Sugarland – featured last night (June 9) at the CMA Music Festival – has joined the ranks of country overnight success stories, the ones that take years to happen.
The trio’s first single, Baby Girl, has spent 46 weeks on Billboard’s country charts, a record in the history of the modern chart era.
That same song has the highest chart position for a new group since Diamond Rio broke 14 years ago with Meet in the Middle.
Atlanta trio Sugarland has pulled off the rare feat of having two songs in the top 15 at the same time, Baby Girl and Something More.
And the group has appeared on Jay Leno’s late-night show, something that dozens of established platinum-selling country acts have never done. As featured in the June 9 edition of The Tennessean, the trio – lead singer Jennifer Nettles, 30, Kristian Bush, 34, and Kristen Hall, 42 – now are among the ranks of Gretchen Wilson, Buddy Jewell and others, acts who knocked around the music business for years before landing major record deals and then quickly skyrocketing up radio and sales charts.
Sugarland’s members individually have been working Atlanta’s country scene for more than 10 years. Nettles worked local clubs and Hall put out indie label solo albums. Bush was half of major record label duo Billy Pilgrim.
The three found each other through Nettles’ husband, Todd Vansicle, owner/operator of Atlanta songwriter haunt Eddie’s Attic. The trio’s first meeting involved “way too many martinis way too late at night,” Nettles recalled.
They clicked immediately: Nettles and Bush boast that Baby Girl, the song that launched Sugarland into the spotlight, was the second song they ever wrote together.
Within a year of martini night, Sugarland packed 50 fans onto a bus and came to Nashville’s 12th & Porter for a showcase for Music Row heavyweights.
The band got a record deal, a major booking agent, a big-time producer (Garth Fundis, Trisha Yearwood’s favorite), and within two years, they have a smash hit and a gold album, Twice The Speed of Life.
The pace can be crazy: On May 30, a Sunday, Sugarland played to 600 people in Allentown, Pa., before heading to New York on Memorial Day for a photo shoot.
At 5:50 the next morning, Sugarland got picked up for an ABC Good Morning America appearance. Radio interviews came later that day in New York, and then the group caught a flight for a show in Minnesota.
Nettles, thankful for the attention, considers it all an investment in their future, and she says their years of knocking around the music business has prepared the three for the intense pace.
“I think that gives us a healthy dose of perspective,” she says. “My job is the same ‘ write songs, record songs, perform songs, talk about it. It’s just on a much bigger level.”
source: The Tennessean
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