Little Big Town attends the 2015 CMT Music awards at the Bridgestone Arena
photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images Entertainment
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Today's featured artists have been singing as a quartet since 1998, but their history goes back further than that.

Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Roads met in the 80's while students at Alabama's Samford University. The pair made separate moves to Nashville in the early 90's with Fairchild first joining the vocal group Truth and then forming the duo KarenLeigh with future Point of Grace vocalist Leigh Cappillino. The duo produced two singles and went their separate ways.

It was at this point that Fairchild reunited with Roads and began singing around Nashville. In 1998, guitarist and vocalist Jimi Westbrook, a friend of Fairchild's husband, joined the pair, followed soon after by guitarist Phillip Sweet, and Little Big Town was born!

The quartet signed it's first record deal with Mercury Nashville in 2000, but the deal failed to produce a single or an album. Other than an appearance singing backing vocals on Collin Raye's 2001 album Can't Back Down, the alliance with Mercury Nashville was fruitless, and the label released them from their contract in 2002.

Later that year, Little Big Town signed their second contract, this one with Monument Records. The group's self-title debut album, released later that year produced two top-40 singles, "Don't Waste My Time" and "Everything Changes". At this point, the group went through major personal upheaval (Westbrook's father passed away and both Fairchild and Sweet went through divorces), and professional shake-up (Monument Records dissolved their Nashville division) and all four members had to take "real" jobs to support the group.

Little Big Town performs onstage during the 2015 CMA Festival
photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images Entertainment
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By 2005, Little Big Town signed with Equity Music, a label started and partially owned by Clint Black. Their third single, "Boondocks" was released in May and peaked at #9, giving the quartet their first top-10 hit. Their second album The Road To Here was released later in 2005 which featured the group's first top-5 single "Bring It On Home" as well as two more top-20 hits "Good As Gone" and "A Little More You".

In 2007, LBT released its third album, A Place To Land, but the album seemed to stumble out of the block. The lead single "I'm With The Band" failed to crack the top-30 and on April 30th, 2008, the group announced they were leaving Equity for Capitol Records Nashville. In October, Capitol re-released A Place To Land, adding four new songs and releasing two more singles "Fine Line" and "Good Lord Willing", each failing to reach the top-30.

Little Big Town performs onstage during the 2015 CMA Festival
photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images Entertainment
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In the time since, Fairchild and Westbrook have married, Kimberly Roads married the group's manager Steven Schlapmann and Phillip Sweet has remarried. All have welcomed children into their lives, as well as the release of three albums with Capitol Nashville. Those album have featured 5 top-10 hits and the #1 singles "Pontoon" and their most recent single "Girl Crush", which spent an unprecedented 13 weeks at the top of the Billboard Country chart, setting a record for a vocal group of three or more members. It surpassed The Brown's 1959 hit "The Three Bells".

The third single and title track from the group's most recent album Pain Killer is in our spotlight today. Little Big Town and "Pain Killer" is our Catch of the Day, new music you haven't heard, but you'll want to hear it again.

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