Lainey Wilson has won best country album at the 2024 Grammys!
While accepting the honor for her album Bell Bottom Country, Wilson, 31, began, "This is absolutely wild, y'all. This is my very first Grammy."
The "Watermelon Moonshine" singer went on to thank her collaborators, co-writers and "anybody who had anything to do with this record," adding that "it has truly changed my life."
"I am from a farming community in northeast Louisiana, a little town of 200 people, and I'm a fifth-generation farmer's daughter, and I would consider myself a farmer too," Wilson continued. "And everybody that I surround myself with, I think they're farmers too, but they're story farmers."
She continued, "And it's about getting up every single day and planting those seeds and watering them and watching them grow. And sometimes when you find the right farming community, you can have a harvest of a lifetime, and I truly believe that and I think that's exactly what this is tonight."
"God bless every single one of y'all," she added. "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you so much to the Recording Academy, and thank you to my fans. I love y'all so much."
For the coveted award, Wilson was up against Kelsea Ballerini for Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, Tyler Childers for Rustin' In the Rain, and Brothers Osborne and Zach Bryan for their respective self-titled albums.
Last November, Wilson took home another huge award, entertainer of the year, at the 57th annual CMA Awards.
And, at the ceremony, she gave another emotional speech.
"This is all I've ever wanted to do, it’s the only thing I know how to do," a tearful Wilson began. "We have played... I think at the end of the year we’ll have played about 186 shows this year and we‘ve worked our butts off this year and so many years in between. I've been in this town for 12-and-a-half years and it finally feels like country music is starting to love me back."
Wilson went on to speak about her "lucky number," nine, and its significance to her and her career.
"That’s how many times we were nominated for the CMAs this year," she explained in the speech. "But it’s also the year that I wrote my first song. It’s the year that I got my first pair of bell bottoms. It’s the year that my mom and daddy brought me to Nashville for the very first time and took me to the Grand Ole Opry for the first time. It’s the year that my mom and daddy brought home this horse named Tex and the horse was, it was wild and it needed breaking and they put me on the back of that thing and they said 'You better hold on, you better ride.'"
"And I tell you what, there were times where I was crying and I wanted to get down, I’m like, 'Let me off the back of this thing.' But y’all, every time it would start bucking, I’d hold on a little bit tighter," she added of the horse.
As Wilson explained, she felt the creature "prepared me for this ride, because it is wild."
"And thank y’all for letting me be me and thank y’all for, for giving me this opportunity."
