Bonnaroo 2019 Artist Spotlight: Kacey Musgraves

As we’ve been doing for the past several years now, we’re making it our mission to help you get acquainted with many of our favorites acts from from Bonnaroo‘s impressive 2019 lineup. As we dig through the entire schedule, we’ll highlight a spread of performers spanning across genres and stages (including the campground Plazas), big and small, new and old, to bring you some of the most interesting, lesser-known, or most highly-recommended among this year’s crop of artists. Though we’ll be jumping around, we’re loosely working our way through by day, and we’ll also be bringing you some special features and longer guides along the way, to help you plan your weekend before the fest. While these previews won’t span every performer, and might omit some more obvious must-see acts, we hope they’ll serve as a way to help you navigate Bonnaroo’s gargantuan lineup, and to make the most of your busy weekend on the farm!

Grab your tickets right here if you haven’t already, and keep reading to learn more in our Bonnaroo Artist Spotlight…

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With the ability to blend pop country sensibilities and traditionalist country sounds, push progressive social viewpoints, and flaunt kitsch, nostalgic western wear like no other, Texas raised, Nashville based breakout singer Kacey Musgraves bucks convention in the mainstream country world, and seems the obvious heir to the new Nashville country crown (we hold plenty of other subversive new country artists in similar regard, but none have achieved quite the same level of commercial recognition or crossover appeal as Kacey in recent memory). While she’s certainly no secret now at the mainstream level, managing to sweep at the Grammys just a few months ago, and even the country industry seems to have caught up, acknowledging Musgraves with the awards and recognition she deserves more frequently in recent years, if still not giving her the airplay or elevated level of fame her influence warrants, it sometimes still feels like Kacey is occasionally underrated; in a perfect world, she’d be Bonnaroo’s headliner by now.

Raised in the small town of Golden, Texas, Kacey took to songwriting in her teens, first on mandolin and later guitar, all the while influenced by her parents’ love of classic country as well as more eclectic, contemporary rock, indie, and more. By 18, Musgraves had moved to Austin, and began to find some early buzz for her talent, touring with Lady Antebellum in 2012, and landing a deal with Mercury Nashville. After garnering national buzz for her debut solo single “Merry Go ‘Round,” Kacey catapulted onto the scene with her personal, phenomenal, and poignant debut LP Same Trailer Different Park in 2013, positioning her as an exciting, young, thoughtful, and progressive new voice, able to bridge classic country sensibilities with pop accessible contemporary stylings. The next few years were a whirlwind of big tours, a relocation to Nashville, countless award nominations and wins, television and festival appearances, palling around with icons like Willie Nelson, and plenty of crossover acclaim, returning in 2015 with an even more refined and spirited sophomore effort, Pageant Material, and following it up with a lovely and kitschy Christmas record, A Very Kacey Christmas, the following year. She’s toured with everyone from Katy Perry to Willie Nelson to Harry Styles, has attracted praise from artists as diverse as Dolly Parton to Hayley Williams, and after years of establishing herself time and time again as country’s greatest newcomer, finally and definitively managed to truly permeant the zeitgeist with last year’s masterpiece of a third original LP, Golden Hour, which, with its expansive, uninhibited, accessible, cosmic, and even psychedelic stylings, and emotional encapsulation of a couple years of intense personal journey, is, without a doubt, Kacey’s greatest work so far. Her third outing at Bonnaroo, Kacey is, undoubtably, one of the most important artists in the world right now, and is sure to be one of the most memorable, transcendent, and show-stealing performances of the fest.

LISTEN | “Follow Your Arrow”