2015 CMA Festival - Day 3
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Today we turn our focus to a group who has gone from not releasing an album or single on their first record deal to becoming a four time CMA and 3 time ACM Vocal Group of the Year winner. A group, that in 2014, set the record for the longest run at the top of the country chart by a vocal group, staying at the top of the country digital chart for 13 consecutive weeks.

Little Big Town came together in 1997, when Karen Fairchild, singer for the Christian group Truth, met Kimberly Roads while attending Samford University in Alabama. Eventually the pair moved separately to Nashville, where the reunited and began singing together. Before too long, a friend of Fairchild's husband, Jimi Westbrook, joined the duo; in 1998, the added guitarist and songwriter Phillip Sweet, and Little Big Town was complete. The band's line-up has stayed the same throughout their time together, though Kimberly took the last name Schlapman when she married in 2006.

2015 CMA Festival on June 13, 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee
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The quartet signed with Mercury Records Nashville in 2000, but by 2001 they were dropped by the label without releasing an single or album. They made their way in Nashville by performing locally and working behind other artists, such as Collin Raye's album Can't Back Down. In 2002, they signed with Monument Records and began working on their self-titled debut album. The album produced two singles, neither cracked the top-30 on the Billboard Hot Country chart. Soon after the release of the album, Westbrook's father passed away, Sweet & Fairchild went through divorces and their label dissolved, leaving them again without a record contract.

While continuing to play and tour, the members of Little Big Town were all forced to take day jobs to keep their dream alive. In 2005, they were signed by Clint Black's label Equity Records. They released their third single on May 9th of that year, and "Boondocks" became the group's first top-10 hit, peaking at #9. It served as the first of four singles from the album The Road To Here, which also featured the top-20 singles "Bring It On Home" (the group's first top-5), "Good As Gone" and "A Little More You".

42nd Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards - Show
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The group would leave Equity after 2008, producing just one more album on the label, 2007's A Place To Land. The 3 singles, but once again, none of the single managed to crack the top-30. Many believed that it was due to lack of promotion and direction at Equity, who suspended operations in 2008, soon after the quartet parted ways with the label.

In 2008, Little Big Town signed with Capitol Records Nashville, who re-released A Place To Land, but it still met with limited success. LBT would tour throughout 2008 as the opening act for Carrie Underwood, and in 2009 would headline their own world tour for the first time. In 2010, the group would release their first album produced with Capitol, and the difference became apparent right away. The album, The Reason Why, would become the group's first #1 album, and would include the top-10 single "Little White Church". They have since released three albums on the label, including their ground breaking 2014 album Painkiller, which featured the top-5 hits "Day Drinking" and the record setting "Girl Crush" which spent 13 weeks at the top of the Billboard Country Digital sales chart, a record for a country group (which refers to three or more).

6th Annual "Darius And Friends" Concert
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Earlier in the year, Little Big Town released a project they had worked on with pop singer and producer Pharrell Williams called Wanderlust. The album received little or no attention from the country music industry, because as Karen Fairchild put it "it wasn't meant to. It's not a country album." She also said the group was going back into the studio to work on their next country project, and we have the lead single from that project in our spotlight today. From the as of yet unnamed project, produced by Jay Joyce, Little Big Town and "Better Man" is today's Catch of the Day, new music you haven't heard, but you'll want to hear it again.

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