Miranda Lambert's 'Songline' leads a busy stretch for country music

Miranda Lambert will release her “Songline” album on Nov. 13 and a companion film on Nov. 20, both through Amazon Music, captured from her Oct. 1 concert at the new Nashville venue The Truth.

The three-time Grammy winner performed her hits and new music from her album “Crisco” alongside her longtime band and a 12-piece orchestra at that show, Billboard reported. The “Songline” film adds interview footage with collaborators Frank Liddell, Jesse Frasure, Luke Dick and Natalie Hemby. Lambert has released a live version of “Snakeskin Boots” on Amazon Music as a preview.

The album lands five days before the 60th CMA Awards, which air live on ABC on Nov. 18 from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and stream on Disney+ for the first time. Lambert has seven nominations this year and could extend her lead as the female artist with the most CMA wins, a record that stands at 14. She is part of a wider November for the genre: Willie Nelson, 93, just published a memoir, and Wynonna Judd released her first album in a decade.

Lambert’s nominations include female vocalist of the year and two nods for musical event of the year, for collaborations with Chris Stapleton on “A Song To Sing” and Kacey Musgraves on “Horses and Divorces,” Billboard reported. She also has four nominations for her production and songwriting work with Ella Langley. Lambert has won female vocalist of the year a record seven times. The “Songline” album includes performances of “Bluebird,” “Crisco,” “Gunpowder & Lead,” “Tin Man” and “White Liar.”

The CMA Awards present trophies in 12 categories. This year three of the five nominees for single of the year made the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, the first time that has happened in more than 50 years. Lainey Wilson will host the show for the second year in a row, becoming the first woman to solo-host the CMAs twice. Wilson could also become the first woman to win entertainer of the year three times.

The awards show will be the last for Sarah Trahern as CMA chief executive. Trahern has held the post since 2014. Her successor, Brittany Schaffer, began Sept. 8 and is working alongside Trahern for three months before taking over.

Chris Stapleton could overtake Brooks & Dunn as the act with the most CMA Awards. Stapleton has 19 wins and is nominated for four awards this year. He is nominated for entertainer of the year for the 10th time and has yet to win in that category. Brooks & Dunn hold the record with 20 wins and are nominated for vocal duo of the year. The duo will also receive the 2026 Willie Nelson lifetime achievement award.

Kacey Musgraves is nominated for album of the year for “Middle of Nowhere.” She won the category in 2018 for “Golden Hour,” which went on to win the Grammy for album of the year. Musgraves could become the third woman to win the CMA album of the year prize twice, after Miranda Lambert and Lainey Wilson.

Willie Nelson has been doing his own kind of looking back. The 93-year-old released his 79th studio album, “Dream Chaser,” earlier this year and has now written a memoir, “The Last Leaf,” The Guardian reported. He played 36 gigs over the past year, including the annual Farm Aid festival he co-founded in 1985.

Nelson stopped smoking weed at 86 after a lung collapse, pneumonia and emphysema, though he still consumes cannabis in edibles. He stopped drinking in 1978 and gave up all drugs but cannabis, and he credits sobriety with saving his life. “I did everything wrong,” he told The Guardian. “If it was wrong, I did it. And if it was really wrong, I did it twice.”

His memoir shares its title with a Tom Waits song and collects stories from his life and conversations with collaborators who have died. Nelson formed the Highwaymen supergroup with Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. “I’ve lost a lot of my good friends along the way,” he said. “You know, Johnny, Waylon and Kris.” Nelson and his wife, Annie D’Angelo, launched the cannabis brand Willie’s Reserve in 2015.

Wynonna Judd’s return is more stark. “The Hard Truth,” her first album in a decade, came out on Anti-, the Los Angeles indie label home to Tom Waits and Mavis Staples, The Guardian reported. Judd co-writes nearly every track, and the album drops the slick Nashville production she was known for in favor of a raw blend of country, blues and soul.

Judd has been famous since 1984, when she reached No. 1 on the country charts at 20 as half of the Judds, the mother-and-daughter duo that scored 14 country No. 1s and sold 20 million albums. Her mother, Naomi, took her own life on April 30, 2022, the day before the duo was to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She was 76.

“I went into a deep, deep hole and what I do when I’m in that hole is to sing,” Judd told The Guardian. “So making this record was my approach to healing.” The album’s opening song, “All Downhill from Ashland,” addresses her mother directly. Judd is now raising her granddaughter, the 4-year-old daughter of her own adult daughter, Grace.

Dolly Parton died in August, and Judd told The Guardian she is “still in denial.” Parton appeared at Naomi Judd’s funeral and sang a portion of “I Will Always Love You.” Judd grew up in poverty in Kentucky, on welfare, and told the interviewer: “I grew up in the dirt, real poor, and I got to sing the national anthem at the Kentucky Derby.”

The Chicks added a political note to the month. During their Nov. 3 show at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, the trio held up fans reading “F--- Trump” as midterm election results came in, Billboard reported. Lead singer Natalie Maines told the crowd that Texas, the Senate and the House were all blue. The Chicks had previously called Trump a “deranged nut job” at a show earlier this year.

What I think

Country music in November 2026 is doing what it has always done well: holding its veterans and its newcomers in the same room. Lambert is at the top of her commercial power, nominated for seven CMA Awards and releasing an album with a 12-piece orchestra. Nelson is 93 and still gigging, putting out his 79th studio album and writing a memoir about outliving everyone he loved. Judd is making the most personal record of her life after a decade away.

The genre’s institutions are holding, too. The CMA Awards turn 60 this year, and the fact that three single-of-the-year nominees cracked the Hot 100 top five says something about country’s reach that no press release could. Brooks & Dunn are getting a lifetime achievement award named for a man who is still alive to see it.

Wynonna Judd’s album is the strongest of these releases. An artist who sold 20 million records in the 1980s, lost her mother to suicide the day before their Hall of Fame induction, and spent a decade away before making a flinty, low-budget record on an indie label. She is using the only tool she has ever trusted, her voice, to stay alive. The CMA Awards will hand out trophies on Nov. 18. The more interesting ceremony already happened in a studio where Judd sat down to sing.