When country sensation Lainey Wilson moved to Nashville in 2011, she had a vision of her Flagstaff camper trailer taking her all the way to the CMAs.
And even without an official invitation, the Louisiana-born singer-songwriter made it her mission to put herself in the mix at the Country Music Association Awards.
“Every year when the CMA Awards would roll around, I would go stand outside of the Bridgestone Arena for hours, just to get a wristband so I could be down in the pit and pretend that I was cordially invited to the awards,” Wilson, 30, told the Post. “And I’d go buy me an outfit and do it all up, post it on Facebook, make it look like I was really doing something.”
But while Wilson may have started out as a wannabe on country music’s biggest night, she doesn’t have to fake the fame anymore. In fact, she leads the field at the CMAs on Wednesday night with six nominations, including nods for Album of the Year (“Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ ”), Song of the Year (“Things a Man Oughta Know”) and New Artist of the Year.
And having just released her second major-label album, “Bell Bottom Country,” two weeks ago, Wilson is also bound for TV stardom as she joins the cast of “Yellowstone” for the fifth season of the Paramount series premiering on Sunday.
“It just seems like one blessing after another,” she said in between CMAs rehearsals. “I’m feeling like the last 11 years are really starting to pay off.”
Really, though, Wilson has been working even longer than that to reach this moment. In high school, she even booked gigs as a Hannah Montana impersonator.
“I would do three or four birthday parties a weekend,” she said. “I had the wig, the portable sound system. I did birthday parties, fairs, festivals, St. Jude [Children’s Research Hospital]. You name it, I did it.”
But more than Miley Cyrus, Wilson was inspired by country idols such as Lee Ann Womack (“She’s a huge influence of mine”), Tim McGraw (“He grew up right down the road from me”) and new Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Dolly Parton.
“Truly, when I’m going through things, I do ask myself the question, ‘What would Dolly do?’ Also known as ‘W, W, double D.’ You see what I did with them double D’s?”
Indeed, 2021’s “Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ ” featured the song “WWDD” in tribute to Parton. “In my opinion, she’s just as good as gold,” said Wilson. “If we were all a little bit more like her, I think the world would be a much better place.”
In “Yellowstone,” Wilson will be playing another singer named Abby. She got the part after her music had been featured on the Western drama. “I met [series co-creator and executive producer] Taylor Sheridan after he put one of my songs in the show,” she said. “He invited me out to Vegas to play a horse-riding competition. And we really kind of bonded over horses.”
But Wilson has yet to really bond with “Yellowstone” star Kevin Costner. “I actually did not get to shake Kevin Costner’s hand,” she said. “We were in a scene together, but they kind of put him in and pulled him out real quick.”
Still, there’s a much more important cowboy who will be Wilson’s date at the CMAs.
“My daddy is going to walk the CMAs carpet with me,” she sad of her father Brian. “He was sick [with a fungal infection caused by diabetic ketoacidosis] this summer, and we didn’t think that he was gonna make it. He spent two weeks in ICU and a few weeks in a rehab facility. But he has been working really hard to get to the point where he can walk me on the carpet.”