Today we feature the artist who has won more ACM Female Vocalist of the Year Awards than any artist in history, and who is the only performer to win the CMA Album of the Year Award twice. An artist who uses her status to benefit animal welfare causes more than probably any other artist not named Sarah McLachlan.

2016 CMA Festival - Day 1 at Nissan Stadium on June 9, 2016
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Born in Longview, Tx and raised in nearby Lindale, Miranda Lambert got her start singing in school and church, and by age 16, she had moved on to competing locally, including the Johnnie High Country Music Revue in Arlington, Texas, the same talent show that had helped launch the career of LeAnn Rimes. In the competition, Lambert, then 17, earned a recording session in Nashville, but walked out when she didn't like the types of songs being offered to her. When she returned home to Texas, she asked her father to teach her to play guitar so she could start writing her own songs.

Miranda made her professional singing debut soon after, singing with the band Texas Pride and the house band at the Longview venue, the Reo Palm Isle. She soon moved to another local venue Love And War in Texas, where she met entertainment attorney Rod Phelps. Phelps had been instrumental in helping to start the careers of Garth Brooks, Chris Cagle and Rory Lee Feek, getting them to move to Nashville and helping them get recording and writing deals. Phelps wrote several letters to the Nashville hierarchy, and after several positive responses, Lambert was off to Music City.

49th Annual CMA Awards - Show
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Her first stop in Nashville was to audition for the reality singing contest Nashville Star in 2003. Just 17, Lambert finished third on the programs initial season, which was Buddy Jewel. After completing Nashville Star, Miranda immediately signed with Epic Records Nashville. Her debut single "Me and Charlie Walking", which she co-wrote with her father Rick and Heather Little, was released in the summer of 2004 as the lead single for her debut album Kerosene, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Country Album charts, a first for a debut album.

In 2012, Lambert debuted a side project at the ACM's "Girl's Night Out" television special, appearing with Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley as Pistol Annies. The trio soon released their debut single, the title track from their debut album Hell On Heels, which debuted at #1 on the album chart. The following year, Lambert dipped her toes in the acting pool, appearing on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. In an episode entitled "Father's Shadow", Lambert played an actress who accuses a reality show producer of sexually molesting her. The episode also featured Harry Connick, Jr and Michael McKeon (Laverne & Shirley).

2015 Stagecoach California's Country Music Festival - Day 2
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Lambert has released four more albums in the years since her debut, and all five have achieved platinum certification for more than 1 million albums sold. 10 singles from those albums have cracked the top-10 and she has had four number ones, including her collaboration with Keith Urban "We Were Us" which won the ACM Vocal Event of the Year Award in 2014. She has also hit the top of the charts with her solo singles "The House That Built Me", "Heart Like Mine" and "Over You", as well as her collaboration with Carrie Underwood "Something Bad". Lambert scored one more number one with Pistol Annies as they joined Blake Shelton for "Boys 'Round Here". She is the only artist in history to have been awarded the ACM Album of the Year Award, first in 2012 for the album Four The Record and again in 2015 for Platinum. She has also been named the ACM Female Vocalist of the Year for the past seven years, more than any other performer in history.

Lambert has been through quite an upheaval in the past 18 months, and has put the emotions that have come from the changes to a good use: a new album. Today she is in our spotlight with the lead single from her upcoming sixth studio album, Records I Never Heard. Miranda Lambert and "Vice" 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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