given about 30 seconds to change someone's life with what you say. Every time she accepted an award that night, she blacked out and doesn’t remember anything she said, and still doesn’t. She has no interest in going back to watch her speech because she can’t take back what happened, so she doesn’t see the point.

“Watermelon Moonshine” the song she played on Yellowstone is her new single. She chose that song because when she performs it, she notices everyone in the crowd loves it and sings along to every word. She takes notice of how her fans react to her songs, and that’s usually how she bases her decision of what is working and what’s not. The song takes her back to simpler times. She said right now in her life she has to make a conscious decision to remember where she came from and what she stands for and keep her feet on the ground. When she plays “Watermelon Moonshine” it reminds her of who she is.

Wilson did a duet with Dolly Parton for a The Judds tribute album. Wilson got asked to do the song and when she agreed they told her they were thinking of getting Parton to also be on it. When she sent back the vocals she almost passed out with excitement. She hadn’t met her yet when they recorded the song. The first time she did was at the ACM Awards when Parton was hosting. She presented her the award for New Female Artist of The Year and was starstruck, saying she’s her hero. As soon as they hugged, she felt like she had known her, her whole life. When they walked off stage, they were holding hands and Parton told her she loved the song they did together. Wilson was still in so much awe by everything she didn’t even know what she said back.

Wilson made her debut with boyfriend Devlin Hodges on the red carpet. They had been together for two and a half years and she felt it was time to introduce people to him. She said he is a good guy who never holds her back because he knows what it’s like to chase a dream because he did that with his NFL career. She left off saying he is as good as gold, and she couldn’t be happier.

KQ 94.5