Lambert rides career momentum — and Ferris wheels
Written by Vicki L. Kroll | | news@toledofreepress.com
If you’re headed to the Monroe County Fair or the Ohio State Fair to see Miranda Lambert, you might want to hang out near the rides.
"I love fairs. Unfortunately, I don’t get to go out into the fair that many times now that I’m performing at them, but definitely sometimes I sneak out and ride the Ferris wheel," she said during a tour stop in Calgary, Alberta.
The singer-songwriter-guitarist will be with her boyfriend, Blake Shelton, at the Monroe County Fair at 8 p.m. July 28. Tickets range from $23 to $43. Then she’ll share billing with Dierks Bentley at the Ohio State Fair in Columbus at 7 p.m. July 31. Tickets are $30.
Lambert said she and Shelton are trying some dates together to see if fans approve.
"We have something special planned, and we’ve really rehearsed it with our bands," she said. "I think people will enjoy it because besides Faith [Hill] and Tim [McGraw], there aren’t a lot of couples who can go out there and do what we’re doing, so we’re really, really happy to be working together."
Lambert has a lot to smile about these days. The 24-year-old recently took home the Academy of Country Music’s Album of the Year Award for "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend."
"I was nominated for three awards, and they kept asking me in interviews what do you want to win the most, and I kept saying album of the year because I’m a songwriter," she said. "It just means the world to me because I put my heart and soul into the record, and the fact that the industry thought I deserved it as well is just a huge, huge step for me in my career and not just for my career, but for me personally, as a writer."
Hits from the disc include "Famous in a Small Town" and "Gunpowder and Lead." The latter is a vengeful track that packs a lot of firepower to start the record: "I’m goin’ home, gonna load my shotgun/ Wait by the door and light a cigarette/ He wants a fight well now he’s got one/ And he ain’t seen me crazy yet/ Slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll/ Don’t that sound like a real man/ I’m gonna show him what a little girl’s made of/Gunpowder and lead."
"I started the song with my friend Heather [Little], and I actually had to leave the writing session because I had to go to a concealed handgun class," Lambert said. "We couldn’t figure out what that main line was going to be, what girls where made of, and it just hit me sitting in gun class, of course, because they were telling me all the elements of what are in guns and I thought that’s perfect — gunpowder and lead. It just kind of came together real easily."
Things came together for Lambert after she finished third during the 2003 season of "Nashville Star." She signed a recording contract and her 2005 debut, "Kerosene," led to the Academy of Country Music’s Top New Female Vocalist Award and a Grammy nomination, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. She toured with Keith Urban, George Strait and Toby Keith.
"I wasn’t really a performer; I was more of just a girl to send up there with my guitar until I went on tour with Keith Urban. We had a pretty good live show at that point — we had a great band — but then I realized watching his show and watching tours that I’ve been on over the last few years that you really have to bring you’re A game," she said. "We really want to make an impact on places we go and want people to remember us, so we don’t hold anything back on stage."
When she’s not touring, Lambert likes to kick around her farm in Oklahoma.
"It has everything — goats and chickens and donkeys and pot-bellied pigs and miniature horses. I have six dogs; I started collecting dogs somehow. They’re just dogs I found on the side of the road, that are homeless. I have a huge heart for animals, so that’s my safe haven that I go to."
On the Web: www.mirandalambert.com
